examples took elements of existing modernism designs, such as Czech Cubism and Vienna Secession with the Building of the First Danube Steamboat Society (1926) in Belgrade, contributing to a more eclectic approach to Art Deco in Serbia. Interwar Modernism Interwar Modernism in Serbia consists of buildings stripped from almost all decorative elements. Some were reminiscent of classicism, while others incorporated a few elements from Serbo-Byzantine Revival. Socialist Yugoslav period The architecture of Yugoslavia was characterized by emerging, unique, and often differing national and regional narratives. As a socialist state remaining free from the Iron Curtain, Yugoslavia adopted a hybrid identity that combined the architectural, cultural, and political leanings of both Western liberal democracy and Soviet communism. Socialist Realism (1945–48) Immediately following the Second World War, Yugoslavia's brief association with the Eastern Bloc ushered in a short period of socialist realism, specifically in building architecture. Centralization within the communist model led to the abolishment of private architectural practices and the state control of the profession. During this period, the governing Communist Party condemned modernism as "bourgeois formalism," a move that caused friction among the nation's pre-war modernist architectural elite. Dom Sindikata built in 1947 is one of very few examples of socialist realism in building architecture. The movement would however persist in a large amount of World War II memorials and monuments, known as spomenik, despite the Yugoslav-Soviet split in 1948. Modernism (1948–92) Socialist realist architecture in Yugoslavia came to an abrupt end with Josip Broz Tito's 1948 split with Stalin. In the following years the nation turned increasingly to the West, returning to the modernism that had characterized pre-war Yugoslav architecture. During this era, modernist architecture came to symbolize the nation's break from the USSR (a notion that later diminished with growing acceptability of modernism in the Eastern Bloc). The nation's postwar return to modernism is perhaps best exemplified in Vjenceslav Richter's widely acclaimed 1958 Yugoslavia Pavilion at Expo 58, the open and light nature of which contrasted the much heavier architecture of the Soviet Union. A number of architects from Serbia made important modernistic buildings across Africa and Middle East. Architect Mihajllo Mitrović was one of the several notable authors from the period. He is best known for modernistic buildings inspired by Art-Nouveau and Western City Gate. This period is marked with breakthrough modernistic designs, some of which still hold international records to this day for their construction and