Road roundabout in Rateče, Kranjska Gora

For decades, the development of the transport network in Slovenia has been based on the predominance of classical intersections, where roads intersect with relatively simple geometry and without any implications for the design and interpretation of space. The increasingly desirable principle of turning junctions into roundabouts is, like in other countries of continental Europe, introducing a new spatial and traffic type into our world for which we were not adequately prepared.

The discovery of a new circular surface, created at the intersection of two streams of movement, which is otherwise inaccessible to the pedestrian, raises a functional, technical, but above all symbolic question: what to do about it?

We are witnessing numerous experiments where the simplified and tangible identity of the local community is being settled into an empty roundel, without critical reflection and without the necessary artistic excellence. After all, these are spaces of national importance, where key transport and symbolic flows of national communication intersect. Interestingly, most roundabouts, even if they are part of the national infrastructure, have become the subject of local discretion and often lay formalisation.

The roundabout in Rateče is located on the Jesenice-Trbiž national road on the way to the Planica Nordic Centre. We were invited by the managers of the Nordic Centre, where we worked as co-authors from 2010 to 2015, to prepare a variant solution. Our starting point is that, in reality, roundabouts in natural (i.e. non-urban) environments should be completely free of objects and shapes. However, a proposal to “fill in” the roundabout with a scaled-down model of the Jalovec mountain was put forward as an opposing option. In the tension between the necessary emptiness and the desired fullness, we proposed a compromise, three abstracted figures of ski jumps, which in geometry and proportions reproduce the shape of the Goršek Brothers’ Aerodrome and the two jumps of the Bloudek Giant. The proposal was welcomed and endorsed by the local community.

The placement of the three jumping figures, executed by a local contractor in Corten steel, follows the dynamics of approach and the perception of circular movement through a roundabout. The shapes of the figures, which at times take on an animalistic character, interact with the mountain silhouette. The intense rusty reddish-brown colour, a trace of the ancient ironworking tradition of the upper Gorenjska region, creates a strong visual contrast to the green-grey context of the nearby hills.

Soon after its completion, the roundabout was locally nicknamed “spoons in the swamp”. The allegory is seen as a positive, yet humorous metaphor, which embodies the relatively abstracted geometry and gives it a pleasant connotation.

Authors of the project: BLENKUŠ Matej, CIMPERMAN Katja, CVETREŽNIK Anja, VALENČIČ Grega