Buća-Luković complex

The Buća-Luković complex was situated in the central part of Tivat. The complex consisted of a fortified summer residence with a tower, a residential building, a family chapel, a garden and an enclosing wall with a monumental entrance gate. The fortified summer residence belonged to the famous family Buća from Kotor. At the end of the 18th century, the estate with the summer residence was bought from the Buća’s by Marko Luković, a sea captain from Prčanj. At the end of the 19th century, the descendants of the Luković family gave a part of the estate for the construction of a naval arsenal in Tivat. This caused considerable changes to the original structure of the complex.

By its location on spacious ground by the sea, by the size and architectural style of the defensive tower topped by a loggia with a defensive wall supported by brackets that was modelled on similar examples of Venetian defensive architecture, and by its overall size, the Buća summer residence represented the largest and architecturally the most elaborate complex of its kind in the whole area of Boka Kotorska.

The complex was built in several phases. Its oldest part is the tower with side wings. According to the preserved inscription, the tower was built in 1548 by master Vicencije, the son of master Mihail from Lastva. The church of St. Michael, located at the end of a path by which the residence was approached from the sea, with its 130 stone pillars and a pergola, was built in the Baroque style. The residential building, adjoining the tower on the south side, kept its original position and approximately the same dimensions after the radical reconstruction it underwent at the end of the 19th century, following the construction of the naval arsenal in Tivat.

The construction of an open-air stage in the central part of the landscaped garden in the mid-20th century, which stretched along the path leading from the sea to a “bugnato” portal in the enclosing wall, broke a natural connection between the complex and the sea.