Between the universal and the authentic: On the architecture of the warrior’s home in Belgrade

Abstract

The Warrior’s Home in Belgrade, for which an architectural competition was organized in the spring of 1929 and which was built two years later according to the project made by Belgrade architects Jovan Jovanović and Živojin Piperski, is not only an important architectural monument, but a significant testimony to the official Yugoslav ideology at the time of the so-called "January regime", established in 1929. However, not only the constructed edifice, but also the awarded and purchased works, as well as public assessments voiced by contemporaries, form a vivid and striking picture of the army’s cultural and political role in the social life of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes/Yugoslavia. In that sense, especially indicative are the works awarded at the competition, the condensation of which led to the final architectural solution, owing primarily to the instructions of the Committee for the construction of the Home. The fact that the project of architects Bogdan Nestorović and Jovan Šnajder in the "Byzantine-Romanesque" style received an equal evaluation as did the academic solution of Jovan Jovanović and Živojin Piperski, shaped through a syntax of neo historical styles, is especially symptomatic. It attests to different visions of the suitable Yugoslav tradition lying at the very core of the ideological apparatus of the Army of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia – the central institution of the Yugoslav society. Apart from architecture, this is also attested to by the developed iconographic program of the facade sculpture which was never realized. For this reason, the Warrior’s Home in Belgrade can be considered as a unique example of the ideological interaction of architecture and sculpture, and a good example of the role of architecture in the shaping of perceptions of collective identity.

Tekst govori o arhitektonskom konkursu za zgradu Ratničkog doma u Beogradu (1929-1931), o arhitekturi nagrađenih radova i izvedene građevine, sa aspekta stvaranja slike o vojsci kao centralnoj instituciji jugoslovenskog društva u vreme šestojanuarskog režima kralja Aleksandra I Karađorđevića. Arhitektonski i vizuelni identitet Ratničkog doma je jedan od upečatljivih primera konstruisanja inventovanih tradicija jugoslovenstva, a njegova ideološka aura neobično značajno svedočanstvo uloge arhitekture u stvaranju i prikazivanju ideologije integralnog jugoslovenstva.