page_title: Savamala
section_title: Sava Square
hierarchical_section_title: Savamala / Characteristics / Sava Square
caption_attribution_description: English: The Main Railway Station of Serbia
context_page_description: Savamala is an urban neighborhood of Belgrade, the capital of Serbia. It is located in Belgrade's municipalities of Savski Venac and Stari Grad.
context_section_description: After the Main railway station was built in 1884, the area to the east developed into the square which, due to its location close both to the railway and the port, served for the transshipment of the goods, especially the cereals and grains, so in time it was named Žitni trg ("Grains square"). It was also well connected with the roads which lead outside of the city. It was directly connected with the road which is today the Savska Street in the direction of the Mostar neighborhood. There, it was splitting in two directions, one to the east (later neighborhoods of Jatagan Mala and Prokop) in the direction of Kragujevac in central Serbia, and the other to the south (neighborhoods of Senjak, Čukarica, Žarkovo) and further to the west Serbia.
  The square was renamed Vilsonov trg ("Wilson's Square") after World War I, in honor of the US president Woodrow Wilson and today in named Savski trg ("Sava Square"). Hotel "Petrograd" was built at the square and was mostly occupied by the visitors which stayed only for a few days in the city. It was especially popular among the travelers who arrived by the Orient Express. In the 1930s, the city developed further, as a series of new buildings stretching from the "Petrograd" were built along the Nemanjina Street, including the "Beograd" hotel and the Home of the Invalids.
  Project Belgrade Waterfront envisioned complete change of the square area. The section in front of the Belgrade Main Railway Station will be turned into the plateau with large monument to Stefan Nemanja, facing the Nemanjina Street, named after him. The monument is a personal wish of the President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić. The existing street routes will be turned into the semi-circular crossroad and the traffic will be relocated to the edge of the square. The existing roundabout of the public transportation and a memorial for the 1990-1999 war victims, placed in the 2000s, will be relocated. The existing buildings around the square will be kept, but some will change their purpose (Main Station will be turned into the museum, with added gallery). Post Office Building No. 6 will also change its purpose, though a possibility was announced that it may get its famous pre-World War II façade.
  In November 2018 city announced an architectural design competition for the future arrangement of the square. Designs have to follow all the guidelines set by the Belgrade Waterfront project. The project chosen by February 2019 will be the basis for the future plans. Chosen design was by the Fenwick Iribarren Architects, from Spain which envisioned the square as the open, green semi-circle, with the focal point being the future 23 m (75 ft) tall monument to Stefan Nemanja. Also, the project didn't move the tram track outside the circle, but kept them through the center of the pedestrian zone. The deadline given by the city administration for the full completion, the fall of 2019, is deemed too optimistic. The project was changed once more by the city in May 2019. The tram tracks were again moved to the periphery of the central semi-circle while the statue of Stefan Nemanja is also restored to the originally planned height of 28 m (92 ft). With the total area of 12,000 m² (130,000 sq ft), Sava Square will become the largest pedestrian square in Belgrade.
  Author of the monument is Russian sculptor Aleksandr Rukavishnikov. The size and the design of the monument to Stefan Nemanja provoked public and artistic criticism. Sculptor Miodrag Živković quit the commission which selected the monument, considering all five designs bad and accusing politicians of choosing the monument. All  four artistic members of the commission voted against this design, but five political appointees voted for. Historian Predrag J. Marković called it the continuation of almost two decades long "Arkanization of the monumental skyline" in Belgrade, while rector of the University of Arts in Belgrade, Mileta Prodanović, said that the proposed project is devastating for the building of the railway station and that Belgrade is being transformed into Skopje. President o
caption: Belgrade Main railway station, located at the Sava Square
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