Hotel Moskva

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Hotel Moskva
Hotel Moskva

Hotel Moskva

Data
place Belgrade , Serbia
architect Jovan Ilkić
Construction year 1908

The Hotel Moskva , the former Rosija Palace , is a hotel and former building of the insurance company Rosija in  Belgrade . It is located on the corner of Terazije and Balkanska ulica street. The building was designed by the architect  Jovan Ilkić  and a group of architects from Saint Petersburg . Construction of the palace began in the spring of 1905, and the palace was officially opened on January 14, 1908. It was the largest private building in the Serbian Kingdom. It was in Terazije Square, about a hundred meters from the Royal Palace. The building had the inscription on its walls: Rosija Palace .

construction

Image of the Moskva hotel at night

The director of the Serbian Shipping Company, Svetozar Vukadinović, owner of the Velika Srbija (Big Serbia) inn on Terazije Square, traveled to Russia to find an insurance company that would build a magnificent building on its property. The general director of the Rosija company, Roman Ivanovič Poicl, agreed to the idea of ​​Vukadinovć. The tender for the building of the Rosija insurance company was announced in 1905. In this tender, the architect from Zagreb, Viktor Kovačić, won the first prize, while Jovan Ilkić received the second prize. The management of the insurance company Rosija decided in favor of the Ilkić project anyway.

Construction of the palace began in March 1905. 82 wooden beams, each five meters long and 30 centimeters wide, 30 wagons of welded iron rods with a length of nine meters each and ten wagons made of hard Ripanj stone were used in the foundation. A 2.2 meter thick concrete slab was placed on top. The brick building did not start until spring 1906. The work was carried out by the builder Karlo Knoll together with bricklayers from  Crna Trava . The monitoring engineer was the architect Jovan Ilkić. The reinforced concrete work was in charge of the architect Matija Schneider. From the first floor to the roof, the surface of the outer walls is covered with yellowish tiles and decorated with green-colored ornaments. The ceramic cladding comes from  the Zsolnay factory in Pécs , where the molds used to cast it are still kept today. The building was built in the style of the secession.

The stairs are made of Swedish granite and Ripanj granite. The total value of the building was two million gold dinars. The structure was completely completed in 1907. For the time it was the largest hotel in Belgrade with 50 beds and rooms on all three floors.

The building of the Hotel Moskva achieved a high degree of stylistic emancipation of this time and approached the approaches of modern architecture. The wallcovering has been stripped of the horizontal dividing wreaths, the plastic around the opening and the pilasters . The use of marble, ceramic tiles and faience for the facade cladding marked the adoption of the secession approach of using new, noble materials for a longer period of time. Most of the free facade area is paneled with green ceramic tiles, which is why the building is one of the rare ones in Belgrade that has a chromatic facade. The turnaround in the Belgrade Secession was branded by the building of the insurance company Rosija, Hotel Moskva. 

opening

The opening ceremony was carried out in two parts. On the day of the Serbian New Year, January 14, 1908, King Petar I. Karadjordjević and the court orchestra opened the Rosija Palace with the Moskva inn. On January 17, 1908, there was also a grand opening and celebration with a concert by the royal guards.

The Rosija Palace housed a hotel, an inn, a restaurant, rental apartments and the offices of the Belgrade branch of the Rosija insurance company, whose director was Svetozar Vukadinović. The construction of the Rosija Palace was a great economic, but also a political, Russian investment in the Serbian Kingdom, which did not meet the wishes of the other great powers.

The building was badly damaged by bombing in April 1941.

The renovation of the hotel was completed in 2013 after almost four years of work.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ N. Nestorović, The Buildings and Architects in Belgrade in the Last Century, Belgrade, 1937.
  2. Dj. Sikimić, The facade sculpture in Belgrade, ZZSKGB, Belgrade 1965.
  3. S. Mihajlov, Hotel Moskva, ZZSKG, Belgrade 2009.
  4. The new splendor of the old "Moskva" , "Večernje novosti" (evening newspaper), August 2, 2013

Coordinates: 44 ° 48 ′ 46.5 ″  N , 20 ° 27 ′ 37.5 ″  E