Architect and academic Greg Bailey on Ljubljana, Slovenia, a stage for life’s rich theatre.
A statue of Slovenia’s national poet France Prešeren (1800-1849) with a muse takes pride of place in the city’s central square.
‘Gibanica’ and coffee arrive. The waiter smiles, genuinely. Maybe not quite as big a slice of this delicious traditional cake as I might have liked but still worth the pilgrimage; a vital ‘must-do’ on every visit to this still little-known jewel. Ljubljana is the capital of Slovenia, a small, young but increasingly important nation that emerged relatively unscathed from a traumatically disintegrating Yugoslavia in the late 20th century and rapidly began forging its place
in Europe and the world. A steep serpentine path from the tiny Church of St Florian on Gornji Trg (Upper Market) up to the dominant 15th century Ljubljana Castle provides my coffee pilgrimage. A better library of ideas about contextual architectural intervention would be hard to find. Over the passage of time skilled hands have knitted new additions into an exciting whole – a familiar story here.
I arrived in Ljubljana more than 20 years ago, inspired by my first architectural tutor Nigel Mills. The magic was tangible, and repeatedly dragged me back. Like an impressionist painting, meanings that are unclear at close quarters become clear when one steps back. Sitting outside the café, people watching, by Jože Plečnik’s Cobblers’ Bridge, you see why this is a place to fall in love. You feel so at home; the scale itself so human.
While current marketing as ‘Plečnik’s Ljubljana’, does rather a disservice to his Slovene contemporaries, Fabiani, Vurnik et al, it also ignores the plethora of remaining medieval, baroque and classical buildings that he contrived to brilliantly knit together, with sorely limited funds, from the earthquake-ravaged provincial outpost of the defunct Austro-Hungarian Empire. But Plečnik is the dream weaver here, bringing them to such effective visibility.
A Ljubljana native, Plečnik returned to join the Ljubljana School of Architecture in 1921 following time with Otto Wagner in Vienna, and significant activity in Prague. Describing Ljubljana in 1922 as ‘unbearably ugly’, he tirelessly transformed it into a true capital of the new Republic of which its citizens could be proud. A uniquely spiritual man, he lived modestly and took no payment for his commissions apart from his faculty salary. Yugoslav modernist masters, contemporary architects and a citizen-focussed city administration have subsequently created the captivating 21st century Slovene citizens’ Ljubljana we see today. The city, which achieved Green Capital of Europe in 2016 and UNESCO World Heritage status in 2021, is a true Gesamtkunstwerk – an artistic masterwork – and a stage for life to take place.
Plečnik transformed Ljubljana into a capital of the new Republic of which its citizens could be proud”
Aside from Plečnik’s major projects – the unique National and University Library, the astonishing Sluice Gates defining the city’s eastern edge, and the Market Place among them – it’s the extensive remodellings – the Križanke Theatre Complex, and the Triple Bridge at Preseren Trg (square) over the meandering Ljubljanica river, the reason this city is here – that best display his exquisite ‘over layering’. But it is the multitude of civic interventions and connections that masterfully achieve the knitting: cut-throughs connecting new river bridges with surrounding streets; steps with lamp standards in his unique style; routes around and into the city from working class areas; cycle paths to the happily functioning communist-era tower block estates that circle the city; and pedestrian routes out to cultural and green recreational areas.
At the Library, stones from the ruined palace that preceded it pepper the brick façades, a reminder that all things die and pass. There are no pretensions of permanence, but elements of the past are used to build in the present and make a future. As Juhani Pallasmaa reminds us, “Buildings are not abstract, meaningless, constructions, or aesthetic compositions, they are extensions and shelters of our bodies, memories, identities and minds.” The ‘big idea’ is citizenship; true democratisation with a distinct Slovene twist. Other cities easily upstage this one in grandiosity or wealth, but nowhere holds you like this one; it speaks of generous Slovene genes.
Of course, not everything is perfect. Political intrigues persist. The tourism machine has maybe been too successful for some. But when asked “why do you love this place so much?” my answer lies in the main square, Preseren Trg, where a pedestal bears a figure; not some great warrior or dodgy statesman, but a poet. I am in love, I could live here.
