Oris: Če vas želimo predstaviti, gospod Bogdanović, se znajdemo v precejšnji zagati, saj imate štiri biografije: arhitekt, likovni umetnik, književnik in politik. Ali ste svoje vloge kdaj razvrščali po hierarhiji?

Bogdanović: Vedno sem jih občutil kot celoto. Moja osebnost je kompozitna, zato sem jih med seboj lahko usklajeval. Pogosto sem premišljeval o hierarhiji. Najprej sem arhitekt, malce tudi pisatelj ter risar in zelo malo politik. Vendar je bilo biti malo politika zelo burno. Politika mi sicer ni bila všeč, politik sem bil samo zato, ker so bile v tistih časih takšne razmere, da sem menil, da moram stopiti v politiko. Odzival sem se v skladu s svojim značajem, glede na to pa tudi ni manjkalo nasprotnih odzivov.

Oris: Kot profesor urbanizma ste se zavzemali za drugačne kakovosti, ne pa za pragmatični "uporabni" urbanizem. Nasprotovali ste urbanizmu kvantitete. Gotovo pa so dejavniki, ki so oblikovali vašo poklicno pot, malce bolj večplastni.

Bogdanović: Kandidiral sem za mesto asistenta na katedri za urbanizem, saj je bila arhitektura v Jugoslaviji v tistem času, ko sem diplomiral, skromna; delala sta se samo dva tipa oken, tako da se s to siromašno, navidez pa funkcionalistično arhitekturo moje predhodne fantazije niso mogle skladati. Študirati sem začel pred vojno, na arhitekturo pa sem šel iz nekega nadrealističnega miljeja. Naredil sem celo program in ga naslovil, s parafrazo Corbusierja, Vers une architecture surealiste. Želel sem ustvarjati nadrealistično arhitekturo, to pa bi pomenilo tudi stranke, ki bi jo želele, kot je bilo na primer s hišo za Tristana Tzara. Med vojno sem se zabaval z Markom Ristićem tako, da sem zanj projektiral prismuknjeno hišo, v kateri si se lahko iz zgornjega nadstropja oddrsal v spodnje in je bila polna presenečenj. Če bi bilo mogoče, bi sam ustvarjal tovrstno arhitekturo. V mojem krogu smo bili vsi nadrealisti in levičarji, ko pa je nastopila naša leva družba, smo doumeli, da od tovrstnih nadrealističnih ekshibicij ne bo nič. V obupu sem se odločil za urbanizem, saj je to do neke mere vseeno tudi znanstvena disciplina.
Do preobrata v mojem življenju pa je prišlo, ko sem dobil natečaj za spomenik judovskim žrtvam v Beogradu. Naenkrat se mi je odprl celoten nov svet simbolov, vzporednih pomenov. Takrat se je rodil moj način razmišljanja "v nadstropjih". Sem moderen arhitekt, vendar lahko razmišljam tudi na nemoderen način. Moje prve hiše na Avali blizu Beograda z začetka petdesetih let so bile polne reminiscenc. Moj prijatelj je bil inženir na hidrotehniškem inštitutu, te hiše pa so bile namenjene njihovim zaposlenim. Lahko bi stale tudi v Sredozemlju, ko pa sem jih gradil, nisem mislil, da bodo videti sredozemske. Grajene so na starinski način, v celoti iz kamna. Te hiše so bile nadrealistične in niso naletele na odobravanje stroke, saj so bili vsi moderni, da modernejši že skoraj niso mogli biti. Drugi so se tedaj komajda odlepili od socialističnega realizma, potem pa je prišel nekdo, ki je spet delal nekaj podobnega. No, niso razumeli nadrealistične osnove.
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Oris: If we were to introduce you, we would find ourselves in quite a quandary because you have four biographies - you're an architect, visual artist, writer, politician. Do you have a hierarchy in that sense?

Bogdanović: I've always thought of it as a whole. My personality was composite so everything could be harmonized. I've often thought about hierarchy. First of all, I'm an architect, somewhat a writer, somewhat an artist and very little a politician. But that very little was intense. However, I didn't like the politics, I was a politician because of the situation at that time, I simply felt I should be one. I reacted according to my temperament, the counter reactions soon followed.

Oris: As a professor of urbanism you stood up for other qualities, not pragmatic, "useful" urbanism. You stood up against the urbanism of quantity. However, the factors that determined your professional path are certainly much more complex.

Bogdanović: I applied to be assistant lecturer at the Chair of Urbanism because at the time when I graduated, architecture in Yugoslavia was poor, with only two types of windows, so my previous fantasies could not have fitted into this poor, ostensibly functional architecture. My studies began before the war, I went to study architecture from a surrealist milieu. I even made a program and titled it Vers une architecture surealiste, paraphrasing Corbusier. I wanted to create surrealist architecture, and that had to involve willing clients, such as the case with the house for Tristan Tzara. During the war, I had fun with Marko Ristić by ostensibly designing a silly house for him, where you could slide from the upper floor to the lower one, full of surprises. If it were possible, that's how I would have made architecture. In my circle, we were all surrealists and left-oriented, and when our leftist society arrived, we saw that surrealist exhibitions were not going to happen. In despair, I decided to go for urbanism because it was in a way a scientific discipline.
But the radical change in my life occurred when I won the competition for the monument to Jewish victims in Belgrade. All of a sudden, a new world of symbols and comparative meanings opened. That's when I started to think in strata terms. I'm a modern architect, but I can also think in a non-contemporary way. My first houses on Avala near Belgrade from the early 50s were full of reminiscence. My friend was an engineer at the Hydro-technical Institute, so these houses were intended for their employees. They could have easily been somewhere in the Mediterranean, but I didn't think they would look Mediterranean when I built them. They were built in the old fashioned way, completely made of stone. The houses were surreal, but weren't widely approved of in my profession, since everybody was so modern, modern to the bone. They barely managed to detach from social realism, and then somebody comes along to do the same thing again. But they didn't understand the surrealist basis.
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