Prve nagrade za najlepšu beogradsku fasadu 1924-1930

Abstract

Using archival, field and literary sources, this paper analyzes the importance of the Most Beautiful Facade award, given to works built between 1926 and 1939, in accordance with a special rulebook adopted by the board of the Belgrade-based Architects' Club. It was awarded for the first time in 1924 to the Russian emigrant Nikolai Vasilyevich Vasilyev, then during the following years the award was given to eminent designers: Branislav Kojić, Dragomir Tadić, Dragiša Brašovan, Aleksandar Deroko, Milutin Borisavljević, Miladin Prljević, Branislav Kojić, Savković-Ivacić, Milivoje Tričković and Leonid Maksheev. The awards for the most beautiful facade give us an insight into the aesthetic criteria that prevailed in the period from 1921 to 1931, with reference also to the architects of 1939, but also into the awareness of our eminent architects and members of the Architects' Club regarding the cultural significance of the new visual identity of the capital. Also, the awarded prizes provide us with evidence of visions of creative possibilities of the architects of interwar Belgrade, the basic features of which were creatively expressed facadism and reduced interpolations. Implicitly, the award also expressed the full social momentum of some of the new ambitions of the citizenry: the desire for representativeness, and confirmation of the position in the new system of neo-romantic national aspirations melded with an aspiration to conform to the trends of the modern European urban spirit.