ARCHITECTURE OF THE POPOVIĆ TONKIĆ PALACE IN LESKOVAC

Abstract

The economic and social development of Leskovac was accompanied by intensive construction activity. The urban environment was enriched by the construction of private residential buildings, whose owners were distinguished members of the bourgeois class. The palace of industrialist Milan Popović Tonkić occupies a prominent place in the architectural heritage of Leskovac. It was built in 1937 as a monumental corner building for residential and commercial purposes. It was designed by architect Miša Manojlović, who had a private design office in Belgrade with his colleague Isak Azriel. His independent authorship is evidenced by a marble tile placed on the corner part, under the window of the former tavern. Since historical styles were preferred in the circles of clients due to the expression of social position, the author applied an academic style tempered by a personal reinterpretation of experimentation with form. Following the contemporary practice of designing residential architecture, he paid equal attention to the interior of the building, applying high-quality decorative treatment and functional disposition of the Belgrade apartment. After more then a decade since the last historiographic contributions on the history and visual identity of the building, the main goal of this research is to contextualize the Popović Tonkić palace in Leskovac with phenomenological and stylistic aspects of interwar residential architecture.