The Ministry of Finance of Serbia

The history of this building does not begin in the 1920s, but much earlier. According to official information from the Ministry of Finance of Serbia, the building at 20 Kneza Miloša Street was constructed in 1889 for the state administration, according to the design of architect Dušan Živanović; originally, it housed the State Council and the Main Control Administration. In 1920, “according to the same design,” a second floor was added to the building.

Then, in 1924, Krasnov appears — and does something that would later be repeated many times in different variations: he transforms a functional administrative box into a building that reflects the pillars upon which the new Yugoslav political identity was being built. According to Krasnov’s design, the building was reconstructed into a unified quadrangular composition with an inner courtyard.

Now, in order to grasp the meaning of this reconstruction, imagine not the façade, but the movement of people inside. An inner courtyard in a government building is a way of organizing an institution as an organism — and this is no coincidence, since the state is nothing other than a political organism: on the outside, ceremony and representation; on the inside, the corridors of power, or its “circulatory system.”

Pay attention to the logic of the street itself. Kneza Miloša Street is a straight line along which, piece by piece, an ensemble of power is assembled — a chain of “significant objects,” where old ministerial buildings, parks, monuments, and government institutions stand side by side.

There is one more important detail concerning the building’s later fate. In 1959, a third floor was added; after the Second World War, federal planning and statistical institutions were housed here, and in 2004 the Ministry of Finance of Serbia moved into the building.

And finally, its protected status: the building is located within the protected zone along Kneza Miloša Street and forms part of the historic Belgrade complex, under a cultural protection regime.

Now we will make a brief castling move. This often happens in Belgrade: a building is constructed for one ministry, but eventually becomes the symbol of another. We are heading to the building of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs — which was not originally “diplomatic” at all.