Avala TV Tower
Encyclopedia
The Avala Tower is a 204.5 m (671 ft) tall telecommunication tower located on Avala
Avala
Avala is a mountain in Serbia, overlooking Belgrade. It is situated in the south-eastern corner of the city and provides a great panoramic view to Belgrade, Vojvodina and Šumadija, as the surrounding area on all sides is mostly a lowlands...

 mountain in the periphery of Belgrade
Belgrade
Belgrade is the capital and largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers, where the Pannonian Plain meets the Balkans. According to official results of Census 2011, the city has a population of 1,639,121. It is one of the 15 largest cities in Europe...

. It was destroyed in NATO bombardment of Serbia on 29 April 1999. On 21 December 2006, the reconstruction of Avala Tower commenced and the tower was officially opened at a ceremony on 21 April 2010. It is currently the tallest tower in Serbia and the Balkan region.

History

The tower was designed by architect
Architect
An architect is a person trained in the planning, design and oversight of the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to offer or render services in connection with the design and construction of a building, or group of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the...

s Uglješa Bogdanović and Slobodan Janjić, and engineer
Civil engineer
A civil engineer is a person who practices civil engineering; the application of planning, designing, constructing, maintaining, and operating infrastructures while protecting the public and environmental health, as well as improving existing infrastructures that have been neglected.Originally, a...

 Milan Krstić. Construction started on 14 October 1961 and was completed four years later in 1965. The tower weighed 4000 t (3,936.8 LT; 4,409.2 ST). Between 102 m (334.6 ft) and 135 m (442.9 ft), there was an enclosed observation deck
Observation deck
__FORCETOC__ An observation deck, observation platform or viewing platform is an elevated sightseeing platform usually situated upon a tall architectural structure such as a skyscraper or observation tower...

. It was the only tower in the world to have an equilateral triangle as its cross section, and one of very few towers not perched directly into the ground, but standing on its legs. The legs formed a tripod
Tripod
A tripod is a portable three-legged frame, used as a platform for supporting the weight and maintaining the stability of some other object. The word comes from the Greek tripous, meaning "three feet". A tripod provides stability against downward forces, horizontal forces and moments about the...

, making it one of the small number of towers to be constructed in that manner.

The tower was surmounted by an antenna, which was at first used for black and white television transmission. In 1971 the antenna was replaced by a new one for color TV transmission. The project, which was of high risk, was finished without any worker injuries or deaths, which was unusual for a project of its size.

Avala Tower was destroyed on 29 April 1999 by NATO bombardment
Operation Allied Force
The NATO bombing of Yugoslavia was NATO's military operation against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia during the Kosovo War. The strikes lasted from March 24, 1999 to June 10, 1999...

, supposedly to put Radio Television of Serbia
Radio Television of Serbia
Radio Television of Serbia or Serbian Broadcasting Corporation is the public broadcaster in Serbia. It broadcasts and produces a variety of news, drama, and sports programming through radio, television and the Internet. RTS is, since July 2001, a member of the European Broadcasting Union. RTS is...

 off the air. Radio Television Serbia broadcasting
Broadcasting
Broadcasting is the distribution of audio and video content to a dispersed audience via any audio visual medium. Receiving parties may include the general public or a relatively large subset of thereof...

 did not suffer as it was relying on a network of local TV stations which were obliged to relay its program throughout the whole of Serbia
Serbia
Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...

. The tower was one of the last buildings to be destroyed before the end of the NATO operation. A special bomb was used to destroy the tower. The blast was one of the loudest explosions heard throughout Belgrade during the NATO bombardment. Between the date of its destruction and 11 September 2001, it was the tallest structure ever destroyed in war.

Rebuilding the new tower

In 2004, Radio Television Serbia commenced a series of fund-raising events in order to collect money to construct the building once again at the same place it was destroyed. In 2005, clearing of the site where the tower was destroyed began and on 21 December 2006 the construction of a new Avala Tower commenced. An agreement regarding its construction was signed by Dušan Basara, director of the construction sector of the Ratko Mitrović Company — which will be in charge of the construction of the tower — and general director of RTS, Aleksandar Tijanić
Aleksandar Tijanic
Aleksandar Tijanić , Serbian journalist and current national TV director, was born in Đakovica, FPR Yugoslavia on 13 December 1950...

.

Initially, completion of the new tower was expected in August 2008, but construction works were severely delayed. The opening date was pushed back to 29 April, the tenth anniversary of its destruction. Radio Television Serbia reported on 23 October 2009 that the tower has been completed.

Fund-raising

Many fund-raising events have been held for the collection of funds so a new tower can be constructed. One of the first was a match between Serbian grand slam-winning tennis players Ana Ivanović
Ana Ivanovic
Ana Ivanović is a former world no. 1 Serbian tennis player. As of November 7, 2011, she is ranked 22th on the WTA rankings. She beat Dinara Safina to win the 2008 French Open and was the runner-up in singles at the 2007 French Open and the 2008 Australian Open...

 and Novak Đoković. All the proceeds went to the Avala Tower fund. Ceca Ražnatović (a Serbian folk singer) held a concert on 15 June 2006, with all the proceeds going to the Avala Tower fund. Radio Television Serbia ran commercials for donations to rebuild the tower. According to a December 2006 report, when it was announced that the construction of a new Avala Tower would commence that same month, over €1 million was collected through fund-raising and donations.

See also


External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK