Hotel Yugoslavia
Opened in 1969, it was one of the first three significant buildings planned in New Belgrade, alongside the building of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia and the building of the Presidency of the Government of the Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia.
The architectural competition for this building, initially planned to be named the “Belgrade” state representative hotel, was announced in 1947. The first prize was awarded to the Project Institute of Croatia, renowned architects of the Zagreb school of modernism Mladen Kauzlarić, Lavoslav Horvat, and Kazimir Ostrogović. Their project proposed an uncompromisingly modernist-conceived building, suitable for the idea of New Belgrade as a modern city. The location for the hotel on the Danube Quay, next to the Zemun railway station, was determined in the Conceptual Plan of New Belgrade by architect Nikola Dobrović (1948).
Based on the first-prize solution and project, the construction of the hotel began in 1948. At that time, in collaboration with construction companies and youth work brigades, a complex foundation was executed on a reinforced concrete slab into which about 3,800 m3 of concrete was poured, a process that lasted continuously for twelve days, and the entire reinforced concrete skeleton structure was completed. However, in 1949, due to the economic crisis that followed the political crisis of the break-up with the USSR and the countries of the Warsaw Pact, the construction of New Belgrade was halted, and with it, the construction of the hotel. Work resumed only in 1960, based on a modified project prepared by one of the authors of the first-prize solution in the competition, architect Lavoslav Horvat. Hotel “Jugoslavija” was then built for a full six years (1961–1967), and it was not opened until 1969, when the interiors were completed according to the projects of leading Belgrade architects: Ivan Antić, Mirko Jovanović, Vladeta Maksimović, and Milorad Pantović.
When built, Hotel “Jugoslavija” was the largest and most modern hotel in the SFRY, with seven floors and accompanying buildings, 1,500 rooms, 1,100 beds in 200 single, 400 double rooms, and 23 suites, a restaurant with 600 seats, a smaller restaurant with 200 seats, and all accompanying facilities.
