The Eastern City Gates (Istočna kapija Beograda) is a pair of residential skyscrapers flanking the E75 motorway as it enters Belgrade from the east — forming a literal gateway to the city. Designed by Mihajlo Mitrović and completed in 1977, the two towers rise 26 floors each, their facades articulated with a bold horizontal banding of concrete and glazing that creates a rhythmic texture visible from the highway.
The concept of the city gate — a monumental threshold marking the entry into urban territory — is as old as the city itself. What Mitrović understood was that the motorway was the new approach, the new processional route into Belgrade, and that architecture could still respond to that procession with ambition. The towers are both sign and symbol: they tell you that you have arrived somewhere that took its own presence seriously.