Field Research

Many architects, inspired by the models and ideals of classical art, and later the future leaders of the modern movement, went to the sources of ancient civilization in modern times, in search of a better understanding of the evolution of architectural forms and architectural principles that should inspire them for new possibilities of architectural development. At the beginning of his career, the architect Zloković continued this practice of cognitive significance for architects, first by going to the field recording of the Church of the Mother of God in the Gradac monastery (Serbia) in 1922 on the advice of Gabriel Millet, whose lectures he attended during his stay in Paris, and then in June 1923. year and the expedition led by Dr. Vladimir Petković, professor at the University of Belgrade and director of the National Museum in Belgrade. He then traveled to the Prespa and Ohrid regions (North Macedonia), collecting data on twelve different monuments, mostly monasteries from the Byzantine era, in the form of field sketches. In the medieval architecture of the Dečani monastery (Kosovo), he found an applied system of proportions, while in the residential architecture of Ohrid (Norht Macedonia), Prizren (Kosovo) and Ulcinj (Montenegro), he noticed rational architectural structures and simple design solutions.

His Boka (Bay of Kotor, Montenegro) origin connected him to this area of ​​the Mediterranean, to which he often returned, studying the profane architecture of palaces and houses of prominent citizens and Boka captains, which, as Zloković describes, “reflected the reasonable connection of their clearly defined needs and desires with the experience of local masons and Korčula  (Croatia) stonemasons “, while their” way of building was rational and aesthetically based on inherited building and urban planning rules “. According to Zloković, the captains of Boka were the exclusive architects of their houses, who passed on their ideas to the master builder. Zloković could see signs of modular and economical construction in the old practice of using Korčula stone, which was bought or ordered according to standard measures, as well as in the arrangement of finished stone elements on an empty construction site before construction to determine the future architecture of the building. During the fourth decade, Zloković went on field research on several occasions and recorded the architectural heritage of the Balkans and then translated the results and outcomes of that research into several written works published in professional and scientific periodicals. Under his leadership, in 1953, a student internship was organized for the filming and display of civic architecture in the Bay of Kotor. Before the war, passing through the lands of the then kingdom (Southern Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Dalmatia), Zloković noticed and photographed vernacular architecture, its relationship to the environment and methods of construction, use of materials and building assemblies, decorative processing and craftsmanship. Zloković then used this rich collection of authentic images for an illustrative overview of Yugoslav wooden architecture (Jugoslaviens Balkanische Holzarchitekturen) with a map of 342 original photographs – architectural analogies between Japan and the Balkan Peninsula as border areas of the Oriental Asian cultural zone – which he submitted in September 1940 to an international competition announced on the occasion of the 2600th anniversary of the founding of the Japanese Empire. The outcome of the competition remained unknown due to the outbreak of World War II.