As the value and beauty of a building depend on its interior space, comfort and hygienic conditions, the interior is the soul of the building. In addition, based on the structure of the living space, we can get information on how the private life of a family was conducted. The interior of the residential space was one of the key elements of the self-representation of the economic, cultural, or intellectual elite of interwar Belgrade, representing the backbone of its public life.
The first step in the transition from the public to the private zone was the entrance hall. The hall represents the first representative space, in addition to providing an image of the quality of housing, it should also leave a strong impression on the guest. Therefore, the architects paid special attention to the design of the corridor, the choice of materials and the design of details.
In the field of spatial organization of the interior, modernism brought certain innovations, such as taking care of the functionality of the space and meeting hygienic conditions. In the interwar period, the concept of a “Belgrade” apartment was born.
“In the interwar period, the spatial organization of the apartment was largely typified, even 70 to 80 percent of the apartments were designed according to the same principle, the so-called ‘Belgrade’ or ‘salon’ apartment.” It usually meant the existence of two entrances – one for the owners, i.e. the tenants, the other for the servants, since the servants were an integral part of most middle-class families and more affluent citizens”, says Vladana Putnik Prica, Ph.D., research associate of the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade.
There is a noticeable dichotomy that defines a “Belgrade salon” apartment. On the street side there were representative rooms – living room, bedroom, cabinet, boudoir, depending on the size of the apartment and the financial capabilities of the owner, while on the other side there were auxiliary rooms intended for servants – kitchen, servant’s room, pantry and possibly other auxiliary rooms that were connected by the dining room as a central room.
Compared to the period before the First World War, the bathroom and toilet are almost mandatory. Until then, this was not the case, but with the introduction of sewage and adequate infrastructure, electrification, and even telephones, which became mostly standard in the interwar period, we see the emergence of a typical spatial organization, adds Putnik Prica.
The complexity of representative spaces, which were divided according to the various functions of the daily, rich social life of the European aristocracy, was transferred to a certain extent to the upper and even the middle class. In Belgrade, in the interwar period, a well-designed living space was considered the possibility of its transformation for the needs of celebrations and festivities with a larger number of guests. Thus, on the basis of numerous documents, a clear difference can be observed in the arrangement of the so-called reception rooms and completely private spaces.
“The public spaces inside the apartment are, first of all, the dining room and lounge, representative spaces reserved for guests, for receptions, which should represent the intellectual profile of the tenants, their material status, taste, education, simply to define them as personalities and position them in the then public , the cultural life of Belgrade. On the other hand, there are private spaces – bedroom, utility rooms, kitchen – that are not reserved for guests, but exclusively for the family,” notes Traveler Prica.
Men’s and women’s area
In the interwar period, there was a gender division in the apartments into men’s and women’s spaces, which originates from the time of the Ottoman Empire, when Turkish houses had a traditional division into selamluk and haremluk. Between the two world wars, women’s rooms were considered the boudoir, the bedroom and the salon designated for receiving guests of the hostess. In the event that they did not own their own spaces of privacy, women often sat by the windows. Men’s rooms were traditionally the rooms where men carried out their daily activities – a cabinet and a library.
“When it comes to Belgrade’s residential architecture, we have certain examples, especially among more affluent citizens, where the study, gentlemen’s room or smoking room, the so-called ‘heren cimer’, is reserved mainly for the host and his male guests, while possibly the boudoir or some of the salons, in case the family had more than one, were reserved for the hostess and her guests. There is a certain dichotomy in which space men and women stay. According to testimonies, some men did not enter the utility rooms and the kitchen at all, they did not even know what their kitchen looked like. This certainly did not apply to the housewife, regardless of the fact that she had a servant, the kitchen was, again, traditionally her zone,” the research assistant points out.
As much as the private space is a kind of shelter from the outside world, the interior represents exactly the relationship of the occupants to the world.
