Trg vladike Nikolaja 4

“Old War Command”

The one-story building built between Beogradska Street and Prote Mihaldžić Street shapes the left side of the square, the former Parade Square, with its body. Although its original purpose has not been determined with certainty to this day, its very position opposite the building of the commander of the fortress (Comendanten und Generalat Hauss) indicates that it is an important building within the fortifications.
The information that speaks about one of the functions is the name of the object “Old War Command” from the map from 1901. Today it is an integral part of the Military Medical Center and houses the dental service and the military pharmacy.
The building consists of a ground floor and a first floor, and two separate basements located under the left and right sides of the street tract. The base of the building is in the form of an elongated rectangle with two smaller side wings and a central staircase annex. With the subsequent extension between the wing and the annex, the former porch of the corridor with arched openings became part of the interior of the newly formed rooms in the courtyard part, and the base of the building took the form of a rectangle. The rooms on the ground floor and on the first floor are divided into two tracts with a central corridor.

At the ground floor level, all rooms are under massive semi-circular vaults with vaulted branches, on the first floor with flat ceilings. The corridor is on the first floor and in the right part of the ground floor under half-shaped and shallow spherical vaults, while in the left part of the ground floor, which is uneven by three steps, it has a flat ceiling.

The roof is high, on two pitches, covered with new pepper tiles, while above the added parts of the courtyard, it is slightly inclined, almost flat and covered with sheet metal. The basements are of different heights and consist of a series of rooms under semi-shaped vaults with vaulted branches. The facades of the building are plastered flat with a multi-profiled attic cornice. The corners of the building and the semicircular entrance are emphasized by shallow pilasters. At one time, the entire plaster decoration was removed from the facade, including a particularly accented niche with the patron saint, which was located on the facade of Beogradska Street.

The restoration, but incomplete, was carried out only on the facade facing Prote Mihaldžića Street in 1968, when it was restored among the storey cornice, frames around the windows and part of the characteristic shallow plaster plastic above the windows of the ground floor and in the parapets of the storey zone.

The main facade towards the square, as well as the facade from Beogradska street with fourteen, i.e. four axes of architrave-finished window openings with recent woodwork, are devoid of any decoration. The characteristic disposition and functional organization of the rooms, the design of the vaults between the floor structures, the applied architectural details and the overall appearance of the building, documented in preserved archival photographs, with all the elements of the Baroque style, speaks in favor of the fact that it is a building most likely built in the first phase of the construction of the fortress, and until the first half of the 18th century at the latest.

The realisation of this site was supported by the Administration for Culture of the City of Novi Sad

The sources and materials of the Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments of the City of Novi Sad were used for the realization of this website

The Old Core of Novi Sad was declared a cultural asset, by the decision on establishing it as a spatial cultural-historical unit – 05 no. 633-151/2008 of January 17, 2008, “Sl. gazette of the Republic of Serbia” no. 07/2008.