The endowment edifices of Nikola Spasic and his fund in Knez-Mihailova street

• Main Author: Borić Tijana
• Format: Article
• Language: srp
• Published: Institute of Architecture and Urban and Spatial Planning of Serbia 2002-01-01
• Series: Arhitektura i Urbanizam
• Subjects: XIX century; academism; endowment; Nikola Spasic
• Online Access: http://scindeks-clanci.ceon.rs/data/pdf/0354-6055/2002/0354-60550210066B.pdf
• ISSN: 0354-6055; 2217-8074

Nikola Spasic (1838-1916), famous merchant and Serbian benefactor, gave a tremendous contribution to the architectural development of our recent past The area of Knez-Mihailova street preserves four magnificent edifices that Nikola Spasic bequeathed to the Serbian people, and those buildings are Spasic’s family house, the House of Serbian National Invalid Fund Saint George, Sloga palace and Grand passage. The plans for these buildings were drawn up by the most notable Serbian architects during the times of extreme scarcity and difficulties. Therefore, Spasic’s endowment edifices represent important testimony of the genesis of Serbian capital urban tissue. The creation of modern city and an uncritical hostile attitude toward the monuments of the epoch of academism, as well as the insufficiently researched field of our recent architectural past, have altogether made that many of valuable buildings have been destroyed or lost over the time. Because of carelessness and ignorance, Spasic’s endowment edifices sank into oblivion and reached us as neglected and of changed form. Nowadays, when the professional architectural revision of the role of the past is undertaken the researches of these important monuments, their evaluation and quality contribute to the creation of the proper critical judgment about our architecture.