engleski

19th century industrial architecture as part of Zagreb urban identity

In this paper I would like to prove how in my home town Zagreb some industrial buildings of the 19th century and the beginnings of the 20th century form part of its urban identity and to plead for their preservation. But to understand how the industrial buildings came to form an important part of the town morphology I would first like to point to some historical facts: The year 1850-the three parts of Zagreb, two oldest on the Grič and Kaptol hills (1) and the suburbium (the Lower part-the Donji Grad) (2), were finally joined into the unified city of Zagreb, a new political centre. The year 1862-the railway finally reached Zagreb connecting it to the world. These were two main factors that gave impetus for the intensification of the administrative, cultural and economic life in Zagreb, bringing with it the growth of building activities. This also resulted in a sudden and quick surge of new industries. Until this date the first manufacturies (mills and tanneries) were located on the streams below the Grič hill. Now the main factor became the railway and industrial building started springing up on both sides of the railway track (3). 1889-the Regulation plan by the town Chief Engineer Milan Lenuzzi, fulfilled the need for perspective planning brought about by intensive building activities and the growing number of new citiziens. The orthogonal grid of housing and the so called green "horseshoe", the cultural Zagreb forum with the representative buildings of the Academy of Sciences and Arts (4), the Art Pavillion (5), the National University Library (6), the National Theater (7), are the main characteristics of the Plan. In contrast to the separate and particular identities of the two oldest parts Grič (8,9) and Kaptol (10) a new urban identity of Zagreb Donji Grad had been created forming what is still in our mental eyes the image of Zagreb (11,12,13,14). Along with housing blocks and representative, monumental buildings the industrial buildings of the 19th and the beginning of 20th century came to form also one of its main aspects. I would like on the example of the three factories to show how Zagreb urban identity would be jeopardized if they were to be pulled down. The Tobacco factory (15,16), built by Plochberger in 1882, is part of the housing orthogonal grid (17) and is very well addapted to the surrounding neostylistic matrix (18) by its low profile and by the rythm, size, proportions of Neo-Renaissance window openings (19). The middle part (20), on the axis of Primorska street, running perpendiculary to the main body of the building, visually successfully stops its flow. Just the tobacco smell indicates the production behind its façades. On one of the Zagreb streams, below the Grič hill, stands the former Tannery, built by Janko Holjac in 1900, on the place of an older building. Here again we can see how the architect tried to insert this otherwise unclean industry and conform its architecture with its surroundings. Especially fine is the solution of the corner part preserving the previous street line (21, 22, 23, 24). South of the railway track, on the site that was once out of the city boundaries (25), stands the representative, monumental building of the Zagreb Mill, built by the firm Hönigsberg and Deutsch in 1908 in place of an older mill. The only example of a mill in Zagreb (26) could be easily described in Gropius´words: "The effect of these buildings lies not only in the supremacy of their dimensions, their monumentality, but in that their builders show the natural sense for full, firmly connected, self-standing, healthy and clean form". This Mill, like ones Schinkel admired in Manchester, makes now, when the city has spread far behind it a very needed passage between two morphologies, two building scales and two formal architectural languages (27, 28, 29). All these three examples show how some industrial buildings by their location in to-day´s town centre or in the nodal points between 19th and 20th century Zagreb form very important elements of the town morphology and by the quality of their architecture an important part of the city´s image. The problem arises when production is moved from old buildings to new premises in the industrial zone, or completly abandoned so threathening their very physical structure with destruction. This problem was happily solved when the old Tannery buildings were left empty and the newly established Glypthotek (where the sculpture casts are exhibited) was housed on the premises (31,32). In this way the "Romantic" complex was saved and instilled with new life more suiting and appropriate to the surroundings. The identity of this part of Zagreb had been saved. For many years now a great problem is posed by the buildings of the Mill that was burned down a few years ago. The discussion is still going on whether to pull it down according to the plan for what is to become a new town central square south of the railway or to save it and give it a new function. At one point there was much talk about the Museum for Contemporary Art or a hotel. The plan for the new square proposes in its place an anonimous commercial building loosing in this way the needed visual link between two parts of Zagreb cut by the railway track and the building of the Main Railway Station. The Tobacco factory is still working on the old premises. But soon, the restricted site and the growing production will cause the production to be moved from this location. The time is ripe to start putting forward the proposals for the revitalization of this fine building with the aim of preserving the identity of this part of Zagreb, so very near the centre (33, 36). So I conclude with the thought that not only the Zagreb urban identity would greatly lose were these factories to be pulled down but also that the identity of Zagreb as an industrial city would be preserved in the mental eyes of its citiziens if these early examples of industrial architecture were to be saved as permanent witnesses to the continuity of life, work and production in the city of Zagreb.

industrial buildings; urban identity; preservation; morphology

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