Jelisaveta Nacic: The First Serbian Female Architect‪.‬

In the entire history of architecture, few female architects are recognized by name. Jelisaveta Nacic (1878-1955), the first woman architect in Serbia, is among these select few. Upon acquiring her degree in architecture from the Great School (Visoka Skola) in Belgrade in 1900, Nacic worked on several municipal buildings in Belgrade and elsewhere, some of which have remained architectural landmarks in Serbia to the present day. Nacic worked on the twentieth-century urban re-design for the so-called "Big Kalemegdan" in Belgrade and designed King Peter I Elementary School in Belgrade (1905-18). Jelisaveta Nacic was also engaged in the design and execution of several ecclesiastical buildings, such as the churches of St. Alexander Nevsky in Belgrade (1909-30) and St. Archangel Michael above Stimlje in Kosovo (1920-22). Her design for the mausoleum of the Karadordevie dynasty at the church of St. George at Oplenac in Topola, was selected ina national competition in 1903. Nacic's resume also includes a number of private houses and apartment buildings. Among these are the residences of Mr. Marko Markovic, at 45a Gospodar Jovanova Street in Belgrade; Colonel Bozidar Krstic's residential buildings at 2 Safarikova Street and at 3 Dure Danicica, both built in Belgrade in 1904; and the first comfortable apartments built for the working-class in the Balkans, at Radnicka Street in Dorcol in Belgrade (1911), to name justa few. Apart from a short overview of Jelisaveta Nacic's somewhat unusual private and professional life, which was presented in Godisnjak Muzeja grada Beograda by Milan S. Minic in 1956, (1) Nacic's architectural projects and their place within Serbian architectural development since 1900 are generally understudied and have yet to be adequately addressed by architectural historians. Without offering an extensive survey of the subject, this paper will focus on some aspects of Nacic's life that are virtually unknown to the English-speaking world. Focusing on her training and architectural opus, while shedding light on her personality, the paper will attempt to partly contextualize Jelisaveta Nacic and her accomplishments within Serbian architecture of the early twentieth century.