Architecture » Arhitektura | 57 Howa lady called Jelisaveta beautified our Belgrade Jelisaveta Načić was such a good architect that we would speak of her even if hadn’t been a woman and hadn’t been the first. But she was – the first female architect in Serbia, who left behind for us the King Petar I Primary School, the Church of St. Alexander Nevsky, Kalemegdan’s Small Staircase etc. Jelisaveta Načić was out of the ordinary as a person, a free of spirit with a strong character. Anunusual fact for the time in which she was born and raised (very late 19th centurySerbia,when less thanseven per cent ofwomenhadmasteredbasic literacy), is that she evendecided tocontinueher educationafter completingprimaryschool.Only toenrol in a university faculty that had until thenbeen reservedexclusively for men and to graduate in 1900 from thenewlyestablishedDepartmentof Architecture at the Faculty of Technical Sciences of the Great School. First lady architect She spent two years working as a technical trainee at the Ministry of Construction, but she still didn’t have the right to seek employment as an architect within the Ministry even after she passed the state exam in 1902. She nonetheless spent her working life in the civil service, withintheEngineering-Architectural Department of theBelgradeMunicipality. Jobs in the civil service had previously been intended for men, and men who’d served in the army, so her employment actually paved the way for other women. Fromschool to church I admireherpersonality. Shewas courageous, powerful, talented and true toherself. Shebelonged toadifferent age fromthe one inwhich she lived. In construction, she followed tendencies of style and concept. At the same time, it seems to me, she Jelisaveta’s employment in the civil service actually paved the way for other women Zaposlenjem u državnoj službi Jelisaveta je prokrčila put drugim ženama wasunrestrained, didn’t accept rigidities and sought the most optimal solutions. at’s howshe adapted to her own needs the strict academicism that was characteristic of public buildings of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Terazijewithout theVictor Although the planned project was not implemented in full and a fountain was not installed as conceived by Jelisaveta and Ivan Meštović, topped by the Herald of Freedom,which is theoriginal name of the Victor statue, the Terazije of the interwar years was, judging by the postcards and photos from that time, fantastic and remained in the memories of Belgraders as themost beautiful part of the city. e Victor neverthelesswas awaitedby adifferent destiny. He is today a symbol of Belgrade and I must mention that, thanks to the renovationcarriedout this year by the Institute for theProtection of Cultural Monuments of theCityofBelgrade, hewill continue to watch over the Belgrade Fortress and the city for a long time to come. Cultural assets e King Peter the First Primary School, the Marko Marković Bookshop House, the St. Alexander Nevsky Church and the Workers’ Apartmentswere all classifiedas cultural assets, which is enough to conclude the greatness of thewealth that she left to the cityduring the relatively short period of her creative work. With the outbreak of World War I, she was sent to the Nežider concentration camp, ushering in a new and completely different chapter of Jelisaveta’s life, one in which she no longer created in Belgrade. Bojana Ibrajter Gazibara is an art historian and senior preservation expert at the Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments of the City of Belgrade. She is engaged in the research, study, valuations and presentations of Belgrade architecture. She is also providing professional guided tours, but also through the educating of young people within the scope of the project BeoKul GradskaTura.
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