Trg Nikole Pašića 13, Belgrade, Serbia
The House of the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia is located on Nikola Pašić Square in Belgrade. Originally known as the Assembly of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia from 1936 to 1945, it was then renamed the Federal Assembly. This new name was retained during the existence of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, and later the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. After the dissolution of the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro on July 23, 2006, this House became the official building of the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia.
Construction of the parliament took a very long time, almost 30 years. The cornerstone was laid on August 27, 1907, by King Peter I of Serbia Karađorđević, but construction was interrupted by the outbreak of the First World War. Work did not resume immediately after the war ended, so construction was not completed until 1936, and the first session of the National Assembly of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in this building took place on October 21, 1936. The parliament building was designed by architect Jovan Ilkić, who died in 1917, not living to see the completion of the construction.
The area where the House of the National Assembly stands today was a wasteland overgrown with weeds at the start of construction in 1907. In the first half of the 19th century, one of the most beautiful Turkish mosques in Belgrade was being built here, but its construction was abandoned and it stood unfinished for a long time, earning the name Batal Mosque, from the Turkish word "batal" meaning destroyed or abandoned. Next to the mosque ran the Constantinople drum, which followed the current route of King Alexander Boulevard. On the clearing near the mosque and on the site of the current House of the National Assembly, the Great National Assembly of Serbia was held in 1830, during which the hatt-i sharif of the Turkish Sultan Mahmud II on the rights of Serbs and the Sultan’s beret confirming the rights of heir Prince Miloš Obrenović were read. After the Turks left Serbia in 1867, the Batal Mosque was demolished, but the entire area was still called by its name for a long time.
The old National Assembly building was located on the site of the current Odeon cinema, at the corner of Queen Natalia and Prince Miloš streets; it was a modest building. At the same time, with the gaining of state independence and then the proclamation of the Kingdom of Serbia in 1882, the appearance of this building became unworthy of the parliament of a sovereign state. Then the need arose to build a new Assembly building, so a wasteland next to the former Batal Mosque was chosen for its location; at that time, this was the border of the built-up part of the Belgrade town.
In 1892, the Ministry of Construction of the Kingdom of Serbia commissioned architect Konstantin Jovanović to develop the project for the new assembly, who had previously designed the National Bank building as well as other public buildings. Due to political upheavals and financial reasons, construction was postponed for several years. However, with the adoption of the new Constitution in 1901, the National Assembly became a bicameral parliament and urgently required a new building that could unite the National Assembly, the Senate, and the State Council under one roof. Therefore, in the same year, the Ministry of Construction announced a new competition for the project “House of the People’s Representatives.” This competition was won by Belgrade architect Jovan Ilkić, whose project largely relied on the conceptual designs of Jovanović from 1892. Due to the similarity of the two projects, it was criticized by the public, who questioned the originality of the authorship and suggested announcing a new competition that would provide for the construction of the Assembly building in a national style.
The dynastic change of 1903 and the adoption of a new Constitution, which again made the National Assembly unicameral, did not lead to changes in the project developed by Jovan Ilkić. Nevertheless, political problems delayed the start of construction, which began only in 1907. The laying of the cornerstone took place on August 27, 1907, in the presence of King Peter I Karađorđević and Crown Prince George, deputies, and the diplomatic corps. The charter laid in the foundation on this occasion contained the names of the king, the metropolitan, and the chief architect Jovan Ilkić.
Construction proceeded very slowly, so by 1910 only the basement floor of the building was completed. By the end of the First World War in 1918, the building had been constructed only up to the level of the first floor. After the war ended and the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes was formed, it was decided to continue the work. Due to the death of architect Ilkić, the leadership of the works was entrusted to his son, architect Pavle Ilkić. Construction resumed in 1920 according to updated plans. First, it was necessary to restore the completed parts, which had begun to deteriorate because they had not been protected in any way during the four years of war.
The resumed construction of the House of the National Assembly also proceeded slowly and continued until 1926, when it was completely stopped. One of the reasons cited for the slow construction was King Alexander Karađorđević’s fear that the building was haunted and that he would die after its completion. Some contemporaries supported the story of the “haunted building” with the tale that construction began in the wrong place—because, according to folk custom, the house was not enclosed by a wall at the crossroads of roads, and also because it was once the site of one of three Roman necropolises. These latter accusations were confirmed in 1993 when parts of a necropolis with 13 graves dating to the second half of the second century BC were discovered during the laying of communications for the Assembly building. Considering that on January 6, 1929, King Alexander dissolved parliament, the need for the construction of a parliamentary building became less and less.
The third phase of construction began after the death of King Alexander in 1934. From spring 1935, the contractor became the architectural department of the Ministry of Construction, and the chief designer of this department was Russian architect Nikolai Krasnov.
He was a Russian émigré who, over his thirty-year career, earned the title “Architect of the Russian Imperial Court,” and later “Academician of Architecture.” Krasnov made a special contribution to the representativeness of the project’s interior, working out all its details. In less than two years, construction was completed, and the Palace of the National Assembly was solemnly consecrated on October 18, 1936, in the presence of King Peter II Karađorđević. The very next day, the first session was held in the new building, namely the last session of the old parliament. Two days later, on October 21, 1936, the first session of the National Assembly of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia took place with the presence of all members of the then government of Milan Stojadinović.
The decoration includes sculptures by the most famous Yugoslav sculptors of that time. In front of the main entrance in 1939, two large decorative bronze sculptural groups titled “The Play of the Black Stallion” by sculptor Toma Rosandić were installed.
The House of the National Assembly survived the German bombing on April 6, 1941, almost unharmed. Immediately after the occupation of Belgrade, the civil occupation administration of Serbia moved into this building. The Assembly building remained undamaged during the Allied bombings in April 1944, as well as during the battles for the liberation of Belgrade in October 1944, and it was not damaged during the NATO bombings in 1999 either.
Sources:
https://sr.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_the_National_Assembly_of_the_Republic_of_Serbia
https://beogradskonasledje.rs/kd/zavod/stari_grad/zgrada_narodne_skupstine.html
