The unique brutalist complex from 1984 still attracts attention from tourists and locals, and its domes are designed to follow the silhouette of the surrounding mountains
Although more than four decades have passed since its construction, the Izbor department store in Bar, Montenegro, still stops passersby in their tracks. Its unusual appearance, reminiscent of a science fiction spacecraft, is described with the words: "It looks like a spaceship has landed."
Rade Milić, creator of the Instagram page "Secrets of Serbian History," notes that tourists still stop in front of the building, photograph it, and try to figure out what it is. The building was designed in 1984 by architect Batrić Mijović exclusively as a department store, with the structural load transferred to columns, eliminating the need for internal load-bearing walls. This created a vast open retail space, which was a highly modern architectural solution at the time.
The building belongs to late modernism, with pronounced elements of brutalism. Its distinctive domes are shaped to follow the silhouette of the mountains surrounding Bar, Milić wrote on his Instagram page.
According to the Lexicon of Fine Arts of Montenegro, Izbor was among the largest department stores in Yugoslavia at the time. The building consists of three objects in the form of truncated cones, arranged in a pattern reminiscent of a honeycomb. These are structures without walls, with secondary windows and completely open floor plans, making them technologically functional for large retail systems. The structure is made of prefabricated frames with only a few supports, creating the illusion that the building is floating.
The same lexicon states that the work is based on the contrast to the orthogonal urban matrix of New Bar. Horizontally, it rests on hexagonal bases, and vertically, it grows in a mushroom shape, completely opposed to the city's regular square pattern both vertically and horizontally.
Local residents initially looked for flaws, complaining that the building looked too Eastern and that the glass wouldn't withstand strong winds. But over time, Izbor became the most sought-after motif of the Bar Riviera, both for locals and tourists. Even today, after more than 40 years, it remains one of the most photographed architectural gems in the Balkans.
