Commercial and residential building on Dunajska street, Ljubljana

Around 2003, the construction company Vegrad started planning and building a large office and residential building on the land next to the Austrotel hotel in Ljubljana. The urban planning of Dunajská cesta, in accordance with the then zoning plan, was not in favour of tall tower buildings, as the plan envisaged lower, compact linear buildings up to the height of the ground floor, mezzanine and two storeys. The project soon reached an impasse, as the designers of the construction company could not find any common ground in their dialogue with the city’s environment and spatial planning department.

Based on the exemplary urban planning and architectural practice of the then recently completed Dunajski vogal building, we were invited by the construction company to collaborate on a building design that would comply with the urban planning constraints, but at the same time be of a suitable size for the client. A conceptual design was drawn up, on the basis of which Vegrad obtained a building permit and started construction, which was completed in 2008, at a time of great economic and financial crisis.

The building is designed as a two-storey building. The taller and narrower wing along Dunajska Street is intended for office and administration space, while the lower, more horizontally shaped wing is for apartments. There are 4 underground garages. The specificity of the design, which was already visible during the construction itself, is the exposed skeleton construction of the street façade, which creates a strong verticality in perspective, thus emphasising the abstraction of the façade surface.

After the bankruptcy of the construction company, the site, with the bricklaying and concrete work completed, passed into the hands of the creditor, who continued construction on its own. We were invited to participate in the selection and design of the final materials and technology of the building. Italian travertine stone was chosen as a key element of the new building’s identity, as most of the buildings around Ljubljana’s WTC are clad in a similar stone cladding.

The execution of the works of artisans and installers was carried out in difficult conditions, as the financial crisis of 2011 was far from over. However, the client still managed to complete the works. Later, the building was sold in its entirety to Gorenjska banka, which moved its corporate headquarters there.

Although the design is relatively simple and rather inconspicuous in the cluster of diverse buildings in northern Bežigrad, it is distinguished above all by the careful detailing of the stone cladding, the strict visual division into commercial and residential parts and, above all, by a sustainable urbanistic relationship to the surrounding, very heights varied, built-up area.

Authors of the project: BLENKUŠ Matej; FLORIJANČIČ Miloš