Steam Bath of the Brothers Krsmanović, Ottoman steam bath in Stari Grad, Serbia.
The Steam Bath of the Brothers Krsmanović is a ground-floor Academism building at 45 Cara Dušana Street in Dorćol, with a symmetrical façade, a semicircular portal under a triangular pediment, and shallow pilasters with decorated capitals between windows topped by triangular tympanums. Inside, a circular hamam pool and a smaller polygonal cold-water pool stand at the centre; the pool room's foundations and the canals beneath it are remains of the older Turkish "Little Hamam". A large brick chimney rises factory-style.
A "Small Hamam" was recorded on this spot in an 1863 Turkish plan, probably built in the 18th century. After its demolition in 1880 for the widening of Cara Dušana street, the Krsmanović brothers built a new bath in 1886; the present complex was completed around it by the 1920s. It closed in 2004 and was declared a cultural monument in 2001.
After World War II the bath was colloquially called the "People's Bath", and its users were mostly people without bathrooms at home: the poor, homeless people, students, pensioners, seasonal workers and market sellers who slept in trucks or stalls. The city later lent the closed building for music videos, private parties, exhibitions and film sets.
The bath stands at 45 Cara Dušana Street in Dorćol, its façade set back from the pavement. It has been closed since 2004 for safety reasons and was still deteriorating by 2017, so visits inside are not possible; the Academism façade, the triangular pediment over the portal and the garland-decorated glass of the double entrance door can be seen from the street.
The 25 by 12 m pool opened in 1904 on a warm spring and was advertised as a "modern hamam"; it had a diving platform. The complex's architect is unknown, and the large factory-style brick chimney is an easily missed detail.
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