Modern Pirot Buildings

Highrises in Pirot

Pirot is a really interesting town regarding architecture. You can find well kept precious traditional buildings in a typical South-Eastern Serbian style (like I show in my last post). But there are plenty of good modern buildings as well, in fact the very center is a modern cluster of interesting 70'/80's- building.

TV Pirot Building on the main sqare: concrete structure and geometrical shapes

More peculiar buildings on the main sqare

A few years ago, Pirot underwent again remodelling of the city center. The main square was given a new look: green isles, some new planted trees, fountains, light and a lot of concrete should spruce up the city center.

a city square in a modern manner

Only after sundown people start to visit the square, in summer the hot stones and big concrete surfaces do not invite for a stay

The Square feels empty due to lack of shade and cozy corners. Also an atmosphere killer is the huge empty "Hotel Pirot" on the head of the square. The beautiful building is unfortunately closed and needs renovation works.

Beautiful but not in use: Hotel Pirot

Spooky exposure on the mains Square

The empty building is on a fantastic location: Full City Center!

Behind the empty building there is a extension of the main square......

....the extension looks like this: a "modern" pedestrian zone (from the 70's)

boardwalk behind the main square

the older modern buildings are being complemented with newer pieces

the residential buildings in the same style

Traditional Pirot: Ponisavlje Museum

The birth-house of Hristic Family was earlier called Konak malog Riste and represents the best preserved cultural monument of Pirot's traditional architecture from the middle of 19th century. Since 1968 it's used as National Museum (Address: Nikole Pasica 49, Pirot) and desplays ethnografic items.

The building was built in 1848 by Pirot trader Hristo Jovanovic, as the most prestigous building in town. The edifice itself by its architecture and details has all characteristics of Balkan-oriental style.

This style was was typical for the period of Turkish domination throughout 19th century and usually buildings were made of a half-timbered construction, the so called bondruka construction (see here) and had typical outlets: verandas, porches, gazebos and wooden bow windows.

The interior were layed out with rugs (pirot cilims) covering the floors, walls and seats.

It's basically a type of symmetrical buildings almost a square floor plan with a cross hall. It consists of a basement, ground floor and first floor.  

On the bright white facades there are main decorative elements: wooden window frames and enhanced angles of the walls, covered with boards decorated with molded bars.

 

The museum shows oriental Balkan interiors and old hand-crafts of the region. Pirot is known for its artsy rugs the Cilim.

The beginning of Pirot rug weaving tradition dates back to the 16th century, followed by the sheep-breeding expansion and farming development. Ornaments, their shape and colors make Pirot's rug recognizable everywhere in the world. They are full of symbolism and have Byzantine, Greek, Chinese and Turkish elements modified by Pirot's spinners' imagination and skills. On Pirot's rug geometric motifs are dominating and one of the most often is a rhombus - ornament with pre-historic tradition that also appears on ceramics, metal and bronze. Stylized form of branched tree in many varieties could be found on all oriental rugs and it is familiar to all Eastern nations.

The most important thing when it comes to the rug quality is the wool. For Pirot Cilim the wool of the Stara Planina Mountain's sheep is used in the manufactures of Pirot.

Spinning is done by a spindle and a distaff. Thicker fibers are used for rug base and they are not colored, unlike the thinner ones which are used for woof. Spun wool from the spindle is rewound on winder for straightening and after that it is winded into spools, which are later painted and whitened. Women from villages used to paint wool by themselves in nut's and ash's barks, as well as in onion scales. It's been painted with natural colors for a long time, but recently aniline colors appeared. Old herbal colors were bright red (cinnabar), livid (indigo), bright blue and dark green, green, black, coffee-brown and yellow.(exerpts quoted from panacomp.net)

Communist Style Commercial Buildings

 Not only cool communist Style Hotels (like in my previous post here) are an obsession of mine, there are also the communist style shopping centers and commercial buildings that are enchanting to me! Almost every city in the former Yugoslavia has on the main street an empty building of the former chain of shops "Београд" (Beograd). The Beograd chain ("RKB") was established in 1965 and until during the 1980's was the most succsessful chain of shops in the country. Due to the bad economy and war of the 1990's the chain stroke up and later declared bancrupcy in 2002. Lately some of those empty shops are being converted into cheap Chinese Shops (like in my cover picture of Negotin, Eastern Serbia)

There are still a lot of cool buildings like that all over the Balkans. I tried to put some of the most interesting "робнe кућe" (department stores) into this post.

Shopping Center in Bar (Montenegro) picture source

The buildings look like landed U.F.O.s

This commercial building in Kragujevac (Central Serbia) looks like a beetle

(picture source)

 

 This is a department store in Prijedor (Republika Srpska) (picture source)

And this one is in Backa Palanka (picture source: vojvodina online)

 Beograd Trading Center in Sombor (Vojvodina, North-West Serbia) another closed Beograd branche store in the city center.

 

The Agrokomerc Commercial Building in Velika Kladusa (Bosnia & Herzegovina)

(picture source: vkladusa.com)

Fikret Abdić, the CEO of the farming conglomerate Agrokomerc, during the Bosnian War, declared his opposition to the Bosnian government, and founded the small, short-lived and unrecognized Autonomous Province of Western Bosnia in the northwest of Bosnia, composed of the town of Velika Kladuša and a few nearby villages. The mini state existed between 1993 and 1995 and it was allied with Army of Republika Srpska.Later he was convicted of war crimes against Bosniaks that were loyal to the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina

Robna Kuca Dvor (Hrvatska) (picture source) Facade with 3D effect!

 Robna Kuca Korzo in Rijeka (Croatia) (picture source) a radical facade!
 

Communist Style Hotels

 Hotel Krajina (Mrkonjic Grad)

My last post was about Hotel Sirmium in Sremska Mitrovica, a good example of a state own Hotel from the communist past. Those modern buildings tried to be an eye-catcher or by their size or by experimental shapes and details.
The Balkans are full of similar interesting Hotel buildings,and I'll post here the 4 Hotels I would like to see next:

Hotel Krajina Mrkonjic Grad (Republika Srpska)

postcard of Mrkonjic Grad (picture source)

Warn torn facade (picture source)

This Hotel hast been badly damaged during the war. Now it has been renovated and has about 20 rooms.

 The fan-shaped Hotel in an old postcard (picture source)

Website of the Hotel: http://www.tcbalkana.com/?do=krajina

Hotel Prijedor in Prijedor (Republika Srpska)

 Hotel Prijedor near the Sava river (picture source) 

Address: Srpskih velikana 14, tel. +387 52 231 176

It is the biggest Hotel in the area and over 100 rooms. The big impressing building reminds me of the nearby WW II Mrakovica Memorial at Kozara artist Dušan Džamonja.

During the Second World War, numerous civilians and children, mostly Serbs, were murdered by the Croatian Ustashas and the German Wehrmacht. The memorial is dedicated to this region's Yugoslav partisans resistance victims during WWII.


Hotel Pirot in Pirot (Serbia)

Very good example of an eye-catcher facade with partly edged windows and a cool color scheme (picture source)

Hotel Pirot on the main city square (gradski trg) is not working anymore. I plan to visit Pirot this summer. In the picture below I already see some super interesting buildings on the square near Hotel Pirot....

(picture source)

Hotel Zlatibor in Uzice (Serbia)

 Hotel Zlatibor (picture source)

This Hotel is my favorite: the rocket style shape, the grooved concrete soccle with the stylish letters and the obique windows in the second floors make me crazy! It has around 150 rooms and diverse restaurants, stores and ammenities in the ground floor.

Another view of this masterpiece! (picture from the Hotel website: http://hotel-zlatibor.com


Links to other post about great Hotels:

Hotel Petrus in Paracin

Hotel Palas in Mojkovac (Montenegro)

Hotel Srbija in Vrsac

Hotel Sirmium in Sremska Mitrovica

I have a crush on Communist-Style Hotel Architecture, and in the Balkan there are a lot of good examples of these state hotels (државни Хотел). Some still are run by the state and and just little investment has been done, so you can feel the atmosphere of the past time and enjoy on vintage design and architecture....

Last summer we made a family stop-over in Sremska Mitrovica and headed out for the local state-hotel "Hotel Sirmium" to stay for the night.

Hotel Sirmium is good example of a state hotel with the peculiarity that it has been built on the ruins of the „Imperial palace“ an archeological site of the famous ancient Roman city of Sirmium (today Sremska Mitrovica). That explains the random ancient pieces arranged around the reception.

 

The hotel has around 55 big rooms, the color concept is so old that it looks almost new again :-) The dark brown is used to pimp up the rooms....

 .....but it's also the main color concept for the bathrooms.

The roman theme is used in the restaurant: meandering pattern on the wall and some roman Art in soc-realist style...a funny combination.

A stroll in the city center shows another nice building from the communist past, a stylish commercial building! 

The rest of the city center is a picturesque mix of austro-hungarian baroque style and classic Vojvodina style.

Here some linksregarding Sremska Mitrovica:
Hotel Sirmium
Sremska Mitrovica 
Zasavica Nature Park 
Fruska Gora National Park Travel Guide 

More communist style Hotels:
Hotel Srbija in Vrsac 
Hotel Palas in Mojkovac (Montenegro)
Hotel Narcis Strpce