Neimar

Neimar (Неимар) is an urban neighborhood of Belgrade, Serbia. It is located in Belgrade's municipality of Vračar. The settlement was originally named Kotež Neimar. Kotež is a Serbian rendering of the French cottage, a suburban settlement of individual residential houses. Neimar was the name of the construction society on whose land the neighborhood was built. The word itself, neimar, means a builder or mason, and entered Serbian language via Turkish from the Arabic mi'mar. Neimar is located south-east of downtown Belgrade, in the south-western corner of the municipality. It occupies the south-eastern slope of the Vračar hill, which descends to the former valleys of the creeks of Mokroluški potok (now a highway) and Čuburski potok (now a South Boulevard). It borders the neighborhoods of Vračar on the north, Čubura on the north-east (sub-neighborhood of Gradić Pejton) and east, Autokomanda on the south while on the west it leans on the Karađorđev Park. Uninhabited slope from Čubura to the Čuburski potok valley (modern South Boulevard) was included into the city's construction plans in 1906. At that time, it was occupied by the fields, orchards and vineyards, mostly belonging to the merchant Panta Tadić. First regulatory plan, which included proposed streets layout, is from 1907 and the land was parceled in 1908. It envisioned an irregular street plan, two squares and a park in the south-east part. Construction company "Neimar" was founded in 1919 and in 1920 they purchased the land from Tadić. Original plans for the neighborhood were made in 1921 by the Viennese architects Emil Hoppe, Otto Schönthal and Marcel Kammerer, all pupils of Otto Wagner. After several disagreements with the city administration, the plan was finally approved on 12 June 1924. The area set for urbanization covered . The plan envisioned that the settlement will have only family villas. The villas were organized around the 8 small squares. The grid laid by the architects is the one still existing today.