The block is captioned not by its own name but after the cloth firm whose signs cover it, a measure of how far the Silesia trade had taken over the frontage. A roof sign, a fascia advertising a depot of cloth and haberdashery, and a band claiming the title of purveyor to the royal court are all lettered in Cyrillic, which places the tenancy in the Kingdom after 1918. The streamline frontage with its ribbon glazing is a 1930s build, and the men below wear fedoras with no war damage anywhere along the street.
About this place
The Tanurdžić palace stands where Zmaj Jovina, Modene and Ilije Ognjanovića streets meet, with its long side running along Modene. The Novi Sad merchant and benefactor Nikola Tanurdžić commissioned it and the architect Đorđe Tabaković won the design competition; it was built between 1933 and 1934 on a reinforced concrete raft a metre thick, laid because the sandy ground would not otherwise carry the weight. Its clean unornamented lines make it the clearest example of Bauhaus influenced rational architecture in the city, and it packed in fourteen ground floor shops, thirty six flats above, a 300 square metre apartment for the family, and the Rex cinema, which counted among the most modern in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, with a Rex hotel added in 1939. The palace was nationalised in 1946 and partly returned to Tanurdžić's heirs in 2012.
On the card
Novisad. Palata "Silesia" / Силесиа / Најбољи штоф / Стовариште штофова, прибора и […] / Краљ. двор. добављач
- Date
- 1934–1941
- Coordinates
- 45.25501, 19.84636
- Source
- Public online source
- Licence
- Public domain (historical photograph)
- Size
- 697 × 1051 px
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