Original scientific paper
BUILDING OF THE "URANIA" CINEMA IN OSIJEK (THE SHRINE OF THE OSIJEK FREEMASONS' LODGE)
Grgur Marko Ivanković
; Muzej Slavonije, Osijek
Abstract
The relatively small but monumental building of the Urania cinema designed by the Osijek architect Viktor Axmann in Sezession-style was built in the northwest corner of a representative block of one and two-story apartment buildings in the Upper Town of Osijek in 1912. This building has been included in all the books dealing with twentieth century architecture in Croatia as one of its finest achievements in Sezession style. The understanding of the value and function of this building has recently been enriched by the discovery of a memorial note in the founding stone of the building: this text expressly states that the Urania cinema building was also meant to be a shrine of the Osijek Freemasons - members of the Zagreb lodge "Love Thy Neighbour." The Osijek Freemasons used this building for their meetings after 1912. Axmann, himself a Mason, designed several variants of the building, of which each had a complex of halls fashioned after other masonic shrines. Studying available sources in the attempt to conceive of the building as an organizational and architectural whole, the author gathered some data concerning the masonic symbols which helped him to decipher the meaning of the ornaments of the facade. The best known symbols of Freemasonry can be found on the most discreet decorative elements of the building, the lamps (placed at the far ends of the building and the advertizing column): they are the square, the twin compasses and the triangle which the author believes is a symbol of the Bible. These three Freemasonic signs also symbolize the three great lights of Freemasonry. On top of the building there is another more prominently placed masonic symbol - the Sphinx - chosen quite adequately to watch over the Shrine of a lodge named "Watchfulness" (Budnost).
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
151195
URI
Publication date:
15.12.1995.
Visits: 4.599 *