bg Sombor

Somber Preparandy School

- Venac Radomira Putnika 32 -
The foundation stone of the current two-story building educational building was laid on June 2 1894, and the construction was completed in 1895. The building was built on a plot where the houses of the writer Isidor Nikolić Srbogradski and the lawyer Gedeon Leović previously stood, which were bought by archpriest . It was most likely built according to a project of the Serbian architect to house the Royal Serbian Pedagogical Institute, which was founded on November 15, 1816. The construction of the new school building was entrusted to construction contractor Vince Ulrich and city engineer Milan Grgurov supervised it. The institute's unofficial name was the Somber Preparandy, which opened its doors to its male students in September 1895. The director of the school at that time was the Serbian pedagogue , who was director of the school from 1871 to 1903.
Gift contract of Patriarch Branković
During the , all classes were suspended, and the school building was occupied by the Austro-Hungarian army. In 1917, the army left the building and the Church Municipality of Sombor temporarily housed a Serbian elementary school here, but they soon made it available to the Somber Preparandy School again. After the interruption of classes during the , school classes in the building were restored at the beginning of 1945 and continued until 1948. The building was partially renovated in 1971, and between 2002 and 2010, a thorough renovation of the interior and exterior of the building took place, which was done in several stages.
Students of the final year of the Men's Preparatory School, first decade of the 20th century
The hemispherical dome that's placed on the corner of the building, which is built in the styles of Neo-Renaissance and Neo-Baroque, is crowned with a in the form of a dragon. The balustrade that's curled around the dome contains four massive decorative vases, as well as , which differ from the ones that are used in the that are placed underneath some of the second floor windows. The that separates the attic from the rest of the building is adorned with . A is placed above each of the windows, and above the second floor windows, you can either see a pointed or a swan neck , which is embellished with a . Some of the second floor windows are flanked by , which are all crowned with an Ionic . The building contains an which states ГЕОРГИЈЕ БРАНКОВИЋ ПАТРИЈАРХ НАРОДУ СРПСКОМ (Georgije Branković Patriarch to the Serbian People).
An old postcard that shows the building