Palace Igumanov Attraction

Belgrade Attractions - Palace Igumanov from the list Belgrade Attractions, located on the Terazije street in Belgrade, built in 1938, was designed by architects Petar and Branko Krstic, in the style of modernism. It was built by Sima Andrejevic Igumanov (1804-1882), a Serbian merchant and a great benefactor. Palace Igumanov from the list Belgrade Attractions was built in the time of intensive efforts to  build up Terazije and make it representative, which in the interwar period became the city center.

The endowment of tradesman Sima Igumanov, a Prizrenian, announced a competition, for projecting the palace, at the end of 1935. The competition was led by Pera Popović, a supporter of the Serbian-Byzantine style, and invited architects Aleksandar Deroko and Petar and Branko Krstić to the competition. The request for the project was for it to be a monumental palace in the required style. The work of brothers Krstic was a modernized version of Serbo-Byzantine style, with wide arcades on the ground floor. It won the competition and in 1936 the development of the main project began.

During the elaboration of the project, the architects Krstic dropped the non-functional elements, such as the arcade on the ground floor and finally completed the design at of the end of 1936. Construction began in 1937 and was completed in April 1938. Even during the construction  some minor corrections were made, and immediately after the Second World War some minor modification were made on the ground floor rooms. Palace Igumanov  is an angular five storey building. The decorative motif of the curved and elongated opening derives from the Serbian-Byzantine style, and the architects confronted it with the formal qualities of modernism - the marble facade wraps, rows of rectangular windows on the top floor, a bright canopy on the ground floor, the decorative porthole windows on the top of the building and the decorative flag rods. The ground floor  is a commercial space, while the upper storeys are residential. The materials that were used meet the standards of the period in which the facility is built. Entrances to the building are processed in decorative plaster and stucco marble. The facade of the building has the inscription: "Foundation of Sima Andrejević Igumanov, a Prizrenian".