Obilićev Venac
Obilićev Venac (Serbian Cyrillic: Обилићев венац), a pedestrian and shopping zone, is located in the city center of Belgrade, Serbia, within the Knez Mihailova Street spatial unit protected by law, and contains a number of residential and office buildings dating from 1900 to 2000.
In Ancient times the area of the street, due to the specific layout of the terrain, used the highest point as the communication route, namely the ridge that slopes gently downwards towards the Sava riverbank.
Six and a half decades later, through the devastated fields at Obilićev Venac, the Turkish conquerors commanded by Suleyman the Magnificent finally conquered Belgrade on August 29, 1521.
During his reign the so-called "Upper Town" was formed, spreading on both sides of the centrally located Turkish cemetery, between today's Knez Mihailova and Braće Jugovića streets.
[3] Generally speaking, during the Turkish occupation a residential and business "oriental style" quarter arose in this vacant area, with gardens, a meyhane, caravanserai, hospital, fountain and a mosque.
Alongside the waterworks route which coincided with Knez Mihailova Street five mosques were built, and around them homonymous quarters were formed, so-called mahalas.
Most important was "Ibrahim Bey's" mosque on the corner of Obilićev Venac and Knez Mihailova streets (where the former "TA-TA" later "Robne kuće Beograd" department store once stood).
[4] According to the famous geologist and sociologist between the two World Wars Chemso Derwichevitch, this mosque was built between 1572 and 1582.;[5] it was also mentioned at the end of the 17th century by leading European geographers such as Gumpp and the "Italian plans of Belgrade.
[6] Although it is currently unknown who Ibrahim Bey actually was, we can conclude that he was an important figure and that the building of the bimarhane or hospital next to the mosque itself, and of the large caravanserai across from it, where the Ruski car tavern stands today, can both be attributed to him.
Careful analysis of the "Talijanski Plan" from 1696 reveals that after Belgrade was conquered by Maximilian Emanuel (September 6, 1688) numerous quarters, "mahalas", were torn down, and among them Obilićev Venac was particularly devastated.
During the relatively short Austrian rule 1717–1739, through urban planning reconstruction Obilićev Venac acquired its basic and recognizable today's direction, which it retained in the structure of the street until 1867.
A number of important public buildings were built in the purest Baroque architecture style during the period of the Austrian presence in Belgrade (1717–1739); among the most important buildings to be quoted were "The Charles VIth Gate" in lower part of the today's Kalemegdan Park and the "Carl Alexander of Wurttemberg Palace and Barracks" on the corner of Obilicev venac and Knez Mihailova streets (today the 'Glamour Perfumes Shop"), etc.
[8] The Alexander von Wurttemberg barracks formed the largest building in Belgrade, completely dominating not only the street's but also the city's architecture as a whole.
Emilijan Josimović's town reconstruction project from 1867 implemented that concept for the next fifteen years or so, giving Obilićev Venac the appearance it has today.
[11] The dynamic development of Belgrade between 1900 and 1940 completed the spatial forming of Obilićev Venac, replacing most of the houses with multi-storey buildings in the style of Secession, Art Deco and Modernism.
There, the secret police imprisoned, interrogated and, especially in the early years, murdered citizens, often claiming they committed suicide jumping out the windows.
In Jakšićeva Street (today Đure Jakšića), just next to the corner with the Obilićev Venac, he built a house during the Interbellum, with an intention that the cellar of the building will be used as a Freemasons' temple.
In the 15 years of existence, ARTA gathered a membership of 1,000, published 104 graphics from 49 artists and printed 20,000 pages of works about arts, half of which was distributed abroad.
Over 1,500 artist exhibited their works, performed or held literary evenings in the gallery, including Serbian and Yugoslav artists Vladimir Veličković, Stojan Ćelić, Leonid Šejka, Sreten Stojanović, Mladen Srbinović, Milo Milunović, Dado Đurić, Veljko Petrović, Duško Radović, Brana Crnčević, Matija Bećković, Ljubivoje Ršumović, Zuko Džumhur, Radomir Stević Ras and Ljubica Sokić, but also the world-renowned artists like Victor Vasarely, Marc Chagall, Salvador Dalí, Jiří Anderle, Wisława Szymborska, Albín Brunovský, Henry Moore and Robert Motherwell.
In March 2017, "Feniks" asked the gallery "Grafički Kolektiv" to move out of the premises by the end of 2018 in order to open a pastry shop in 2019[22][23] Deadline was then shortened to June 2018.
