Transposition of the ethos of Italian-Mediterranean architecture in the early projects of Milan Zloković

Abstract

The research of work of the architect Milan Zloković (1898, Trieste - 1965, Belgrade) so far has focused mostly towards analysis of his projects which are key to the study of the modern movement in architecture in Serbia and the region. This paper, however, opens a line of inquiry which focuses on another feature of his creative disposition, which has been overlooked to some extent. It is argued that this sensibility, which characterises his early projects of the 1920s, owes much to his Mediterranean ancestry and upbringing in Italy. In his projects this feature corresponds to a certain transhistorical interpretation and transposition of cultural, artistic and tectonic principles of the Italian-Mediterranean architecture. In the architecture of the regions of Italy which were under the Austro- Hungarian rule until its break-up in WW1 and particularly in Trieste, where the architect was born and lived until he left for university studies, Central European and especially Viennese cultural influences mix with those of Italian and Mediterranean origin. The aim of this article is to examine this very feature of Zloković's designs in relation to historical and cultural context of Trieste architecture at the turn of the 20th century. The analysis of Zloković's early projects is based on study of primary sources, i. e., projects and photographic documentation from the architect's family archive, as well as on secondary sources on Trieste architecture. In a more general sense, this article on the polyvalent foundation of Belgrade modern movement aims to expand the referential and interpretative field of research of modernist discourse in which architect Zloković had a key role.