Icebox

Braća Goldner Factory

Place and time of production: Subotica, Kingdom of Yugoslavia, around 1930

Dimensions (cm): 50 . 60 . 91

Inventory number: Т:4.172

In the period before electrification, food was stored in iceboxes – ice cabinets, precursors of modern electric refrigerators. Iceboxes were made of wood, they had cork insulation and inner walls lined with sheet metal; on the top, there was an opening used to insert a block of ice that would keep the food cold. One block could last for up to two days. Drip pan that stored melted water was located at the back of the icebox. In the interbellum period, in Belgrade, the ice was manufactured in breweries Bajloni and Vajfert and in the Confectionary and Chocolate Factory Šonda. The ice blocks were distributed across the town by icemen, who sold them to restaurants, hotels and households.

The first iceboxes in our country were manufactured at Braća Goldner factory in Subotica from 1921, and from 1925 at Đorđe Cvetković’s carpentry workshop in Belgrade.

In the former Yugoslavia, electrical refrigerators didn’t completely suppress the use of ice boxes until the mid-20th century.