"Mihailo Petrović Alas" House in Belgrade

In Belgrade guides I often saw the pictures of this interesting window with checker-board rondelle above, and I always kept in mind, that I wanted to know more about it.

Mihailo Petrovic House in Kosancicev Venac

The window belongs to the House of Mihailo Petrovic (Mihailo Alas) and is located in the Kosancicev Venac neighbourhood of Belgrade.
This was the neighborhood where Mihailo Petrovic lived his whole life. He was a famous Serbian mathematician, one of the pioneers of cybernetics whose work significantly contributed to the construction of the calculator.
Modest in his private life, Petrovic who was also a professor, was well known and respected in Belgrade.
As an enthusiastic angler he was nicknamed Mika Alas. His home (Kosancicev Venac street 22) was designed by architect Petar Bajalovic in a spirit of symbiosis blending secessionist floral motifs with elements of Serbo-Byzantine style. The only condition Petrovic set for the architect was for his room to have a balcony with a view of the Sava river.
This is the story behind this peculiar balcony!

pictures from inocha

Petar Bajalovic who designed this house in 1910, was a violinist and photographer by avocation; as an architect he remained loyal to the principles of Eclectic-Renaissance-Secession architecture.

He built the Serbian pavilion for the International Exhibition of Liberal Arts in Rome in 1912 and designed also some other wellknown buildings:


The Kolarac Foundation (Kolarceva zaduzbina)

The building on Studentski trg 5 in Belgrade, was erected by the great Belgrade philanthropist Ilija Milosavljevic Kolarac (here the website of the foundation). Here Bajalovic experimented with Academic style. A large concert hall with excellent acoustics is located in there, and also an art gallery.

The beautiful interiors of the foundation

The faculty of law building of the university of Belgrade

Also this building was made in academic style with classic elements (built in 1941).