To the origins
The site of Lepenski Vir shelters astonishing traces of prehistoric habitat. The site owes its name to the muddy and reddish clay plaster, lep, which covers its houses. Lepenski Vir literally means "the swirl of red clay". Arranged in a fan shape and organized around alleys and squares, these houses all have the same trapezoidal plan and monumental sculptures reflecting a refined work of stone. The Romans took these ideas a step further by combining urban planning and defensive architecture, establishing the mighty Danube Limes, consisting of roads, fortresses, cemeteries, towns and bridges. Among the most impressive sites, do not miss the fortress of Diana, in Karatas, the bridge of Trajan in Kostol, whose twenty pillars of stone and brick support a wooden structure extending for nearly 1,200 m, and its fort of square plan, with rounded corners, whose thick walls shelter barracks, warehouses and workshops, or the site of Gospodin Vir with its road dug in the rock supported by wooden brackets to span the river and running along the impressive Tables of Trajan carved in the rock. A monumentality that can be found on the Roman site of Felix Romuliana-Gamzigrad, a commemorative and palatial complex designed by the emperor Galerius. A tetrapyle (a square monument with each side looking like a triumphal arch with a single bay) marks the separation between the temporal (palaces, baths, basilicas) and the spiritual (mausoleums, temples). The Romans made urbanism the tool of their power. A fact that demonstrates the site of the ancient Viminacium, now buried under the earth, but which we know that it houses one of the most important necropolises of the Roman Empire, temples, baths, palaces and theaters made of slabs and bricks ... which some peasants used thousands of years later to build their homes. Caričin Grad, formerly Iustiniana Prima, bears the mark of the Byzantine emperor Justinian. The fortifications of the upper city include a beautiful three-aisled basilica-cathedral with an elegant atrium lined with porticoes and a trefoil baptistery, as well as a central circular square, streets lined with stone-paved porticoes, and an ingenious sewage system. Outside the walls are aqueducts, baths, churches and residential buildings... witnesses of a city in full expansion.
Medieval treasures
Medieval Serbia is marked by Serbian-Byzantine art, which is divided into three main schools. The Raška school is characterized by churches with a single nave topped by a dome preceding the choir. The interiors are richly decorated, while the exteriors borrow from Western Romanesque architecture in their sobriety of lines. Among the most beautiful witnesses of this school, do not miss the monastery of Studenica surrounded by a circular wall housing the church of the Virgin, all in white marble, or the church of St. Achille in Arilje with its six-windowed dome and its pilasters and blind arcatures on the facade. The Vardar school is characterized by churches with an inscribed cross plan, multiple domes, a western façade preceded by a porch and polychrome stone and brick decoration. The churches of the Morava school have trefoil plans, radiating apses, a western narthex (vestibule) and plastic and polychrome ornaments on the façade. The church of the Manasija monastery with its five domes, the church of the Ravanica monastery with its nine-sided dome and its ceramic decorations with floral and geometric motifs, or the church of the Ljubostinja monastery with its dome supported by four pillars and its rosettes and stone lacework are the most beautiful representatives. Whatever the school, all these buildings shelter sumptuous Byzantine frescos realized by exiled Greek painters who came to express here a sumptuous art of volume, color and light. The crenellated and fortified silhouettes of these monasteries are matched by those of the great fortresses that line the country from the top of their rocky promontories. The one of Smederevo with its triangular plan, its double line of ramparts punctuated with dozens of towers and protected by moats is one of the most impressive of the country. The old Ras, one of the first capitals of the kingdom of Serbia, shelters the vestiges of an urbanism thought to serve the power of the Serbian authority which imposes a dynastic imagery there, placing itself as a providential and sacred power. Finally, in the west of the country, do not miss the cemeteries of medieval tombs (Stecci) in limestone, with an astonishing wealth of forms (slab, chest, gabled roof, pillars, monumental cross) and decorative motifs.
Ottomans, Austro-Hungarians and Serbs
While it had more than seventy Ottoman mosques, Belgrade is now home to only one: the Bajrakli Mosque, a cubic building topped by an octagonal dome, flanked by a slender minaret with a conical roof, and with a mihrab (niche indicating Mecca) with beautiful calligraphic inscriptions. Belgrade is also home to the turbe of Sheikh Mustafa, a stone tomb with a hexagonal plan and a dome decorated with Koranic inscriptions. The stone bridge of Užice, the impressive citadel of Nis with the sumptuous domed mosque of Malkoçoglu Bali Bey and the hammam of Minnetoglu Mehmed Bey with its ceilings decorated with muqarnas (stalactite motifs), the magnificent thermal baths of Novi Pazar with their vaults and domes, are witnesses of the urban and architectural splendor of the Ottoman period. During this period, the Serbs took refuge in the autonomous province of Vojvodina, not far from the Fruška gora mountains, and established a series of impressive monasteries there. Built in the 15th and 16th centuries, they follow the codes of the Morava school (trefoil plan, radiating apse, domes, rich decoration on the facade), before being rebuilt in the 18th century, following the Ottoman assaults, in a resolutely baroque style (high bell towers with bulbs, white facades, red tile roofs, rich engraved and sculpted iconostases). Among the most beautiful monasteries, do not miss: Krušedol, Privina Glava and Novo Hopovo. During their brief incursion into Serbia, the Austro-Hungarians adapted the great medieval fortresses to the evolution of artillery, as in the case of the fortresses of Belgrade and Petrovaradin, and redesigned the urban centers with baroque and classical lines, as in Novi Sad and Zemun. In the 18th and 19th centuries, the Ottomans built many konaks. Rectangular plan, stone base, whitewashed walls with symmetrically arranged windows, main facade decorated with oriels (closed and glazed balcony), courtyard facade with open balcony and porch-gallery, courtyard with trees surrounded by high walls ... these are the main features of these urban palaces. Among the most beautiful: the konak of the pasha of Vranje and the konak of the gospodar Vasin in Kraljevo. A tradition that will be perpetuated by Serbian rulers, including Prince Milos, who built the Amidžin Konak in Kragujevac and the konak of Princess Ljubica in Belgrade, which begins a transition to more European styles as evidenced by its pediments, cornices and columns adorning its corners. A neoclassical style can be found in castles and summer residences, such as the monumental castle of Karatsonyi with its large porch with Corinthian columns, as well as in the new places of power, such as the town hall of Sombor.
Eclecticism and modernity
Under the influence of the Hungarians, Serbia will be adorned with the colors of Art Nouveau and more specifically the Secession style mixing simple geometric forms and abundance of decoration. The city of Subotica is home to the most beautiful examples. The Leović Palace was designed by Odon Lechner, one of the Hungarian masters of the Secession, who inspired a number of architects, including Marcell Komor and Dezső Jakab, who built the city's magnificent synagogue. See its stucco facings, glazed ceramic decorations, carved wooden elements, and colorful stained glass windows illuminating its dome supported by an amazingly modern metal structure. Serbia will also experience a phase of national romanticism, based on the revival of the Serbian-Byzantine style but tinged with formal innovations. Branko Tanazević, the great representative of this trend, realized the house of Dragomir Arambašić between Byzantine influence and Art Nouveau, and the old telephone station of Belgrade mixing rosettes and ribbed domes with a very modern asymmetry. Viktor Lukomski, on the other hand, designed the Avala Hotel mixing Byzantine, Ottoman (porches, arcades) and modernist elements (flat roof, rectangular opening without ornament). The imposing St. Sava Cathedral in Belgrade, designed by Aleksandar Deroko, houses the largest domed mosaic in the world. See its white marble and granite façade and its maze of interior galleries. A Byzantine style that the Krstić brothers take up in their church of St. Mark in Belgrade with its domes and arcades. But the brothers architects are also great promoters of modernism as shown by the simple volumes and clean lines of the Agrarian Bank and the Igumanov building in Belgrade. A sobriety of forms that announces the Art Deco, a style favored to illustrate the development of the capital. Among the highlights of this style: the Workers' Chamber with its geometric volumes devoid of any ornamentation except for monumental sculptures dedicated to the glory of the workers, and the Armed Forces Command in Zemun, a temple of technological modernism whose plan is reminiscent of an airplane structure. Let's not forget the French Embassy in Belgrade, designed by Henri-Roger Expert, a symbol of modernist architecture nourished by classicism, as evidenced by its half-rotunda, its grand staircases and its large volumes of white marble.
Contemporary architecture
The great representatives of the Yugoslav period are the spomenik, concrete memorials mixing monumentalism and expressionism. The monument to the soldiers of the Kosmaj detachment takes the form of a gigantic concrete mine, a symbol of guerrilla warfare and resistance. The memorial to the Serbian Jews representing the tables of the Law was designed by Bogdan Bogdanović, one of the greatest architects of the time. He is also responsible for the Alley of Deserving Patriots designed as a garden bordered by concrete. This period was also accompanied by new urban research, as shown by Novi Beograd, a large residential area divided into blocks mixing progressivism and modernism, with, in its center, the monumental Palace of Serbia and its glass dome. Other highlights of this brutalism are the Genex Tower, which pierces the sky with its two towers connected by a sky bridge, the residential tower in the Karaburma district, whose triangular protruding volumes have earned it the nickname "Toblerone Tower", and the Avala Tower, which stands not on the ground but on a concrete tripod. Today, however, growing real estate speculation is pushing developers to destroy the city's riches in favor of pharaonic projects, such as Savograd, a residential and commercial complex whose three inclined glass and steel towers are unmissable, and of course the Belgrade Waterfront, which houses a gigantic shopping mall (Galerija Belgrade) and which is about to see the completion of the Kula Belgrade, a 168-meter high glass tower designed by the famous American agency SOM. Fortunately, some projects opt for a more measured approach, giving pride of place to rehabilitations, such as the Beton Hala docks transformed into bars and restaurants, the Old Mill Hotel Belgrade, an old mill sublimated by the dialogue between old and natural materials, or the SkyWellness, a wellness center that reinvents the Danube Flower, a brutalist emblem with astonishing cantilevered volumes. At the same time, new creations imagine an architecture that is more respectful of history and the environment, such as the Lapidarium in Užice, designed to sublimate stone with its large vaulted spaces, and the chalet imagined by Tijana and Andrej Mitrović in Divčibare, creating a dialogue between a geometric white volume and a sloping roof with wooden shingles.
Vernacular riches
The Negotinska Krajina wine region is home to many pivnice. These cellars were originally semi-buried and topped with grass roofs. Later they developed into one or two-story structures. Stone foundations, wooden structure completed with cob, hipped roofs covered with tiles characterize most often these amazing buildings grouped around squares and alleys. The most amazing site is the cemetery of Rajacke Pivnice, where 200 tombs with various ornamental reliefs are housed in the cellars. The richness of the traditional Serbian habitat can also be observed in the numerous ethnovillages of the country. In Sirogojno, you can see wooden churches and houses with steep roofs, high gables and shingled roofs. In Tiganjica, you will see the amazing Banat style houses with their rounded gables pierced by oculi and their tiled roofs overhanging their brick walls. The ethnovillage of Moravski Konaci is home to houses made of planks or logs on stone foundations and wooden churches with multi-level roofs that interlock, creating an amazing elevated effect. So many elements that we find in Küstendorf, a village-set entirely conceived by the filmmaker Emir Kusturica and rewarded for his reconstruction work by the prestigious Philippe Rotthier prize. Everything is in wood... until the pavement of the steep streets ! Generally speaking, whether the structures are made of dry stone, adobe, timber frame and cob, whether the roofs are made of tiles, wood shingles or stone, Serbian houses all have common characteristics: rectangular plan, masonry base, whitewashed walls, and above all, the fundamental importance given to the porch-gallery with colonnades, baptized çadaç. In addition to these houses, there are the famous kullas or fortified tower-houses with thick walls pierced by loopholes, the windmills, whether wind or steam, the ambars or granaries with their pretty decorated gables, and the kotobanja or corn dryers that can be recognized by their wooden structure and their porch-gallery. A small heritage with an infinite richness... like Serbia!
