Croatian Hall Building, Stari Grad

The Croatian Hall building stands on Nova riva in Stari Grad, east of the municipal building, in Split-Dalmatia County. It is interesting to visitors because it still serves its original public and cultural purpose: it houses the town café, library and a ceremonial hall.

It was built in 1893 by members of the Croatian Reading Room, who bought the land and financed the construction as shareholders of the Hrvatski dom society. The National Croatian Reading Room of Stari Grad was founded in 1874, and the first film screening in the town took place in 1907. The building, with a trapezoidal ground plan measuring 12 by 16.5 metres, is a single-storey stone building with a four-sided roof. The ground floor is shaped by a row of stone arches, and on the upper floor are windows in stone frames and a stone balcony on brackets with a palm leaf and a cast iron railing. Inside, the original stone staircase, spatial layout and joinery have been preserved, and investigative work revealed wall paintings on the ceiling of the staircase.

The building is an example of a neo-style public building from the time of the maritime and commercial prosperity of the town. It is a protected cultural good, entered in the Register of Cultural Goods of the Republic of Croatia under the code Z-7353.

Photo: Argo Navis, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons.
Data: Register of Cultural Goods of the Republic of Croatia (Ministry of Culture and Media), Open Licence; coordinates: Wikidata (CC0).