A significant achievement of Milan Zloković in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which is related to the completion of the first phase of his work, is the building of the State Mortgage Bank in Sarajevo, awarded the second prize of the first rank. The competition work was submitted under the code for which Cicero’s sentence HONOS ALIT ARTES (Latin translation Honor (or glory) nurtures art or Honor comes from art) was used, which was also the motto of the work, and Zloković’s authorial attitude – credo. Zloković based the original solution on historicist templates of Italian palaces with an accentuated central zone of the first floor – piano nobile – in the form of a five-arched arcade loggia with a rough stone profile of columns corresponding to the arched stone window frames and ground floor entrances. The smooth surface of the façade walls was taken over on a later modified solution on which there are no more arched elements, while a slightly different proportional and dimensional basis of the volume was more suitable for the existing urban situation. The stone cladding and a series of five high pilasters with stylized Ionic capitals gave the bank building a more pronounced monumental expression. In the architecture of this banking palace, which exudes moderation and rigor, Zloković sublimated his knowledge of classical architecture, expertly translated into a modernized academic language complemented by works of sculptural-relief compositions.
1929-1930
A notable conceptual solution from Zloković's early modernist phase is the competition work for arranging the Terazije Terrace in Belgrade, considered a space of significant urban-architectural intervention in the central city zone.
