Plečnik’s students in the collections of the Museum of Architecture and Design

The Chapel at Fužine Castle, Museum of Architecture and Design (MAO), January 2017
Curator: Dr Bogo Zupančič, Museum Councillor, MAO

The architect Edvard Ravnikar, a pupil of the architect Prof Jože Plečnik, left behind a significant mark with his works and personality on architectural developments of the latter half of the 20th century in our country. His participation in the Modern Gallery (MG) project in Ljubljana, that saw the teacher’s and the pupil’s creative paths becoming interwoven, was a watershed event for the young architect, it meant the start of his independent path. The young Ravnikar had to struggle for his place in the professional environment which primarily favoured and revered Plečnik. Yet it was in the very course of designing the MG that the two architects also parted ways on a personal level.

The exhibition at the Fužine Castle Chapel displays items from the MAO’s architecture collection associated with construction of the Modern Gallery: original designs, photographs and Ravnikar’s diary. The projection shows some of Plečnik’s and Ravnikar’s lesser known designs, sketches and documents about the MG kept in the library of the France Stelè Institute of Art History of the Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, the library of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, the Archives of the Republic of Slovenia, Plečnik’s collection at the Museum and Galleries of Ljubljana, and material from various literary sources. The nearly 15-year long narrative of the Modern Gallery’s construction is a very intricate story entailing several factors and persons, and rich in unexpected intrigues.

At the end of December 1935, a good 6 months after he had graduated, Ravnikar started drawing executive designs for the University Library of Ljubljana on the invitation of Prof Plečnik. At the same time, the art historian Prof Dr Izidor Cankar, who had known the aspiring Ravnikar ever since the evening meetings in the professor’s home, attempted to secure his services for the Modern Gallery project, under the auspices of master Plečnik, of course. Following Cankar’s idea, Ravnikar drew a plan for the MG in March 1936 in the form of a Greek? cross which Cankar himself later renounced. Together, they devised the gallery’s programme, according to which Ravnikar then drew some 20 sketches by the end of July 1936 under Plečnik’s guidance. Unfortunately, not all of them still exist today. Cankar was managing 3 million dinars on behalf of the industrialist Dragotin Hribar’s heirs that he succeeded to channel into the Modern Gallery’s construction in Ljubljana instead of using it to build Hribar’s vaulted tomb. Simultaneously, in Belgrade he successfully negotiated for the lot opposite the Orthodox Church to be designated for the “House of Arts”. Cankar was dissatisfied with Plečnik’s suggestions that throughout had been drawn up by Ravnikar: “I no longer reckon on his assistance. I prefer it angular”, were Cankar’s words Ravnikar entered in his diary on 17 August 1936. Matters in connection with building the MG were further complicated by Cankar’s departure for Argentina as the Ambassador of Yugoslavia at the end of October 1936. Cankar passed the leadership of the building committee, which in Ravnikar’s words was disoriented, on to the art historian Dr France Stelè. In the middle of 1937, Ravnikar sent Cankar in Buenos Aires three of the four project variants, including his own. During Cankar’s absence, the committee at home had consistently attempted to move the project from the hands of the young architect to under the patronage of master Plečnik and the provincial administration. Ravnikar therefore had to appeal to Cankar while constantly fighting to retain his position in the project. On 9 December 1937, Ravnikar noted in his diary: “When he (Cankar, AN) came from America (probably on vacation in Ljubljana, AN), the governor showed him Plečnik’s plan and advocated it, but he (Cankar, AN) disapproved of it and indicated that this one (Ravnikar’s, AN) was better. The same with Stelè”. Cankar found Plečnik’s plan too expensive and didn’t like it at all. On 9 December 1937, Cankar delivered the founding document, Ravnikar’s plan and the three million to the provincial authorities. On 7 February 1938, based on a decree, the provincial administration finally entrusted him with making the designs and partially supervising the MG building site. This, of course, angered Plečnik! Then followed all manner of complications associated with modifying the programme, the tenders and contractors, consistently overpriced cost estimates, building a basement under the whole structure and the intention to erect a monument to King Alexander in front of the MG. The contractor Karel Kavka commenced construction works at the start of November 1939 while the building permit was issued on 14 December 1939. Due to World War II, the end of the works on the Modern Gallery was delayed until the early 1950s.

Cankar and Plečnik simply did not get on while working on the MG project. One of the reasons was that the latter was not enthusiastic about modern art and even less so about contemporary art. Plečnik wanted to design the Modern Gallery in a monumental fashion, to be achieved by arranging the programme along the lot’s circumference on the ground and upstairs floors in combination with internal courtyards; the façades would be richly articulated with classical elements. All of these would translate into a more costly construction! Ravnikar’s proposal was simpler in design terms, more functional and, above all, more economical; it underwent several minor modifications from the time of being approved till the completion of works. Basically, it goes as follows: all exhibition spaces are accommodated on a slightly raised ground floor which warrants the equal treatment of individual works of art; service facilities are located in the basement; the administration offices, the study areas and the library occupy the upstairs floor running along the structure’s axis, identical in width to that of the entrance portico. The building can be entered through the vestibule directly communicating with the central and slightly raised hall illuminated by E-W lateral light; from here, the visitor can turn left or right into elongated exhibition halls bathing in N-S basilican illumination. Visitors enter from the Tivoli promenade while the entrance for staff and art works can be found on the building’s opposite side, on top of a ramp. Due to the nearly simultaneous construction of the University Library and the Modern Gallery, the two structures feature more similarities than differences in their treatment of individual architectural elements. In Ravnikar’s words, the Modern Gallery is about a theme treated in a classical fashion, to which one might add that it is a treatment with refined features characteristic of Plečnik’s architectural idiom and syntax. Outwardly, the modernity does not aggressively appear on the back of the modern tenets of current architecture of that time; its presence is abstract, almost undetectable, partly through the ground floor designs and partly through the proportional relationships used on the main elevation. Ravnikar discussed the MG with Le Corbusier in Paris a short time before the building started, when he worked in his studio in the spring of 1939. On his return from Paris, there was a convinced modernist in our midst.

Bogo Zupančič
 

Location

MAO
Pot na Fužine 2

Info

infobio(at)mao.si
01/ 54842 74