Beogradska 2

“Shajka Battalion Building”

The one-story building with a wide street front is located in a row of residential and commercial buildings on the main street of the suburb. In historical sources, it is stated that it belonged to the Shajka Battalion, later it was also mentioned as a hospital for war veterans. The importance of this building can be inferred from the rich decoration of the facade. Inside the pediment of the right window above the entrance portal, in an oval surface framed by an ornament, the number 1792 is engraved, which can be considered the year of construction.

The base is in the shape of the Latin letter “L” with a courtyard wing along the right furrow. On the ground floor of the street part there are bars, currently out of order or converted into residential space. The ground floor of the courtyard wing, the first floor, and the attic are residential. The entrance is not symmetrically placed, but shifted to the right. The wide passage is in the front part under a semi-shaped vault with vaulted branches, in the part towards the courtyard under a cruciform vault.

On the right side, there is a double staircase to the first floor with wooden treads and preserved stucco ornamentation on the surface of the vault.

On the left side of the passage, the double-winged iron door of the former bar with characteristic wrought iron fittings has been preserved.

Along the courtyard wing, there is a vaulted, once open porch destroyed by inappropriate additions, and at the level of the first floor, there is an open corridor that, on the courtyard side of the street building, continues to the communication balcony with a wrought iron fence. The rooms on the ground floor are under semi-circular vaults, except for the premises on the left side, which were destroyed during the renovation, while those on the first floor have a flat ceiling.

The facade is divided horizontally by a partition and an attic cornice. The wall covering of the ground floor and the edges of the first floor of the building are made in imitation of stonework. The richly decorated portal has two profiled pilasters each, slightly slanted in relation to the plane of the facade. The pilasters have profiled capitals, under which there used to be a decoration in the form of a stylized vine, characteristic of the plastic decoration on door jambs and window sills in the 18th century, which today is preserved only fragmentarily on the right pilaster. Above the arched entrance, in a symmetrical arrangement, there are figures of lions with protruding tongues.

The other part is filled with a symmetrically composed plant ornament with acanthus leaves and volutes starting from the capstone. The portal is surmounted by an architrave, at the ends of which there is a characteristic pedestal with a stylized vase finished in the form of a sphere, while in the axis there is a higher pedestal on which there was a coat of arms, which is now kept in the Vojvodina Museum, and a copy is placed on the building.

The characteristic two-leaf wooden gate with preserved wrought iron fittings has a smaller semicircular door in the center. On the left and right are the former bars with portals closed with metal or wooden shutters. On the first floor, there are eight windows at approximately the same distance, three of which are kibitsch-fensters.

In the space between the first and second floor windows, from left to right, is a semicircular niche with a sculpture of the Virgin Mary Immaculate with Christ, on a square pedestal.

Above the windows of the first floor are placed triangular semicircular pediments with plastic stucco ornamentation of various motifs: in the shape of a shell, a palmette, an acanthus leaf or a network of crossed lines imitating wrought iron guitars. In the parapet fields, as well as under the niche, the same decoration technique, with even more complex motifs, characteristic of the 18th century, which we can still find only on the building of the Magistrate at Beogradska 6, was applied alternately. The building is built of brick, plastered and painted. The basement under the semi-circular vault is located under the right part of the building. The roof is pitched, covered with pepper tiles. At the end of the last century, the attic was converted into a living space, lit by a series of ill-shaped and inappropriate vertical windows-badges made of galvanized sheet metal.

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.