COMMUNICATING WITH STYLES AND VISUAL EXPRESSION IN THE WORK OF ARCHITECT BRANISLAV MITROVIĆ

Abstract

Branislav Mitrović is one of the most prominent domestic architects, a professor emeritus, and an academician. The significance of his achievements has been confirmed by numerous domestic and international awards. The realization of Mitrović’s oeuvre began with collective residential and public buildings commissioned by the state in the last decades of socialist Yugoslavia, and continues today, primarily with single-family villas, which represent the most dominant part of his oeuvre from the beginning of the 21st century, thus covering almost fifty years during which there were significant changes in both social circumstances and artistic expression’s phenomena. Already at the beginning of his career, researchers recognized the distinct artistic quality of Mitrović’s architecture, and he often spoke about the importance of art for his work. That is why this paper aims to reexamine the artistry of his architecture, that is, to analyze Branislav Mitrović’s oeuvre through the prism of various artistic expressions and connect them with different streams of the architectural scene, as well as in other forms of fine arts, such as sculpture or painting. Various sources were used for writing this paper, primarily project documentation and photographies preserved in the legacy of the architect, as well as theoretical discussion on architecture and fine arts, especially those related to phenomena such as postmodernism, critical regionalism, and deconstructivism.