Miha Dešman of DANS arhitekti is one of Slovenia’s leading architects and architecture writers. For uncube he tackles the tricky topic of trying to define the nature of contemporary Slovenian architecture and suggests that, for all its rebellious reputation, it is still very much a chip off the old block.
No serious interpretation of contemporary Slovenian architecture is possible without taking into account the meltdown of the Socialist socio-political system in the early 1990s and the subsequent transition. For all of us who spent our childhood and youth in the Socialist era but were never active participants in those times, this experience has made us who we are. The experience is one of being both “before” and “now”; of being both without Europe and within.
The excitement at the time about the “brave new world” of capitalism, the universality of the market economy, and the globality of the internet was initially reflected in architecture, which became plural, superficial, and irresponsible with respect to global issues. One may ask to what extent contemporary Slovenian architecture has retained any sort of cultural identity, or whether it is only a reflection of current global activity.
It is my belief that after independence in 1991 Slovenian architecture has been equally concerned — if not more so — with maintaining the continuity of the past as it has been with parroting the West. Allow me to elaborate. Slovenian architecture for the greater part of the twentieth century was obsessed with creating its identity. This is likely an expression of a century’s worth of unrealised tendencies towards national independence. Slovenia has for centuries existed as partitioned national territory (with varying degrees of autonomy) contained within stronger neighbouring states, including Austria, Italy and Yugoslavia. The end of the century was marked by fierce struggles for cultural survival, unification, and retention of territory.
The hierarchical structure of the Slovenian architecture and urban design cosmos during the last century was, and to a certain extent still is, analogous to a pyramid, with Jože Plečnik (1872-1957) at the top, Edvard Ravnikar (1907-1993) below, and a multitude of others spread out at the bottom. A desire for historical continuity reinforced by the respect for tradition and attachment to teachers is particularly pronounced in Slovenia.
»Any attempts to break away from Plečnik have always seemed like adolescent deviations rather than full revolt.«
This may be partially due to a Christian, rural mentality with its attachment to the soil and ethnic roots. Therefore, while patricide is required to incite revolution, any architectural attempts to break away from Plečnik – and then, in turn, from Ravnikar – have always seemed more like adolescent deviations rather than full-on revolt. The result has always been a return to the old positions. This dialectic is still at work today. Each new generation begins by pronouncing itself as the bearers of new, progressive ideas, but then history catches up. A good example here would be Sadar + Vuga, who so radically broke with the past at the beginning of their careers with publications such as Formula New Ljubljana and Sixpack Catalogues, and yet now cite Plečnik as a direct inspiration for their work in their latest monograph.
The start of the new millennium was full of promise. Slovenia was lucky enough to have a market that was thirsty for architecture and architects who were ready for action. A new generation of emerging architects graduated in Slovenia and went on to leading international schools, such as the Berlage Institute in Rotterdam, AA in London, and Columbia in New York, for their postgraduate studies. Upon returning, their built work was praised as an excellent response to the global demands and challenges; superior, even pioneering architecture started to be created and one could begin to see Slovenia as a potential architectural epicentre. So how did this reversion happen?
Drastic political transition has social side effects. During the struggle for independence and immediately after, a laissez-faire attitude toward cultural and social space opened the doors for experimentation, oscillations and even exceptional achievements that weren’t possible elsewhere due to tighter regulations. In hindsight, the extent of the avant-garde at this time may have had something to do with the extremely fast balancing of cultural differences. Similar to an equalisation in air pressure, there is turbulence followed by a period of calming down.
Slovenia joined the EU in 2004, and entered the European monetary union in 2007. These two acts made it at least look like a normal country, and Slovenians were duly faced with the best capitalism has to offer: an economic crisis, growing social differences, the decline of the middle class, unemployment, and the impoverishment of the intellectual and creative professions. Today, generations of young (and not-so-young) architects are frozen in various stages of their careers.
»Today, generations of architects are frozen in various stages of their careers.«
Miha Dešman was born in 1956 in Gornji Grad, Slovenia. He studied at the Ljubljana Faculty of Architecture and the IUAV in Venice, Italy. He has been a freelance architect and member of DESSA since 1981, and a member of DANS architects since 2004. Since 1995 he has been executive editor of the architecture theory magazine AB and is the author of numerous articles and essays. He was president of the Architect’s Society of Ljubljana between 2003 – 2006 and president of the executive board of the Plečnik Prize. Dešman received the Piranesi prize in 1990 and the nomination for the Plečnik Medal in 2004, among other prizes. His works have been shown at over 30 international exhibitions.
www.dans.si
With the ascent of the economic crisis, a number of major projects by international architectural celebrities have come to a halt; in most cases this is a blessing, since they only offered square footage in generic high-rises. On a symbolic level, we have retained our innocence once again.
For the youngest generation receiving its education at Ljubljana’s well-regarded faculty of architecture, going and working abroad is the rule rather than the exception. They see architecture a different way; instead of conceited hubris, now modesty, fairytale motifs, and a desire for closeness are de rigueur. The young are heralding a new period in which architects are precarious design labourers on the one hand, and on the other, they are beginning to realise that they need to become useful again if they are to survive. They feel that they have to adapt to new, harsh social and economic conditions, and that their work must be directed at common, real and humane values.
Today, wood, steel and brick find textural expression in a number of new Slovenian building works and there is an abundance of façade patterning. Architects dress houses with pixels on cladding and roofs, with aluminium, timber, or fibre concrete panels, perforated or otherwise textured, to attain the desired effect. Slovenian architecture is obsessed with form and detail, while the ambient and the experimental tend not to stand out. The potentials of space are taken advantage of considerably less than those of surface and form. Slovenian architecture can be conceptual, but its concepts are rather unidirectional.
Architecture is not just an uninterrupted continuum of tradition, nor is it the result of the conditions in which it was built; architecture is a practice that is established and verified when it is upset. In this sense, the responses to the crisis may be different, but the reaction, whatever the shape, must be swift. Young Slovenian architects want to establish a difference. This is as it should be — every new generation has to perform and endure a divorce from previous ones if it wants to build its own core and identity. This hasn’t happened yet, though; the project is still in an embryonic state. The revolt against the dominance of the previous generation is not yet sufficiently formed as to receive its final expression. p
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