Nikola Dobrović ( sr-Cyrl, Никола Добровић, ; 12 February 1897 – 11 January 1967) was a Serbian architect, teacher, and urban planner. Dobrović designed a number of buildings including the Yugoslav Ministry of Defence building, later destroyed during the Kosovar War by NATO bombings.

Biography

Dobrović was born in the Hungarian city of Pécs, 1897. He got his degree in architecture in 1923 from the High Technical School in

Prague Prague ( ; ) is the capital and List of cities and towns in the Czech Republic, largest city of the Czech Republic and the historical capital of Bohemia. Prague, located on the Vltava River, has a population of about 1.4 million, while its P ...

. After gaining experience in prominent Prague architectural offices and in his own practice, he moved to

Dubrovnik Dubrovnik, historically known as Ragusa, is a city in southern Dalmatia, Croatia, by the Adriatic Sea. It is one of the most prominent tourist destinations in the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean, a Port, seaport and the centre of the Dubrovni ...

in the early nineteen-thirties with the radical, programmatic mission of bringing modern architecture to this small but historically very important city on the Dalmatian coast. He was invited in 1930 by Dubrovnik municipal conservator Kosta Strajnić, well known as the author of the first monographs on

Jože Plečnik Jože Plečnik () (23 January 1872 – 7 January 1957) was a Slovenian architect who had a major impact on the modern architecture of Vienna, Prague and of Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia, most notably by designing the iconic Triple Bridge a ...

and the sculptor

Ivan Meštrović Ivan Meštrović (; 15 August 1883 – 16 January 1962) was a Croatian and Yugoslav sculptor, architect, and writer. He was the most prominent modern Croatian sculptor and a leading artistic personality in contemporary Zagreb. He studied at Pa ...

, to explain to the authorities what modern architecture actually was. To depict in the local press the exemplary architecture that would be suited to the so-called new, modern Dubrovnik, Strajnić put forward Dobrović’s radical project for hotel-Kursalon on Pile, in close proximity to the most monumental part of the medieval city walls, as an alternative to the eclectic project by the Viennese architect Alfred Keller. As for Dobrović, although his project was never to be realized, his entrance to Dubrovnik was truly grand.

Notes

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Dobrovic, Nikola 1897 births 1967 deaths People from Pécs Brutalist architects Serbian architects 20th-century Serbian people Emigrants from Austria-Hungary to Yugoslavia Serbian Austro-Hungarians