XX. századi műemlékek és védelmük (A 26. Egri Nyári Egyetem előadásai 1996 Eger, 1996)

Előadások: - Damjan Prelovšek: Joze (Josip, Jusep) Plečnik (Ljubljana, 1892. jan. 23-1957. jan.7)

seemingly irregular distribution of columns nevertheless, it becomes even more symbolically expressive (the idea of the sacred forest). Contrary to modern stylistic trends, Plecnik demonstratively promoted the column as a symbol of classical humanistic European civilization while he was rearranging the building of the former Chamber of Commerce, Crafts and Industry in Ljubljana (1925—27); besides other examples, he also employed it on the facades of the Insurance Company „Vzajemna" building (1928—30) and the University Library (now the National and University Library; 136—41). On the former, he first concealed the wall behind a thick colonnade of columns, corrected in the perspective, and on the latter, he applied an idea, inspired by Semper, of a woven ,,carpet" made of bricks and stones which covers the antique-like colonnade. The Ljubljana library, which is one of Plecnik's masterpieces, also displays a number of other textile and ceramic metamorphoses: e.g. the portal leading into the exhibition hall is made of reddish Hotavlje marble and represents curtains such as were used in antiquity to decorate public buildings on the occasion of festivities, here transposed into a more durable material. Unlike his contemporaries, Plecnik did not follow a straight line of stylistic development but kept returning to the themes of his Vienna years (the design for Popular Loan Bank at Celje, 1928—29). Mention should also be made of the so-called „Peglezen" (,,flat iron"), a house in Poljanska street (1933—34), which is, together with the market-place buildings by the Ljubljanica (1940—42), a fragment of the Ljubljana Town-Hall complex planned on a large scale. At the same time Plecnik also adapted a villa with a garden for his friend M. Prelovsek, resuming a number of his Prague themes. The notion of „Plecnik's Ljubljana" denotes all interventions by the architect into the appearance of his native town. While a state law on building was being prepared, Plecnik was stimulated in 1928—29 to summarize his previous ideas in a special urbanistic plan of Ljubljana and its northern quarter (the so-called „Holy Cross" district). Thus he defined the main monumental starting points for the further corrections of the town. He based his project mostly on the principles of 0. Wagner and C. Sitte. The core of „Plecnik's Ljubljana" is the mutually connected market and park areas, marked with monuments, obelisks and greenery. If compared to M. Fabiani, Plecnik limited himself to the aesthetic potentials of the town in the first place, although he was also aware of its vital functions. He conceived the northern part of Ljubljana as a connection of monumental public buildings with a typologically rich garden city. At the beginning of the 1930s the worldwide economic depression changed the priority of tasks. Projects for a new university building, a town-hall, a gallery, etc. had to give place to public works which could be paid from the funds for the unemployed (regulation works on the Ljubljanica and the Gradascica, the so-called „Sance" rampart on the Castle hill). Plecnik's endeavours were dedicated throughout to the healing of the wounds inflicted upon the town after the earthquake of 1895. His Three Bridges (1929—31) tried to give back to Ljubljana some of the Venetian touch, characteristic of the Baroque era in central Slovenia at the beginning of the 18th century. The last great work Plecnik realized was the Ljubljana mortuary called Zale (1939—40), a kind of a „town of the dead", with farewell chapels, each of a different formal type, which translate the tradition of village funerals into modern times and which, with their wealth of themes and typology, represent a synthesis of his entire oeuvre. After World War II Plecnik continued to furnish his churches and reconstruct some sacred buildings which had been damaged or profaned (Stranje, Ponikve on the Sentviska pianota). He also proposed projects for the Littoral and Gorisko regions, but without any real success. His youthful ideas about a central building roofed with a dome were synthesized in his unrealized