Interesting buildings in Arandjelovac

After checking out interesting buildings in Kragujevac (here) I collected here a few interesting buildings in Arandjelovac (Аранђеловац) in Central Serbia which like Kragujevac also lies in the Sumadija region and has about 50'000 inhabitants.

Architecture is not the reason why this city is visited by tourists, however I found a couple of interesting buildings I'd like to share here.

Arandjelovac is mostly known for  the spring of the popular mineral water "Knjaz Milos" and the appertaining Spa "Bukovicka Banja". The Spa has a great park loaded with sculptures international artists (since 1966 the city invites  artist from all over the world and let them have one of their sculptures exposited in the Park.

Inside the Spa facilities there is an example of Serbian Romaticism it's the "Staro Zdanje" (the Old Building) and is the oldest preserved building in Bukovicka Banja Spa. It was initiated by Prince Mihailo Obrenovic (that's why the mineral water is called "Knjaz Milos") in 1865 and was intended as his summer residence and for Assembly meetings.

Here an old picture of the building.
Its architect, Kosta Sreplovic, the Munich school of architecture graduate, landscaped the park area in front of the edifice as well. When the edifice was completed in 1872, the purpose of its use was changed due to altered political situation so that it became a spa edifice, probably the largest of the kind in Serbia of the time.

Today it is a hotel and the symbol of Arandjelovac that appears in its coat of arms, prospectus leaflets and postcards. 

This highrise building is known as the "arandjelovac soliter" and is in the center of the city.I love the rounded details and the material combinations.(picture source)

 Blocks like this remind a lot the Style of Novi Beograd.

 A really cool building and and a sign of past socialist times is the shopingcenter "Kolektiv" (Робна кућа Колектив) with its sculptural facade.(picture source)

Here an old Postcard with the Kolektiv-Building and the Arandjelovac-Soliter in the background.

Another interesting building is the the one with the "Pekabeta" on the ground-floor. The peculiar blue attic adds a fun touch to the edifice and makes it unique.(picture source)

 The building of the Municipal Court has also a socialist time touch.

And now a really beautiful example of Brutalism: the Bukulja observatory tower on the Bukulja Mountain near Arandjelovac on 660 m. above sealevel and 19m high, made in nice face concrete. From the top there is a nice view to the surrounding mountains. Now it's planned to put a telescope up there to make it a even better tourist attraction.

 Anrandjelovac is worth a trip also for the cultural meaningful surrounding: The Bukovicka Spa, Topola with the Oplenac Royal Mausoleum and the Risovaca Caves.

Interesting Buildings in Kragujevac

Now that the traveling season starts and a few of my readers were asking for architectural tips outside from Belgrade, I decided to publish the most interesting buildings of smaller Serbian cities next to useful traveling information.

I started with Kragujevac and I choose the buildings that I like the most. Kragujevac is the center of the Sumadija region, the region that represent Serbia in all its stereotypes (for instance the Sumadija folk costume stands generally as illustration for Serbian national costume).

Blocks in Kragujevac (from flickr)

The architecture of Kragujevac is a mix of various styles: there are Oriental-Style buildings  (like the Amidža Konak from 1819-24) and Secession Style buildings  from 19th century. Then there are modern post-war concrete buildings (apartments to house those left homeless during World War II), high-rise commies (communist time blocks)  and some eye-catching buildings from the 70'ies (like the "Ipsilon" and the City Hall) that now characterize the city's panorama.

Kragujevac City Hall (Скупштина града)from Dinke at flickr


The Y - Building (Ипсилон) in Erdoglija District was built in the 70's and is Kragujevac's tallest building (60m, 17 floors)

 

Ipsilon Building from woodland at Skyscrapercity

The Golden Rose Shopping Center "Златна Ружа" is a cool building, however it needs some remodeling work. (from Johnny-kg at skyscrapercity)

Fire station in ulica Miloja Pavlovića (Ватрогасци дом) picture from skyscrapercity. Below an old picture of the building.

The fire station is a modernist building from 1932 (built in less than one year!)after the project of Đorđe Kovaljevski i Mihailo Radovanović, two Belgrade architects.

The "Zastava"-Building is a good example of soc-realism. (Picture from kawasaki KG at skyscrapercity)

The history behind the building and what happened to the Zastava Industry is a bit complexer. In a very simple and short form I see it like this: The biggest and flourishing Industry that produced some Yugoslavian legendary cars was wrecked by NATO bombings and later through Embargo  and Sanctions. Now Italy (who 11 years ago was bombing the buildings) is trying to produce FIAT cars in these buildings, to make cheaper production with cheap Serbian workers and taking away the works to many Torino based workers in Italy…..but that's business…
Main site of Zastava

An interesting building (I already wrote about this one here) is located a little outside Kragujevac in the Šumarice Memorial Park (Меморијални парк Шумарице), is the Museum of Genocide, on the site where  in WW II between 2'300 and 7'000 men and boys (the numbers differs a lot from source to source, but that's another issue…) were executed by the German occupation forces on October 20, 1941.
The project is made by Ivan Antic.
Antic designed the Museum of the Genocide in 1967. The grandness of the monumental building is emphasized by a series of tall pillar-like rectangular shapes, the tallest ones on the central part from which go the same ones of various height with massive parts of the walls built in brick.
The modern expression relates to medieval sacral architecture, and the symbol of the Museum of the Genocide is even stronger in the interior which lets natural light from roof lanterns, connecting the view to the skies with earthly life: the building and the crypt.

On May 14th 1999 due to the detonation of NATO attacks in the nearest vicinity the facades of the Museum were damaged and all glazed panels and roof lanterns destroyed. The nearby building of the Archives was badly damaged. (picture from skyscrapercity)

There is also a famous monument called "Broken Wings"-Monument created in 1963 by Serbian sculptor Miodrag Zivkovic.
 The monument is dedicated to the killed schoolchildren and their teachers.

"Broken wings" monument in Sumarice memorial park (picture from Balkanforum)


Here a few links with travel tips for Kragujevac:

http://www.kragujevac.rs
http://wikitravel.org/en/Kragujevac

And here a cool blog from JohnnyKG  that has pictures and further Kragujevac links.

http://johnny_kg.mojblog.rs/

Svetogorska Ulica in Belgrade

This post is about a New Year tradition for Belgradians. In the afternoon of the first of January families go to Svetogorska Street (Светогорска Улица) because then it's called Улица отвореног срца (street of the open heart) where hearts and other things are sold in a sort of donation campaign for sorts of humanitarian actions.
I liked the stands with handmade ethno things, the music (Aleksa Jelic) and most of all: along the way from Svetogorska to Makedonska Street there are a lot of beautiful modern buildings to see.

 

My son loved this bird, the mascotte for the Serbian Football Team

In this street Classical buildings meets ....

Baroque Buildings

Radio Belgrade Building (see post here)

Beautiful Serbian handmade things are sold along the way

The Politika-Building (see post here)

I was very happy to see one of the new artists I like Aleksa Jelic.

Here a nice way to serve hot tea!

Fruska Gora Monasteries

Krusedol Monastery

This is a guestpost I made for the #1 site for travel deals: onetravel.wordpress.com.

 The Northern part of Serbia is called Vojvodina Region and is part of the Pannonian plain of Central Europe. The only mount in this extended flat region is the National Park of Fruska Gora which is also a well know tourist destination, and thanks to his hospitable and fertile environment around 35 monasteries were erected between the 15th and 18th century (some monasteries dates even from earlier time) in an area of 50 x 10 km.

 Krušedol  Monastery (Крушедол)

These monasteries were repeatedly protagonists of the history of the Serbian Nation, as pilgrims and refugees found places during time of persecutions. They were among the focal points of resistance against the Ottomans and also places of storage for treasures of orthodox spirituality and art over the centuries.

Today there are just 15 monasteries left and some of them were damaged during the NATO bombing campaign in 1999.
So now Fruška Gora Monasteries were declared Monuments of Culture of Exceptional Importance in 1990, and they are protected by Republic of Serbia.

Velika Remeta Monastery  (Велика Ремета)

Novo Hopovo Monastery (Ново Хопово)

Nemanja from SpiritualSerbia (a company that organizes trips to Serbian-orthodox monasteries all over South-East-Europe) gave me some pictures of the beautiful Fruska Gora Monasteries and explained the most important facts for visiting Monasteries in orthodox countries.

Nemanja tells that the monks in Serbian orthodox monastery are not really strict about behavior of visitors in the monastery, as they assume that if you dress not adequate and behave rather rude, that you’re not doing it on purpose, but that you just don’t have a clue about the rules. However it’s nice to show you arrive prepared and are willing to show your respect for their holy place.

Jazak Monastery (Јазак)

Here some tips for visiting monasteries:

Apropriate clothing: For men it’s long trousers and closed shoes, and no head coverage. For woman it’s a long skirt, long sleeves and a headscarf.

Greeting the monks: Walking toward the monk (or monks) you can nicely say: "pomaže bog" (literally: That god helps) and he will answer "bog pomogao" (literally: God helps). The monk will then hands you his hand that you will hold in your both hands and bend down your head and tell: "oče blagoslovi" (literally: Father bless me) and he will make a sign to bless you.
 
Of course you don't need to do all that, a simple greeting is fine. The monastery always will send one monk to show you around the monastery and answer your questions. Often you will be invited for coffee and cakes or exquisite monastery rakija. If you want to show gratitude leave some money or in the designated places or simply by the icons in the chapel.

Grgeteg Monastery(Гргетег)

Beočin Monastery (Беочин)

Vrdnik-Ravanica Monastery (Врдник-Раваница)

Nemanja from Spiritualtours proposes nices bed&brakfasts for overnight stays and good ethno restaurants for tasting Serbian Specialties.

Here the official site of SpiritualSerbia