Miklošič Park - the most beautiful Secession ambience in the city

ikl ošičev park (Miklošič Park), which was originally known by the Msymboli c name of Slovenski trg (S lovene Square), was !aid out at the beginning of the century in front of the newly erected Palace of Justice. The first initiative for a park came from the provincial government. The municipality did not object to the suggestion; on the contrary, the municipal authorities, forcefully pointed out that should also have a square of good quality which would give the impression of an architectural unit, like the squares in , Budapest, or Zagreb. Unfortunately, they did not have the financial means for such a project. Mayor Hribar strived hard to obtain money from the Mini s try of Finance to purchase !and for the square. Although he did not succeed, the municipal council altered the regulation plan of the north­ ern part of the city1 to enable the possible future realisation of 1.".... the square. The appeal for money was repeated and this time the Ministry of Finance granted 5,000 florins for the construction of the square. So al- ready in 1899, the municipality could order the elaboration of a plan for the architectural arrangement of the square, with exact guidelines for the surrounding buildings. It was commissioned from the architect Max Fabiani, who had earlier collaborated on work­ ing out the plan for the regulation of Ljubljana. Maks Fabiani: Plan for Fabiani sent a sketch of a square to the mayor that same year; he architectural enclosed explanations of the layout and the building scheme of lay-out of the square. Both were published in Der Architekt. 2 The architect Slovenski trg designed the square as a slightly raised platform in a combination in Ljubljana, 1899. Der of asphalt and white stone, enclosed between two rows of trees on Archizekl, VI- its latteral sides, and a line of monuments against the Palace of 1900, p. 35, Justice, for which purpose it was planned to use monumenta! ex­ Fig. 55 cavated Roman pieces kept in the National Museum's courtyard or in its cellar. Fabiani left the square open to the south. Mar­ co Pozzetto states that Fabiani based his design on the plan of a semi-circular forum, pub­ lished two years earlier by in a volume of sketches, 3 redesigning it for a rectangular site. It is clear from the proposed plan itself that Fabiani indeed designed the square for a chosen view, since it is left open towards the south, 47 and the architectonic sketch of the square's fa~;ade envisages corner turrets only for the houses at the two northern cor­ ners of the square, east and west of the Palace of Justice. Bamberg House at the south­ east corner of the square, de­ signed by Fabiani himself, is adjusted rather to Miklošičeva cesta than to the square, and has no corner turret.

Fabiani also suggested in his plan that the square should be built up in a unified manner, and proposed a uniform height for the nearby houses. To give an example of how the proprie­ tors should build their houses around the square, he him self made a plan for the building at the corner ofTavčarjeva and Miklošičeva streets, commissioned from him by the lawyer Valentin Krisper. Regalli's house to the south of it, whose plan was made by the sculptor Fran Berneker, and three residential houses to the west of the square, designed by the mu­ nicipal architect in the fashionable Secession style, were built in conformity with this. The south side of the square was left incomplete for a long time, closed off by the wall of the former Verovšek shop. As !ate as 1922, the building of the Loan Bank at 7 Miklošičeva was built in the south-east corner opposite Bamberg House, and next to it the trade-union building was erected in the 1960s, designed in a completely functionalist style by the architect Edo Mihevc, and corresponding neither in size nor in form to the character of the square and its architecture.

Breda Mih elič

1 V. Valenčič, Spremembe in dopolnitve ljubljanskega regulacijskega načrta iz leta 1896, Kronika, 1967,3, pp. 152-165. 2 M. Pozzetto, Max Fabiani /865-1962: Ein Archirekr der Monarchie, Vienna, 1983. JO. Wagner, Einige Skizzen, Projekte und ausgefuhrre Arbeiten, 2. Band, Vienna, 1897, Tabelle 41: Studie zur Monumentalfrage. 48