Extension of Sežana Town Hall Location Sežana Address Partizanska Ulica 4 Planning and completion 1977-1979 Architect Vojteh Ravnikar and assistants Marko Dekleva, Matjaž Garzarolli, Egon Vatovec (Kras Group) lnvestor Sežana Community of Sežana

Contractor se P Kraški Zidar construction company Building type Town hall Other buildings by the same architect Department store, Kozina 1977- 1978 (with Marko Dekleva, Matjaž Garzarolli, Egon Vatovec); store and post office, Vremski Britof1978 (with Marko Dekleva, Matjaž Garzarolli, Egon Vatovec); Srečko Kosovel Art Centre (Kulturni Dom), Sežana 1978-1980 (with Marko Dekleva, Matjaž Garzarolli); Club Hotel, Lipica 1980-1981 (with Marko Dekleva, Matjaž Garzarolli, Egon Vatovec); wedding suite, Lipica 1980-1982; Piran Hotel, Piran 1982-1986 (with Mladen Marčina , Irena Loz i č, Matjaž Garzaroll i); cemetery, Sežana 1983; residential house in Resljeva Ulica, 1985-1990; office building, Sežana 1985-1986; post office building, Zadar, Croatia 1985-1988

Sežana Town Hall is located in the former Scaramanga villa, a typical Historicist building from the turn of the 19th century with a park functioning at present as a botanical garden. The extension to it has functionally integrated the otherwise centrifugal architectural area in the eastern part of Sežana, by the main road between and Ljubljana. The design of the building considered contextuality as the basic principle , although that was not the main argument for criticism that eval uated the complex as one of the first mature re­ sponses to the current Postrnodern view of town planning and archi· tecture in . Vojteh Ravnikar received the national Prešeren Fund Award soon after the construction. Thus the architect and his colleagues from the Kras Group have clearly indicated their orienta­ tion within the frame of the multilateral morphological acquisition of

A Floor plan (scale: 2.1mm ~ 1m)

..,. External facade ... "The building is one of the milestones in the development of contemporary Slovene architecture since it undoubtedly expresses the character of the exciting time in which it originates by means of its mature, thoughtful and clea r design."

177 2oth Century Architecture: From Modernist to Contemporary Giude to Architecture the Postrnodern vocabulary. The decision to erect a contextual con­ struction within the existing urban and rural surroundings (the con­ struction of the store and post office inside a closed stone-built court­ yard in Vremski Britof was particularly paradigmatic in this sense) testifies to the most careful selection of theorems that re-evaluate the residential quality of the tradition. That comprises the direct formal elemental quality of the architecture of the Karst region and reference to the practice of functionalism, more precisely Italian rationalism, which was captured by Ravnikar and his assistants in its minimalist,

"The wing along Partizanska Ulica , the ma in street of Sežana, is more free since it is basically a front facade that can be considered asa portal of the courtyard typical of the Karst region doubled by the front facade of the old Town Hall building." i.e. modernist rudimentary expressivity. That is important in order to understand the architectural expression of the extension of Sežana Town Hall which became a recognizable testimony to the architec­ ture of the Modern Period in Slovenia. Vojteh Ravnikar has ever since confirmed his Postrnodern artistic principles in his erected buildings and has thus established his leading position in the so­ called Postrnodern generation of architects in Slovenia. The contiguity of architectural bodies is typical of the Sežana Town Hall complex erected by the internal courtyard treated as the intersection of functional communications of the various buildings. The four-level (i.e. two-storey) body of the building has a fragmented composition that follows the street line. The white walls of the entire complex are accentuated, thus indicating the rationality of the facade in relation to the marked horizontal series of office windows. The wing along Partizanska Ulica, the main street of Sežana, is more free since it is basically a front facade that can be considered as a portal of the courtyard typical of the Karst region doubled by the front facade of the old Town Hall building. It can also be regarded as a triangular protruding balcony that is visually broken by means of a dynamic feature of the integument, thus adding depth to the common external Extension of Sežana Town Hall area. The ground floor of the extension that is located diagonally as the longest side of the street edge is entirely glazed and thus syrnboli­ cally and functionally open and inviting. The conflicting stylistic dis­ course is concluded in the depth of the courtyard by an arched gallery that connects the new building with the old one as an independent architectural element leading to the entrance of the park that is thus turned into a public area. The reception of that sign forms a typically scenic Postrnodern address. It can be re-experienced in the interior that is an orderly, visually clear area of several storeys dorninated by an accentuated staircase that assumes syrnbolic importance with its exposed position. The building is one of the milestones in the development of con­ temporary Slovene architecture since it undoubtedly expresses the character of the exciting time in which it originates by means of its mature, thoughtful and clear design.

STANE BERNIK

Literature

APIH, MARKO, "Uveljavitev forme, Nova, nagrajena stavba Skup š čine občine Sežana" , Naši razgledi, Ljubljana, 1980. BERNIK, STANE, JANEZ KOŽELJ, BRANKO SILADIN, Vojteh Ravnikar Cl[ skupina Kras. Arhi­ tektura, Obalne galerije in Kraški zidar, Piran - Sežana, 1999. BERN 1K, STANE, "Slovenski arhitekturni in oblikovalski modern izmi", Umetnost na Slovenskem , Od prazgodovine do danes, Ljubljana, 1998. KRE Č I Č, PETER, "Nekateri vidiki slovenske arhitekture sedemdesetih let", Sinteza, No. so, Ljubljana, 1980. RAVNIKAR, VOJTEH , TOMAŽ BRATE, "Slovenija: 9 arhitektov", Piranesi, Ljubljana, 1996. TORKAR, VINKO, " Dom-hiša-mesto št. 17/18", Primorska srečanja , , 1980.

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