The Great Ravelin Guardhouse, that today houses the Museum of Forestry and Hunting since 1957, was once the seat of the first freemasonic lodge in Belgrade. An information board in front of the building informs in two languages:
The Great Ravelin Guardhouse
This building is situated at the Great Ravelin of the upper town of the Belgrade Fortress, between the outer Stambol and Karadorde Gates.
It was first recorded on an Ottoman plan form the fourth decade of the 19th century, and labelled as a watchtower. It can thus be concluded that this military facility was constructed in the third or fourth decade of that century. It is known that for some time during world war I it served as a military aid station. As time went by, numerous unfounded historical assumptions and legends were spread about this building. It was believed that this had been the home of the Belgrade vizier Mustafa Pasha, killed by the Janissaries in 1801. It was likewise thought to have been the seat of the first freemasons' lodge in Belgrade. It is most likely that on the basis of this belief in 1930 the Belgrade municipality decided to entrust the building for use and care by the Grande Lodge of the Freemasons of Yugoslavia. After world war II, in 1957, the Museum of Forestry and Hunting was opened there, a purpose the building has maintained to date.
The plan of the building is in the form of the letter 'T'. The first room is a lobby, formed as an elongated rectangle, which leads into the main spacious chamber. The front facade, oriented towards the inner Stambol gate, is monumentally designed with central avant-corps, semicircular stairway and four semicircular pilasters carrying a triangular tympanum. On each side of the building there are four windows, separated by shallow pilasters. The rest of the facade is more modest, with a profiled cornice as the only decorative element.