Critical Archive of the Visual and Related Arts
Edvard Ravnikar
Slovene, Yugoslav; 20th-century
Ljubljana, Slovenia: Slovenska cesta 9
88%
Ferant Garden. 1975
I have some reservations about calling this the masterpiece of Yugoslav modernism because it doesn't quite gel with other buildings that are more characteristically socialist and "modern." It seems to be much more a flight of Ravnikar's fancy than an exponent of any style; there are few if any other buildings in Ljubljana (apart from several by Ravnikar, like Cankarjev dom) that are at all like it. Its fractal but unrepeating divisions of space have little to do with the infinite regularity and repetition of the brutalist complexes in Zagreb and Belgrade; that protruding barrel form, decorated with portals and some banding as if it's a castle's apse, seems to have been demanded by nothing other than Ravnikar's aesthetic desire to temper his many angles with a curve; the Garden's measured, exquisite brickwork contrasts with the instrumental use of concrete that's characteristic of so many other modern buildings in the region. (Where concrete does appear in Ferant Garden, as in the horizontal support beams, it is just as much flourish as it is function, if not more so.) Still, all the elements that make this building great had to have come not just from Ravnikar's raw imagination but from somewhere in his milieu, one in which solidity was valued for its ability to express social cohesion and substance, in which the self-similarity of divergent forms ought to be accentuated rather than suppressed or ignored, in which the necessary frolics of a building's design need not force the whole thing to stray from a unifying, totalizing principle of structure. Such could be said not just of Ferant Garden but of Richter's Rockets or Catinelli's behemoths (not to mention anything by, say, Mies). (TFS, 2025)
Ljubljana, Slovenia: Prešernova cesta 10
79%
Cankarjev dom. 1977-1982
This convention center derives much of its power from the contrast (even the contradiction) between its hulking surety of shape, on the one hand, and, on the other, the turbulent emergences and collisions of its many parts out of and into one another — it is both fragmentary and singular, an ideal form and a contorted mess at once. This it shares with Ravnikar's masterpiece, Ferant Garden, comparison to which reveals some of Cankarjev dom's weaknesses. For one, Ferant Garden's external quirks ramify on its inside, whereas Cankarjev dom in large part eases up once you enter it, shifting from the endlessly transmuted masses of its exterior to a pleasant but much less challenging play of alternating shallow/broad and cavernous interior spaces. For two, the concrete-accented brick of Ferant Garden lends to it an appearance of basic unity despite its many vagaries of physique; the white paneling of Cankarjev dom (comparison with Meier here is apt) is at times over-unifying, smoothing over some of the facade's exciting juts and protuberances, while also occasionally getting overpowered (rather than supplemented) by the building's patinated metal banding. Gripes aside, this building is among Ravnikar's better efforts at balancing his personal flare with the stylistic considerations of Yugoslav modernism. It therefore demonstrates what makes late-modern socialist architecture great: it allowed for a development of modernism past the International Style, into complexities and contradictions of form that are nevertheless not embittered by irony. (TFS, 2025)
Ljubljana, Slovenia: Šubičeva ulica
58%
Revolution Square. 1960
There are things to commend this design for, like the absurd metal crests atop each tower, functioning less like lipstick on a pig than as, like, just another pig on a pig. There's also the futuristic weathervane-like streetlights that line the perimeter of the square, and also the gigantic void that is the square itself, which is so shapeless and exaggeratedly huge as to have the effect of pure artistry (I think at one point it was supposed to have held a monument, but today it's just a cobblestone desert). But the two triangular slabs that are the square's marquee structures are insufficiently sculpted to hold their own at the swallowing conclusion of the square's expanse (their weird hats only accentuate how unfit they are for their task), and they crowd each other, leaving the square before them to sprawl untempered. All of this might have to do with the transformations the site has undergone over the years (it was once a parking lot, etc.), but one has to imagine that better buildings could've weathered the disruptions of time and shifting political conditions. (TFS, 2025)