'Salon' apartment in Serbia between the two world wars: Reassessing the rationale behind the term

Abstract

'Salon apartment' is a term linked to the exclusive apartments built as part of multi-family houses in Belgrade and in certain towns in Serbia in the first decades of the 20th century. The structure of the apartments included centrally located ante room with a combined function of the dining room and one or more salon areas. Most of these apartments were built in Belgrade, along with the first examples of apartments popularly named 'salon apartments', with the concept of spatial and functional organization later spreading to other larger urban centers in Serbia. One of the key problems emerging in scientific analysis of this type of residential housing is terminological determination of this concept. In practice, generally accepted term 'salon apartment' suggests that the apartment structure includes the salon and that the apartment in its character is exclusive, while scientific research mentions different terms, such as 'Belgrade apartment between the two world wars', 'Belgrade apartment of the early Modernism', 'an apartment with central ante room' etc. By analyzing the characteristics and types of these apartments this paper aims to reassess whether the term 'salon apartment' is adequate for the concept of spatial and functional organization of the apartments with salons in multi-family buildings between the two world wars in Serbia.