General Post Office, Zagreb
| General Post Office, Zagreb | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| General information | |
| Architectural style | Hungarian Secession |
| Address | 13 Jurišićeva Street |
| Town or city | Zagreb |
| Country | Croatia |
| Coordinates | 45°48′45″N 15°58′52″E / 45.81250°N 15.98111°ECoordinates: 45°48′45″N 15°58′52″E / 45.81250°N 15.98111°E |
| Construction started | 1903 |
| Inaugurated | 12 September 1904 |
| Owner | Croatian Post |
| Technical details | |
| Floor count | 3 (1904–1930) 4 (1930–present) |
| Design and construction | |
| Architect | Ernő Foerk and Gyula Sándy |
The General Post Office in Jurišićeva Street, Zagreb, is the headquarters of the Croatian Post, the national postal service of Croatia. Built in 1904 in the Hungarian Secession style, the Post Office housed mail, parcel, telegraph and telephone services and equipment. Today, it is a protected cultural monument.
The first government post office in Zagreb was established in 1831. The rise of mail volume, as well as the introduction of telegraph in 1850 and a public telephone system in 1887, created a pressing need for a new post office building.
The project, created by the Hungarian architects Ernő Foerk and Gyula Sándy in the Hungarian Secession style, envisioned an 82-metre (269 ft) long two-story building made of weather-resistant red brick and stone, with three entrances.
The construction in a 3,950-square-metre (42,500 sq ft) building site in Jurišićeva Street began in 1903, and the new General Post Office started its work on 12 September 1904. The ground floor was dedicated to mail and parcel services, with a telephone booth section, while the first floor housed telegraph and telephone switchboards. The telephone switchboard had a capacity of 1200 subscribers and 2000 connections, and was opened later in the same year.
By 1925, the preparations for installing a new automatic switchboard for 10,000 subscribers were already underway. In 1926, an additional three-story courtyard wing was completed. The new Siemens-made automatic switchboard became operational in 1928. In 1930, the third story was added to the building, and the original roof turrets were permanently removed in the process.
On 14 September 1941, the telephone switchboard was destroyed in a sabotage organized by Rade Končar of the Communist Party of Croatia as an act of resistance against the Axis-aligned regime of the Independent State of Croatia. The sabotage was executed by three postal employees who managed to smuggle explosives into the strictly guarded building, and plant them in the switchboard during the night shift. After they left the city in the morning, an associate remotely detonated the charges by dialing a preselected phone number. The blast broke all the windows in the building and killed one police agent, injuring several more. The resulting damage caused significant disruption of international telephone service and required an extensive repair.
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Wikipedia