, under the Gazela bridge The immediate surrounding neighborhood is almost entirely non-residential. The northern side is occupied by the buildings of the Ministry of the Interior (destroyed in the
1999 NATO bombing of Serbia) and the Clinical Centre, which is the largest clinical complex in Belgrade. The southern side comprises the 'BIP' brewery, the
Belgrade Centre railway station in
Prokop, a series of half-ruined storages and former factories and the facilities of the
Belgrade Fair. In south it borders the neighborhood of
Senjak. To the west it continues into the Belgrade-Niš highway and to the east to the
Novi Beograd and further to Belgrade-
Zagreb highway (over the
Gazela bridge). In the mid-19th century, northern part of modern Senjak was a meadow, with only the
Topčider road passing through. It was used as the training ground for the army and as the pasture for the sheep. The northern slope, above the left bank of the Mokroluški Creek was known as Zamastir.
Czech émigré Heinrich Smutek, who owned a
kafana, arranged a large estate (with a
bricklayer), and a garden in the area. Zamastir then became known as Smutekovac, after the kafana's name. It became an excursion site for the Belgraders, which originally came by
fiacres and later by the tram "Topčiderac", which connected the downtown with
Topčider. In the 1870s the area was parceled and
Đorđe Vajfert purchased the land from the lawyer Pera Marković. As he was a German subject, he couldn't own properties in Serbia. Instead he paid the entire sum to Marković who issued him a receipt. Vajfert then started to build the
brewery, predecessor of the modern BIP brewery at the same location. As soon as he was granted Serbian citizenship, Vajfert received a
deed on the land. Designed by the foreign architects, the "Đorđe Vajfert's First Serbian Steam Brewery" was finished in 1873, while the entire brewery complex was finished in 1880. In 1892–1893, within the complex, Vajfert built a mansion which became known as Vajfert's Villa. The one-storey edifice was designed by engineer Jovan K. Ristić, in the
Romanticist style. It became known for its interior, richly decorated woodworks, including the central wooden staircase. Close to the villa is the vast network of
lagums, or underground corridors. The so-called Vajfert's storage cellars, the long and wide subterranean rooms were divided in 14 sections where beer was stocked in barrels and tanks. The Mostar area was also referred to as Vajfertovac at the time. was itself named after the small bridge (
most) across the
Mokroluški potok, which is today conducted into the underground sewage system, but its channeled mouth into the
Sava river is still visible under the Gazela bridge. The wooden bridge was regularly destroyed during the seasonal floods caused by the Mokroluški potok. The street which was the extension of the Topčider road, later renamed Miloša Velikog, was named Vajfert boulevard until 1930 when was renamed to the
Vojvoda Putnik boulevard. The connecting point of two streets, where the interchange is today, was known as the Square of the Defenders of Belgrade. By the 2010s, the brewery complex dilapidated and partially went out of use, reducing the factory's capacity. The
lagums haven't been inspected for a long time while the terrain is prone to the
mass wasting. In 2009 the partial supporting wall was built to prevent the soil from moving while the unbuilt part of the complex became covered in overgrowth. On the eastern side of the interchange, across the brewery, the facilities of the Belgrade City Ambulance are located. The building and the garages predate the interchange, as they were built in 1960. In January 2019 it was announced that the ambulance building will be renovated and enlarged with additional of floor space. == Features ==