What was once meant to be the Apprentice Hall, located on Nikole Pašića Street, is the most important public building designed by the Niš architect of Russian descent, Aleksandar Medvedev. It was built in 1948.

The Apprentice Hall boarding school was designed for the accommodation of students, with the accompanying teaching, commercial and other functions. However, prior to the beginning of construction, the city authorities requested a change in function, and the designer successfully reworked the design without changing the architecture and structure of the building.

The layout of this building built in the style of the early Moderne represents a merger of two tracts. One of the tracts is set back in relation to Nikole Pašića Street, creating a small plaza in front of the building. This tract is joined with another tract via a semi-circular structure. The semi-circular element in the formation of buildings is one of the basic characteristics of the early Moderne style of Niš. It is assumed that this formal element was borrowed from the architect Pieter Oud from Holland. The vertical element, the clock tower, is a counterpoint to the horizontality of the city administration complex.

The structure underwent several unsuccessful reconstruction, but the latest one, dating from 2012, to a great extent restored the characteristic architectonic composition of the building.