We would like to introduce to you one of the well-known people of Kranj, architect Edvard Ravnikar.
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→ Leading architect of Slovenian modernism in the second half of the 20th century.
→ One of Plečnik’s most important students.
→ Designer of numerous representative buildings and spaces in Ljubljana, including the Modern Gallery and the Republic Square.
→ Author of partially realized urban plans for the construction of Nova Gorica.
→ Author of four buildings in Kranj: the Globus department store, the Creina hotel, the municipal hall and the SDK Public Accounting Service building
Edvard Ravnikar was born on 4 December, 1907, in Novo Mesto. He completed primary and secondary school in Ljubljana, then studied architecture in Vienna. He later became a student of Jože Plečnik, under whom he graduated and then worked as his assistant. He also spent several months studying with Le Corbusier in Paris. Already before World War II, he designed several major works, such as the ossuary for soldiers who fell in World War I at Žale in Ljubljana and the Modern Gallery building. During World War II, he was a prisoner in concentration camps and an illegal partisan, and immediately after the war, he became a professor at the Faculty of Architecture, where he remained until his retirement in 1980. He went down in the history of Slovenian architecture as probably the most important architect of the second half of the 20th century, combining Plečnik’s classical approach with Le Corbusier’s modernism and numerous other influences from all around the world. In the post-war period, Ravnikar designed a series of important architectural and urban planning projects, ranging from monuments and memorial parks commemorating the national liberation struggle (a well-known example of these is the park at the site of the concentration camp on the island of Rab), exhibition centers, residential houses, villas, and apartment blocks (like Ferantov vrt in Ljubljana) to administrative buildings and hotels. One of his most ambitious projects was the urban planning for Nova Gorica in the post-war years, but due to political pressure, only a part of the plans was realized. Perhaps the most important urban complex built according to Ravnikar’s plans is Trg republike (Republic Square, then Trg revolucije or Revolution Square) in Ljubljana, which was developed in the 1960s and 1970s with the construction of a central platform, the Maximarket department store, and two skyscrapers for the Bank of Ljubljana and Iskra electronics company. In the 1980s, the Cankarjev dom cultural center was added to complete the ensemble. Ravnikar died on August 23, 1993, in Ljubljana.
The architect Ravnikar also left his mark in Kranj and opinions about his buildings in Kranj vary among locals, but they certainly leave no one indifferent. First, between 1958 and 1960, an extension to the municipal building was built and Ravnikar designed it in line with modernist principles. It is considered the architect’s finest work in the city. The central space of the extension is a spacious hall for meetings and other events. In keeping with Plečnik’s spirit, the building features numerous meticulously designed details. The stone-clad facade of the building overlooks a small square, which today serves as a parking lot. Then he designed the branch of the National Bank or the State Accounting Service (SDK) at Slovenski trg 2, built in the early 1960s. The building, with a hexagonal floor plan, has a decoratively designed concrete facade and a somewhat open roof composed of several parts, which was a favourite feature of this architect.
In 1966, Ravnikar took part in a competition for the urban design of the area between Jelenov klanec and Slovenski trg, which he won, and the Creina Hotel and Globus department store were built according to his plans, although this meant demolishing a number of historic buildings. The hotel, located just above the Sava valley, has a distinctive brick façade and an undulating front, and its floor plan is also dynamic. In the early 1970s, Globus was built as the first department store of its kind in Slovenia. It was built with contributions from three companies (Železnina Merkur, Trgovsko podjetje Kokra, and Živila Kranj). For the facade, Ravnikar used cladding made of panels of so-called Corten steel, a corrosion-resistant steel with a rusty appearance, which caused a lot of concern due to its neglected appearance, but in the long run resulted in lower maintenance costs. The building remained a department store until 2009, and since 2011 it has been housing the Kranj City Library.
It is less well known that Ravnikar also designed the central monument to the national liberation struggle for Kranj in 1954 in the form of a bare tree, but the plan was too modernist for the Kranj veterans and the municipality. So seven years later, they unveiled a socialist realist monument by sculptor Lojze Dolinar.*
* PHOTO: Family archive
* The photograph of Ravnikar’s model for the monument is not available online; the original is kept in the Archives of the Republic of Slovenia, and it has been reproduced in the books Lives of Monuments and Shaping Revolutionary Memory.
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