Walking through Savamala and towards the decadence of the Belgrade Waterfront project, I meandered by the roofless remains of Španska kuća, or the Spanish House, near the Sava and beneath Branko’s Bridge. I’m interested in derelict buildings such as this and this one has been in a state of, well, disrepair, for over thirty years. Built in around 1880 as an impressive academic-style palace, it was once among the grandest buildings in this part of Belgrade and subsequently served as a customs office, a warehouse, base for the Serbian Shipping Society and the Museum of River Shipping.
Someone then had a good idea to turn it into a hotel and started work on stripping away some peripheral parts, namely the interiors and the roof. They got into financial problems and managed to leave the building in a much worse state than they actually found it. The building’s name is traditionally linked to the Spanish flu pandemic, when it is said to have been used as a quarantine station for passengers arriving at the nearby river port. There are no surviving official records confirming this account, although the story was passed down by the son of a man reportedly treated there, so it may or may not be true. They do hold some cultural projects here, but at the moment, there are some legal arguments about its future so it might well stay derelict for some time to come.