Arhitektura i Urbanizam (Jan 2006)
Yugoslav United Bank by the architect Hugo Erlih
Abstract
In this paper there are presented some of the basic research guidelines on architecture of banks and savings banks which operated in Belgrade in the period between the two World Wars. By critical retrospective of the building of Yugoslav United Bank in Belgrade, which was designed by Hugo Erlih, an additional step was made in exploration of capital’s architecture of banks and savings banks through historical and morphological analysis of this type of constructions, as well as it was made a monograph retrospective for this author. The expansion of banks and savings banks’ architecture in the Interwar period of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, had made a positive influence on further shaping of urban milieu in larger cities of the Kingdom, e.g. Ljubljana, Zagreb, Sarajevo, Belgrade, Skoplje, etc. A special mark in this field was made by the architects of an older generation which was formed in the European cultural centers before the First World War, who nurtured traditional form and academic concept of building development. In the Interwar period, a new generation of architects who were primarily educated in German centers, brought to some new architectural tendencies in our national surroundings, which were in contrast to the governing traditionalism. Hugo Erlih, the Croatian architect, had created a few prominent bank and bank savings’ buildings, mainly in Zagreb, yet he fostered the ideas of an older generation of architects by predominantly following the eclectic manner. Thus, the building of Yugoslav United Bank in Belgrade represents the first creation of this architect which was made in style of modern architecture, characterized by simplicity founded on ideas of the European modern architects, which Erlih didn’t conceal. At the same time, the Yugoslav United Bank represents one of the first constructions in Belgrade which were raised in style of modern architecture that was fostered by a small number of Serbian architects at the beginning of the 1930s. A synthetic review of the Croatian architect’s work, who in the capital city of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia designed this building as a modern architecture creation, surely deserves an additional attention and the more thorough exploration of the available information.
