Steam Bath of the Brothers Krsmanović

Steam Bath of Brothers Krsmanović
Парно купатило браће Крсмановић
Parno kupatilo braće Krsmanović
Steam Bath of Brothers Krsmanović
General information
Type Cultural monument
Location Stari Grad, Belgrade
Country Serbia
Coordinates 44°49′19″N 20°27′47″E / 44.822079°N 20.462959°E / 44.822079; 20.462959Coordinates: 44°49′19″N 20°27′47″E / 44.822079°N 20.462959°E / 44.822079; 20.462959
Construction started 1901
Completed 1920s

The Steam Bath of Brothers Krsmanović is the former public bath in Belgrade, the capital of Serbia. Built from 1901 to the 1920s around the former Turkish bath from the 18th century, it was the last operational public bath in Belgrade, until it was closed in 2004. In 2001 the edifice was declared a cultural monument.[1]

Location

The bath is located at 45 Cara Dušana street.[1][2] It is situated in the Stari Grad municipality's neighborhood of Dorćol.[3]

History

The predecessor of the modern bath was a former hamam, or the Turkish bath. Called "Small Hamam", it was recorded in the Turkish plan from 1863,[4] but it probably originated from the 18th century.[1][2]

The present complex of the Steam Bath of Brothers Krsmanović began to develop in 1901 around the former hamam and it was finished by the 1920s. The venue was later renamed the "Public hot bath Dunav". In 2004 the facility was closed due to the safety concerns as the standards for the safe public use, both for the building and the instalastions, were not reached. Also, the profitability was low, which was one of the reasons that all other bathhouses were closed in Belgrade. Users of the bath were of low economic stature in general: people who had no bathrooms in their houses, poor and homeless people, students, pensioners, seasonal workers, sellers on the green markets who slept in trucks or market stalls, etc.[2]

The house was declared a cultural monument in 2001.[5] After closing, the venue was occasionally loaned by the city government, for the music videos productions, private parties, exhibitions and as the movie sets, but by 2017 the facility deteriorated a lot.[2]

Architecture

The house was designed in the style of Academism. It is projected as the ground-floor building with an emphasized side avant-corps, which ends with a balustrade in the zone of the roof. In the central part of the symmetrical façade lies a portal that ends with a semicircular shape, surmounted by a triangular pediment. Shallow pilasters with decoratively processed capitals separate windows topped by triangular tympanums.[1]

On the inside, a circular hamam pool and a smaller polygonal pool with cold water are located in the center. The bases of the facility with the circular pool, as well as the canals below the pool, are the remains of the former Turkish "Little Hamam".[1][2]

Future

In 2008, city government decided to do something with the facility and the architectural design competition for the best solution was set. Three projects were chosen, but nothing has done. In 2012, the Red Cross of the Palilula municipality started an initiative to reopen the bath, as it was estimated that there are 3,000-5,000 homeless people in Belgrade who can't have a bath anywhere else. The Ministry of Culture later announced an idea of turning the bath into the international cultural center so the stuff members from the embassies of Austria, France, Turkey and Iran visited the venue. The idea was revived by Gunnar B. Kvaran, director of the Oslo's Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, who visited the bath in July 2017.[2] In October 2017, during the visit of the high state delegation from Ankara, Serbian and Turkish governments signed a memorandum on restoration of the object, but the details were not disclosed.[6]

See also

  • List of cultural monuments in Belgrade

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 "Parno kupatilo braće Krsmanović" (in Serbian and English). Cultural properties in Belgrade.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Daliborka Mučibabić (18 July 2017), "Umesto javnog kupatila - kulturni centar", Politika (in Serbian), p. 17
  3. ↑ Beograd - plan grada. M@gic M@p. 2006. ISBN 86-83501-53-1.
  4. ↑ "Dossier of the Cultural Monument Steam Bath of Brothers Krsmanović". "Srpske novine". 1868.
  5. ↑ Službeni glasnik Republike Srbije, No. 32/01. Službeni glasnik. 2001.
  6. ↑ Milan Janković (16 October 2017), "Od jedan do pet - Parno kupatilo" [One to five - Steam bath], Politika (in Serbian), p. 14
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