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Mika Alas House

- Kosančićev Venac 22 -
The one-story residential building, which was built in 1910, was constructed according to a design that was created by the Serbian architect . It was built for the Serbian mathematician and inventor Mihailo Petrović Alas, also known as Mika Alas, who was born on May 6, 1868, in Belgrade, as the first child of Nikodim, a professor of theology, and Milica Lazarević. He finished the First Belgrade Gymnasium in 1885, and afterwards, enrolled in the natural science-mathematical section of the Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade. Subsequently, in September 1889, he went abroad, to to receive further education, and to prepare for the entrance exam to the École Normale Supérieure. In 1894, he became a professor of mathematics at the Belgrade's Grande École, which later became the University of Belgrade. In those days, he was one of the greatest experts in differential equations.
The project of architect Petar Bajalović
In 1882, he became a fisherman apprentice, and in 1895 he took an exam to become a master fisherman. Mihailo Petrović got the nickname Alas, meaning river fisher, because of his passion for fishery. He was not only an aficionado, but an expert as well. He participated in legislative talks regarding the fishery convention with Romania and in talks with Austria-Hungary about the protection of the fishery on the Sava, Drina, and Danube rivers. He published expert papers and reports on the fish fauna found in the Macedonian lakes, such as Skadar Lake and Lake.
Mihailo Petrović Alas on the right side during a visit to the Crezo factory, in 1917, in France
He received numerous awards and acknowledgments and was a member of several foreign science academies and scientific societies. In 1927, when died, members of the Serbian academy proposed Mihailo Petrović as the new president of the academy, but the authorities did not accept this proposal. The probable reason for this was the fact that Mihailo Petrović Alas was first a private tutor and mentor and later a close friend of Prince , the king's brother, who was arrested in 1925, and held under house arrest.

Mihailo also participated in both the and the , as well as in the as an officer, and after the war, he served as a reserve officer. He practiced cryptography, and his cipher systems were used by the Yugoslav army until the . When the Second World War broke out in Yugoslavia, he was again called into the army and the Germans captured him. After a while, he was released because of illness. On 8 June 1943, professor Petrović died in his home in Belgrade.
Mihailo Petrović Alas
The most distinctive feature of the Art Nouveau building is the ornamentation located in the top gables, which consists of a that's embellished with and a female . One of the parts that can be seen around the cartouche perdicts a pond that contains cattails and waterlilies, and the other part contains perdicts a tilted chessboard. The balcony underneath it is secured with a curved cast iron railing and supported by a floral that's adorned with a and three . The building also contains some geometric forms, including squares and .
The building is shown in an old photo