Knez Mihailova Street

 

It is a pedestrian zone and shopping center - protected by law as one of the oldest and most valuable monumental complexes of the city, with a large number of representative buildings and urban houses built at the end of 1870s. It is thought that in as early as the Roman times there was the center of the Singidunum settlement. In this area, at the time of Turks, there were winding streets with gardens, drinking-fountains and mosques. In the middle XIX century, in the upper part of the street was the garden of Knez Aleksandar Karađorđević. After the making of the regulation plan of Belgrade in 1867, by Emilijan Josimović, the street has soon been built and gained its physionomy and content. The houses have been built there and the most influential and wealthiest families of the commercial and political society of Belgrade have come to live there. In 1870, the city authorities officially gave a name to this street - Ulica Kneza Mihaila.

THE "SRPSKA KRUNA" HOTEL, Knez Mihailova 56, was built in 1869 in the style of romantism, as a most modern hotel of Belgrade. Between 1945 and 1970 the National Library of Serbia was located in this building, and now there is the Library of the City of Belgrade.

MARKO STOJANOVIĆ'S HOUSE, Knez Mihailova 53-55, built about 1889 as a private home of the lawyer Marko Stojanović, in the renaissance style. Here used to be the Academy of Fine Arts, established in 1937, and now there is the Gallery of the Academy.

THE BLOCK OF URBAN HOUSES, Knez Mihailova 50, 48 and 46, built in 1870s, represented the beginning of discontinuity of traditional "Balkan" architecture. All those buildings have been shaped in the same manner, a transitional style from romantism to renaissance. The block consists of three buildings:

The HOUSE of HRISTINA KUMANUDI, No. 50, was built in 1870 as a corner building at the intersection of Kneza Mihaila and Dubrovačka streets. For a certain period, this building was the residence of the French-Serbian Bank, and later of the consulates of Belgium and Great Britain.

KRISTINA MEHANA, No. 48, built in 1869 as an administrative-commercial building in which Krstić brothers have opened a hotel under the same name, and where the meetings of the City Assembly took place until the construction of the Assembly's building.

VELJKO SAVIVĆ'S HOUSE, No. 46, built in 1869 as a residential house with shops. It went under many changes of its original look.

THE BUILDING OF THE SERBIAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCES AND ARTS, Knez Mihailova 35, built in 1923-1924, by the plans of 1912 made by Dragutin Đorđević and Andra Stevanović, in style of academism with elements of secession. The building houses: the Library of the Academy, one of the richest in Belgrade; The Archive of the Academy with numerous materials about the history of Serbia; the Gallery of the Academy on the ground floor, with a special lecture hall, the bookstore and the antique shop.

ENDOWMENT OF NIKOLA SPASIĆ, Knez Mihailova 33, built in 1889, by the designs of the architect Konstantin Jovanović in renaissance style. as a residential house of Belgrade merchant Nikola Spasić.

PASSAGE OF NIKOLA SPASIĆ, Knez Mihailova 19, built in 1912 in recession style.

"GRČKA KRALJICA" RESTAURANT, Knez Mihailova 51, built in 1835 in style of academism.

"RUSIJA" HOTEL, Knez Mihailova 38, built about 1870 and annexed in 1920. Today it houses business offices of the "Rudnap" company.