PREVIOUS PAGE:
THE CENTRAL
MARKET.
TOP:
PLECNIK RESTS
IN ŽALE CEMETARY, WHICH HE
DESIGNED.
ABOVE:
DETAIL OF
THE NATIONAL LIBRARY.
RIGHT:
CHURCH OF ST FRANCIS
FEATURE
L JUBL JANA
DECEMBER-JANUARY 2012/13
WIZZ MAGAZINE
61
While some architects design the odd
church, boulevard or striking building,
Plecˇnik entirely reinvented the Slovene
capital. Stroll around Ljubljana today and
you’ll enjoy a city whose flood defences
were carved according to his outline. Walk
across three of the city’s central bridges
and you find he designed two, while a
third was completed recently long after
his death in 1957, on the exact spot he
specified. He reimagined churches, gave
the city’s Central Market a new lease of
life, reworked its favourite green space
(
Tivoli Park), revamped its riverfront city
centre, created one of the most striking
library buildings anywhere on the planet
and, fittingly, conjured up the drama of
Žale cemetery, which was to prove his own
final resting place. “Plecˇnik worked his
magic on several buildings in Ljubljana,
with the most important the National and
University Library,” says fellow Slovene
