Roofing in Serbia

Serbia's roofing tradition combines Byzantine-influenced church domes, timber vernacular houses of the forested west, tiled timber-frame houses of the central lowlands and the farmsteads of the Pannonian plain in Vojvodina. The high, four-sided hipped roof (četvorovodni krov) recurs on both the log and the timber-frame rural house.

Climate and hazards

Serbia has a continental climate, with cold, snowy winters and hot summers, and the central Balkans are seismic. After the 1963 Skopje earthquake, Yugoslavia drafted its first code for construction in seismic regions in 1964, which applied in Serbia.

Roofing history

Medieval churches. Serbian medieval architecture is grouped into schools. Raška churches (roughly the 1160s to the late 13th century) have a single dome on a drum; many were later altered, often in their drum-and-dome roofs. Serbo-Byzantine (Vardar) churches of the 13th-14th centuries use a cross-in-square plan with one or five domes. The Morava school ran from the 1370s to 1459. Byzantine-tradition domes were generally covered with lead or regional tiles.

Ottoman period. Two-storey manor houses (konak) were built in the Turkish manner. The Despot Stefan Tower in Belgrade (about 1405) and the Nenadović Tower in Valjevo (1813) are examples of Balkan tower houses.

Modern. After the 1900 Paris Exposition a Serbo-Byzantine Revival developed; its landmarks include the church at Oplenac (commissioned 1909) and the Church of Saint Sava in Belgrade, inspired by Hagia Sophia and described as the largest Neo-Byzantine project of the 20th century. In Vojvodina, Secession buildings in Subotica and Novi Sad show central European influence.

Traditional and vernacular roofs

• Brvnara (log house): found in forested, mountainous western Serbia such as Zlatibor and Tara, from the 14th to 19th centuries. A large pyramidal, high-hipped roof sits on a low log cube and was covered with straw or wooden shingles.
• Bondruka (timber-frame house): the most common rural house south of the Danube, with mud-and-reed infill walls and a four-sided hipped roof of slightly curved clay tiles.
• Wooden churches: 18th-19th-century timber churches roofed with large wooden shingles, such as Dub (1792), Takovo (1795) and Rača (1826).
• Salaš: Vojvodina farmsteads built of local mud, brick, wood and reed.

Notable roofs

• Domed churches of the Raška, Serbo-Byzantine and Morava schools
• Wooden churches of Dub, Takovo and Rača
• Church of Saint Sava, Belgrade

Local roofing terms

• četvorovodni krov - four-sided (hipped) roof
• brvnara - log house
• bondruka - timber-frame house with mud-and-reed infill
• izba - cellar or ground-floor store
• salaš - farmstead of the Pannonian plain
• konak - Ottoman-style manor house

Sources and gaps

Roof-specific climate data, data on current roofing materials, current national regulations and manufacturer information: published information is limited.