Dr. Djuric Apartment Block by Branislav Kojic

This Building at the corner of Prizrenska Street in Belgrade made by Branislav Kojic in 1933 is regarded as one of the most successful example of modernism in Belgrade.

(two pictures above from rascian at skyscrapercity)

After the collapse of the Habsburg monarchy and the establishment of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (known as Yugoslavia from 1929), Belgrade grew into its new role as a modern capital city.

Thanks to the "group of architects of modern direction" founded in 1928 by Branislav Kojic, Milan Zlokovic, Jan Dubovy and Dusan Babic, Belgrade had its own "Modernism" and some great examples are still preserved around the city.

I already posted about some of those buildings here:
• Hotel Posta by Bransilav Kojic
http://sajkaca.blogspot.com/2011/02/hotel-posta-in-belgrade.html

• Observatory by Jan Dubovy
http://sajkaca.blogspot.com/2010/05/zvezdara-observatory-first-modernism.html

• Villas by Dusan Babic
http://sajkaca.blogspot.com/2009/05/modern-buildings-in-belgrade-by.html
http://sajkaca.blogspot.com/2010/05/3-villas-of-dusan-babic-today.html

• And the Chldren's Hospital by Milan Zlokovic
http://sajkaca.blogspot.com/2010/02/belgrade-university-clinic-for-children.html

 model of the project (http://www.muzejnt.rs)

 The difference between modernism in western Europe and Belgrade, was the rift between the architect intensions and the building industry. The  Serbian Modernists had often to renounce to some details due to the lacking of commercial demand and had poor support from the building industry.

The industry rather used "modern" style to economize on stucco and ornaments (style elements of the architecture until Modernism) to increase the profit margins.

(picture from elusive margine of belgrade architecture by Ljiljana Blagojevic)

The common organization of commercial use in the ground floor and mezzanine and apartments in the upper floors is here combined with a clever use of its location at a corner site. The apartments have terasses toward west looking down to the Sava river.

(picture from goldi at skyscrapercity)

Kojic used a modern language to enhance a horizontally layered podium with stores and mezzanine, a vertical corpus as athe main body with apartments and concluding with  concrete sheltering roof terrasses.
He used the terrasses also to accentuate the exposed corners of the building and gave the building a shape following the side street.

(picture from goldi at skyscrapercity)

(picture from elusive margine of belgrade architecture by Ljiljana Blagojevic)

For more on Belgrade's Modernism:

http://maldini.wetpaint.com/page/beogradska+moderna

Zvezdara Observatory - the first Modernism Monument in Belgrade

When Swiss architect Le Corbusier visited Belgrade in 1911 during his travels across Europe, he dismissed the city calling it “ridiculous capital, worse even: a dishonest city, dirty, and disorganized.” and in a 1955 he commented on pictures of Belgrade’s most outstanding buildings: “Good God, how ugly!” He blamed Belgrade's modern architects of "superficial understanding of modern urban planning".

I can not really agree with him (and I was tortured with Le Corbusier's works my entire course of studies at the ETH Zurich) and I'd like to show this masterpiece of modern architecture that is considered the first monument of Modernism in Belgrade: the Zvezdara Observatory designed by Jan Dubovy (1892-1969) built in the early 1930's.

 

Following Le Corbusiers citation: "soleil, espace, verdure" (architecture needs sun, clearance and greenery) Dubovy planned the observatory buildings as a loose composition of pavillions settled in a park. Each single building is designed with great attention to make it unique yet is related to the others. In the design he paid much attention on strict functionality (some extremely valuable optical and precision astronomical instruments had to find place in some of the buildings) and a simple modern form. 

 

The building when it was built

(picture from the zvezdarskasuma.blogspot)

 

The building today

(picture from the zvezdarskasuma.blogspot)

The construction is logical and pragmatic:A brickwork construction with structural elements in reinforced concrete and domes in steel, wood lining on the inside and sheet metal covering the outside surfaces.

 

Here the front side of the main building as it looks today

(picture from the Observatory website)

And here the back side of the main building

(picture from the Observatory website)

The Observatory in on Zvezdara Hill

Volgina 7,  P.O.Box 74  11060 Belgrade, Serbia tel. +381-(0)11-3088-062 / 3088-073 / 2419-357    fax. +381-(0)11-2419-553 Web: www.aob.rs    e-mail: contact@aob.rs

3 Villas of Dusan Babic Today

Last summer I made a post about the modernist architect Dusan Babic and showed some of his interesting projects. Now i run into some pictures at skyscrapercity of pictures of the actual villas.

The Villa of Karl Reich (1930-1931)

This is how it looked in the plans:

Now it looks like this (picture from francuz 4556 at skyscrapercity):

The villa is at Ulica Sanje Zivanovica number 2 in Belgrade

Villa Protic (1930-1931)

Address: Ulica Zanke Stokic number 5 in Belgrade

And here some apictures from these days (picture from francuz 4556 at skyscrapercity)

As I mentioned in my earlier post, it's rather difficult to find information about Dusan Babic and his projects. And thanks to mmilovan at skyscrapercity I found one more villa that Babic built: Dr. Milutin Ivkovic's Villa from 1937. Here some pictures from the time it was built:

 

Dusan Babic (1986 -1948) was one of the 4 founders of the group of "Architect of the Modern Movement in Belgrade"(together with Jan Dubovy,, Milan Zlokovic and Branislav Kojic) he was a Serb from Banja Luka and graduated at the Technische Hochschule in Vienna in 1923 and moved to belgarde in 1928. At the time of the group founding Babic was employed in the Department of Architecture in the Ministry of Construction. 

He made also a church in Doboj (couldn't find out anything about it).

More about Babic here in my earlier post.

Modernist architecture in Havana (Cuba) - 2-

 Someillan Building

This sleek highrise building (32 floors)  was built in 1951 by the designs of Fernando R. Castro Cardenas and the structural designs by Jose A. Vila Espinosa.

This a typical floor plan

How the boardwalk near Someillan Building looked in the past.
The floor plan and the last picture are from www.arquitectura-cuba.blogspot.com (a very nice blog with lots of informations)

Plaza de la revolucion

This square (that is one of the biggest of the world) was begun in 1952 under Fulgencio Batista's presidency and was completed in 1959, the year that Fidel Castro came to power. Fidel Castro used to have his speeches from here when he was addressing the Cuban population in special occasions.
The square is dominated by the 109m high José Martí Memorial.
The square may be big, but from the urbanistic view it's rather questionable, even if surrounded by really interesting buildings, the layout doesn't work. Take a look at the link below:

http://www.360cities.net/image/plaza-de-la-revolucion-havana-cuba


Ministry of Communication

Many government ministries and other buildings are located in and around the Plaza.
The Ministry of State (now Ministry of Informatics and Communications) building (from 1951 - 54 designed by Ernesto Gomez Sampera and Martin Dominguez ) with the big steel outlines of Camilo Cienfuegos (it was made in October 2009 in honor of 50th anniversary of his death). Accompanying the stencil facade are the words "Vas bien, Fidel (You’re doing fine, Fidel), representing the famous response of Camilo to Fidel at the January 8, 1959 rally where Castro declared that the Columbia military barracks would be made into a school, and then asked Camilo, "Am I doing all right, Camilo?"

 

 today and below in the past

Directly across the Plaza de la Revolución from the José Martí Memorial stands the Ministerio del Interior building (from 1958) instantly recognizable by the enormous bronze wire sculpture of Che Guevara on the facade, which was completed in 1995.

This sculpture was based on the famous photograph of Che taken by Alberto Korda. The words which appear below Che’s image, “Hasta la Victoria Siempre” mean “Ever Onward to Victory” and were the signature in Che’s final letter to Fidel Castro before he was killed in Bolivia.

Modernist architecture in Havana (Cuba)

In this blog, I wrote often about social realism and modernist building in Eastern Europe, mostly of Belgrade. That architectural style that followed the goals of socialism and communism in a philosophical way, produced (in my advise) some of the most fascinating buildings! Try to look at the Genex-Building, the Rudo-Buildings in Belgrade or at these great buildings in Bratislava (Slovakia).

My husband gave me a good reason to make a post about that kind of architecture of a place where this architecture is also very well represented: he made wonderful pictures of communist and modernist buildings in Cuba for me!

Cuba provides a particularly big collection of interesting architecture because it was a colony of Spain, a neo-colonial protectorate of the US, an independent republic and then finally a socialist country, all within less than a century.

Havana's modernism


In the 40's and 50's Havana was considered a destination for gambling and holidays in the sun. It became a haven for criminals, gangsters and playboys. That was the time when most of the modernist high-rise buildings were built. Thanks to Fidel Castro and his regime this beautiful buildings have stayed unaltered and here they stand almost the same like in they time when they were built...and the ravage of time gives them  even more charm! 

Hotel Havana Riviera


This building was built 1956 - 1957 by the designs of russian-born Igor Polevitzky (1911 - 1978) and Irvin Feldman served as general contractor. It's a twenty-one-story, 440-room edifice, towering above the Malecon. When it opened, the Riviera was the largest purpose-built casino-hotel in Cuba or anywhere in the world, outside Las Vegas.
The angled shape made that each room had a sea view and the futuristic look reflected the lifestyle of the before Castro Cuba. 

Here an old postcard when the Hotel was built and below how it looks today. Just the surrounding changed...the Hotel building and its facilities are basically the same as in 1957.

Here a picture of the interior (from www.hotelhavanariviera.com)

The Interior design was made by Albert Parvin (of Parvin Dohrman Co. in Los Angeles). It was  completly furnished and custom-made pieces were made for the lobby, the restaurant and the cocktail lounge.

 

 Focsa Building

Focsa Building like it looks today

The Edificio Focsa (Fomentos de Obrasy Constructiones Sociedad Anonima) designed by architect Ernesto Gomez Sampera (1956) represents Havana's booming economy and foreign influence at the time. 

This 35-storey complex was conceived and based on Corbusian ideas of a self-contained city within a city. It contained 375 apartments (distributed on 30 floors), garages, a school, stores and so on (on 9 floors) and restaurant on the top floor. 

 This was the tallest concrete structure in the world at the time and the ultimate symbol of luxury. Here above the sale brochure used by the investors to sell the apartments (property of Mr. Alberto Quiroga, son of the jewelry store owner in Focsa)

Focsa Building like it looked in the 50's

(to be continued)