House of Robev Family

Administrative building "Radnichka"

Address:
"Boro Shain Street" No. 10, 6000 Ohrid
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At the time when Ohrid and part of Macedonia were within the Kingdom of Yugoslavia (after 1919) various companies and organizations for animation of the Ohrid youth were founded in the town. One of them was the female society "St. Clement" whose members were girls of the poorer classes of citizens. The initiator of its establishment was the wife of the priest Stanko Petrovich, Draga, called "protinica" (priest's wife). Thus, in 1922, the school was opened under the name "Women's Artisan School", with duration of 5 years of schooling. The interest for this school was great, especially because besides the subjects of general education it included vocational subjects for cutting, sewing, embroidery, knitting, cooking etc.

The condition for enrollment in this school was that previously pupils have completed a four-year primary education. At first, classes took place in private homes of several families of Ohrid (Bandevi, Topalchevi, Filevi) and in the Metropolitanate, but later it became necessary to improve conditions and build a separate school building.

For that purpose, on an initiative of Draga Petrovich and women's association "St. Clement", major action was taken to collect voluntary donations from Ohrid and the entire former Yugoslavia, as well as donations from our migrant workers in America. Among the donors were many prominent citizens of Ohrid, including: the lawyer Demosten Manev, merchant Anastas Chorbev, bookseller Nikola German, Jonche Paunche and others, and the most prominent donor was the great scholar and lover of Ohrid, Mihajlo Pupin, then a professor in America.

The school was built in 1929 in the area of the burned house of the famous Ohrid family Paunchevi in Varosh. The construction was headed by the famous engineer Dimitar Simonche, but it is unclear whether he was also the designer of the building.

First director of the school was the educated Draga Petrovich who also provided the required, professional teaching staff. Later, director was Marica Masin. During the school year 1943/1944 this building housed and the gymnasium classes because there was a danger of the bombing of the old gymnasium building.

After the war the school continued working until its closure in 1959 by an act of the Municipality of Ohrid.

Since 1959 the building houses part of the classes of the elementary school "St. Clement of Ohrid" and from 1961 to 1964 the newly established secondary school of economics was nestled there, and from 1964 it worked as a student dormitory. When the school building with a dormitory for the secondary school for catering was built in 1966, the so-called "Workers School" was abandoned and in ruins until 1973, when it passed to the Institute for Protection of Monuments of Culture and National Museum-Ohrid to be used as an administrative building in exchange for the building of the old woodcarving school, adapted by the National Museum-Ohrid as an exhibition space for the exhibition "Slavic literacy and culture", opened in 1966 in honor of the 1050 anniversary of the death of St. Clement of Ohrid.

The building "Radnichka" was built in the spirit of the classical academism with a pronounced horizontal and symmetry. The most remarkable is the southern facade, where the second floor through the entire width of the object is performed by pronounced horizontal of balconies and loggias fenced with ceramic balustrades, finished with stylized tympanons, emphasized with wreaths. The tympanons rely on two pairs of columns finished with simple, strict capitals. The part with the balconies is vertically separated by pilasters between the windows, also ending with strict capitals. Under the balconies and loggias there are constructive and decorative volutes. In the top middle of the south façade there is a belfry element with bell.

As an object of the classical academism, this building possesses architectural value as an example of the impact of neo-styles that reached this area from Europe. As such, the building possesses values for which it was valorized as cultural heritage of the early twentieth century and according the Decision from 15. 04. 1987 was put under protection of the law.

Today it houses administrative and other premises of NI Institute for Protection of Monuments of Culture and Museum-Ohrid.

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