Duković Foundation

The Foundation of Aleksandar Duković is located in the south-eastern part of Topla, in the area called Dukovina, where the famous seafaring and merchant family Duković had its large estate. The house in which the Foundation is situated was built in 1888. The house used to belong to Velimir Lombardić and his wife Eliza, neé Duković. The Duković and Lombardić families, which were among the oldest and most prominent families of Herceg Novi, had their business branches in Trieste and played an important role in the independence wars against the Turks in the 19th century. Velimir Lombardić supported with considerable financial means the rebels in Bosnia and Herzegovina and supported the idea that all Southern Slav people should live in one state.

After settling in Herceg Novi from Trieste, Velimir and Eliza Lombardić lived in their house at Dukovina. In 1907, after Velimir’s death, Eliza inherited the house and in a will drawn up in Florence, established a foundation naming it after her late father, Aleksandar Duković. The foundation was established to educate talented youth of Herceg Novi. For that purpose, Eliza Lombardić bequeathed to the foundation her whole property, consisting of four houses at Topla, gardens of 45000 m2 and part ownership of two old palaces of the Duković family in Trieste.

Today only a house and part of the estate of the Duković Foundation have remained. Other houses were pulled down and apartment buildings built on their sites.

The remaining house known today as the Duković Foundation is a representative example of 19th century secular architecture. It is a three-storey construction of simple cubic form, with a hipped roof. The façades of the house are emphasised by decorative pilasters at corners and horizontal cordon cornices. The house has a paved courtyard planted with palm trees, and on the rear part of the plot are the remains of the former large estate of the Dukovićs, i.e. terraced gardens planted with trees and vegetation, supported by a retaining wall.