The Government Building (), formally the Government of the Republic of Serbia Building () is the seat of the

Government of Serbia The government of Serbia ( sr-cyrl, Влада Србије, Vlada Srbije), formally the Government of the Republic of Serbia ( sr-cyrl, Влада Републике Србије, Vlada Republike Srbije), commonly abbreviated to Serbian Governme ...

. It houses the office of the

Prime Minister A prime minister or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. A prime minister is not the head of state, but r ...

as well as the Secretariat-General of the Government, and serves as a meeting place of

cabinet of ministers A cabinet in governing is a group of people with the constitutional or legal task to rule a country or state, or advise a head of state, usually from the executive branch. Their members are known as ministers and secretaries and they are ...

. It is located in

Savski Venac Savski Venac ( sr-cyr, Савски Венац, ) is a municipality of the city of Belgrade. According to the 2022 census results, the municipality has a population of 36,699 inhabitants. It is one of the three municipalities which constitute the ...

Belgrade Belgrade is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Serbia, largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers and at the crossroads of the Pannonian Basin, Pannonian Plain and the Balkan Peninsula. T ...

Name

The official name of the building is Palace of the Ministry of Finance of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia () as it was originally used by the Ministry of Finance of the

Kingdom of Yugoslavia The Kingdom of Yugoslavia was a country in Southeast Europe, Southeast and Central Europe that existed from 1918 until 1941. From 1918 to 1929, it was officially called the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, but the term "Yugoslavia" () h ...

and is registered by that name in the Registry of Cultural Properties. After World War II, the building housed the Government of Serbia: the Executive Council of People's/Socialist Republic of Serbia, as it was called from 1953 to 1991, and since 1991 the Government of the Republic of Serbia. Therefore building is known to the general public as the Government Building (previously the Executive Council Building) and named as such in public space.

History

The monumental palace was built between 1926 and 1928 according to the project of Nikolay Krasnov. Building was originally used by the Ministry of Finance of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and after the World War II it housed the Executive Council of People's/Socialist Republic of Serbia, and since 1991 the Government of the Republic of Serbia. In 1999 during the

NATO bombing of Yugoslavia The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) carried out an aerial bombing campaign against the Serbia and Montenegro, Federal Republic of Yugoslavia during the Kosovo War. The air strikes lasted from 24 March 1999 to 10 June 1999. The bombing ...

, the building was bombed and damaged, but renovated in period 2000-2002.

Architecture

The building is designed by the Russian architect Nikolay Krasnov, the most important representative of the academic historicism in the Serbian interwar architecture. Due to the importance that the building has as an anthological work of Belgrade academic interwar architecture, it represents the immovable cultural property as the

cultural monument A national heritage site is a heritage site having a value that has been registered by a governmental agency as being of national importance to the cultural heritage or history of that country. Usually such sites are listed in a heritage registe ...

. The building is conceived as the monumental object at the crossroads of the busy Knez Miloš Street and Nemanjina Street. It has the square-shaped basis with the spacious inner courtyard. The interior was designed according to its purpose. The exquisite artistry of the facades reflects in the richness of the decorative architectural plastic, a number of details, studied ratio between the masses. The dynamic facades, designed in the style of аcademism, have massive

pilaster In architecture, a pilaster is both a load-bearing section of thickened wall or column integrated into a wall, and a purely decorative element in classical architecture which gives the appearance of a supporting column and articulates an ext ...

s, between the first and the second floor windows. The most luxurious is the corner part of the building, where the vertical effect is underlined by the

dome A dome () is an architectural element similar to the hollow upper half of a sphere. There is significant overlap with the term cupola, which may also refer to a dome or a structure on top of a dome. The precise definition of a dome has been a m ...

with the bronze sculpture on its top – the personification of

Mother Serbia Mother Serbia ( / ''Majka Srbija''; Србија мати / ''Srbija mati'' ), Serb Mother (Serbian: Српска мајка / ''Srpska majka'') or Mother of All Serbs (Serbian: Мајка свих Срба / ''Majka svih Srba''), is a female nat ...

). This sculpture, as well as other free standing sculptures on the facades of the building, Fertility with cornucopia, Crafts, Industry and Mercury were the works of a sculptor Đorđe Jovanović.I. Grgurić and S. Čamber: Еlectronic catalogue of the exhibition number 185, Đorđe Jovanović (1861–1953), Novi Sad 2011 The choice of motifs and the symbols of the facade sculptures as well as the symbolism of the motifs was determined by the activity of the institution the building was initially intended for, the Ministry of Finance of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.

Gallery

File:Dome of the government building, Belgrade, Serbia.jpg, Dome with ''

'' sculpture on top File:Маскарон на Палате Министарства финансија Краљевине Југославије.jpg, Detail on facade

References

External links