1. REVITALIZATION
The question of revitalization is typical for old city nuclei – most European cities have gone through some kind of revitalization process, or such processes were suggested and discussed about. The revitalization of Gornji grad was never planned or systematic, although an elaborate plan was developed in 1979. Presently, the general attitude is that revitalization is an absolute imperative, but currently it is carried out sporadically and without a precise design, with a lack of respect for the opinion of conservators and urban planners.
***
quotations from articles about revitalization and individual cases of renovation and adaptation of Gornji grad facilities, taken from Čovjek i prostor, a magazine for architecture and urban planning
1979 URBAN DEVELOPMENT PLAN – GORNJI GRAD AND KAPTOL
As is already known, the drafting of the Urban Development Implementation Plan for the Renovation and Revitalization of Gornji grad and Kaptol started last year. The title of the plan in its own way suggests its basic directions – the renovation and revitalization of the most valuable part of the historical nucleus of Zagreb. The value of this area came into focus in occasional debates, usually caused by differences regarding the plans for construction or some other interventions.
(…)
During the postwar construction of Zagreb, a certain degradation of Donji grad (the lower town), the city’s “third” historic center, came as a direct consequence of building new parts of the city. Likewise, at an earlier period, the construction of the new center in Donji grad caused the neglecting and degradation of older historic centers, with the exception of certain representative buildings and spaces, both secular and sacred.
The DEGRADATION of the oldest historical parts can be manifested in:
a) the neglecting and decaying of most of the buildings, as well as the communal standard;
b) the decrease in some of the city contents;
c) the pressure of automobile traffic and the traffic for the wider needs of the city to this precise space.The degradation of these spaces also led to a process of social degradation. Only the population which was forced to accept the incorrect living conditions decided to remain. The needs of that population have to be kept in mind during the revitalization, regardless of the fact that they cannot provide adequate material contribution. Otherwise, the revitalization would mean social discrimination.
(…)
There are no better “guardians” of historical nuclei than the population living in them. By preserving their living environment they preserve cultural assets. (…) For example, Gornji grad should not be transformed into a museum district, or an “artist colony”. Also, it should not turn into a pile of restaurants or business facilities.
1983. METHODICAL REFLECTION ON INTERVENTIONS INTO MONUMENTS
Criticism of the interventions into Lotrščak Tower, the Jesuit monastery and Tkalčićeva Street by art historian Radovan Ivančević
Ante Topić Mimara, Croatian art collector, insisted on the restoration of the Jesuit monastery, so that he would obtain a place to house his doubtfully authentic collection of old masters. After the restoration was finished, Ante Topić Mimara changed his mind, ignoring the professional opinion, and requested that a late 19th century school palace, which still operated as a high school, should be given to him. His request was granted, not without objections by the professional public.
As Lotrščak will remain a symbol of the philistine mentality and the part of our “creativity” with which the aggressive philistine (in the role of an investor, designer or ) destroyed not only a huge number of architectural monuments, but whole environments, from Zagorje to Dubrovnik – so the Jesuit monastery became the most shocking monument of the other negative component of our reality: the union of unscrupulous technocracy and dogmatic bureaucracy. By transferring the same method of annexation from Donji grad to Gornji grad, the loss is much heavier because an older, more exquisite, in fact, in local conditions, a unique monument of architecture and urban development was struck. Sociologically, it is bizarre and paradoxical in the context of a socialist country that this aggressive intervention is the result of a privatization which would be impossible even in countries where the rights of private capital, and private investors in general, are much stronger. Which private investor, if they promise to donate their collection to the Louvre, could set out conditions, dictate the program and manner of adaptation and annexation to the Louvre? And apart from the Jesuit monastery in Zagreb, we do not have another Louvre. Assuming the authority which the Louises of France had, from XIV to XVI, our little absolute ruler, quite in accordance with that, finally does not allow the painting to be exhibited, gathers his belongings and refuses to play any longer.
***
THE UPPER TOWN STAIRWAYS – A FORGOTTEN MONUMENT
from the book “Zagreb in the Center” by Snješka Knežević
The research and valorization of the Upper Town stairways were started by Mira Wenzler Halambek who wanted to present a renovation project of the Upper Town stairways under section “Proposal 21” of the 1986 Zagreb Salon.
The state they are in today is sad. They are neglected, worn out, somewhat damaged, even ruinous, and their immediate surroundings – often gardens but also public green spaces – are overgrown in weeds, polluted by all sorts of waste, by parts of deteriorated gardening equipment and often by nodescript thickets or garbage dumps. The unique green framework of the Upper Town is a no man’s land. The private owners couldn’t care less about it, the inhabitants even less, and the public services paid to keep and oversee it mostly ignore it. Nevertheless, the stairways serve their purpose every day and the pedestrians love them as the shortest link between the Upper and parts of Lower Town, and many of them still sit on the deteriorated benches of degraded Upper Town promenades of yesteryear. (picture 1)
The appeal to a thorough renovation of the stairways is motivated by two impulses: 1. to restore them to the same form they maintained as a monument of the 19th century Zagreb urban culture and to make them a part of the protected green framework of the Upper Town; 2. to use them to contribute to the advancement of a pedestrian culture – this most human means of transportation and its dignity in this little zone outside the trajectories of automobile hegemony. In other words: the proposal to renovate the stairways strives to achieve their use, spatial, aesthetic and social valorization.
The proposal of Mira Wenzler Halambek is tied to a whole range of similar projects coming out of the Salon’s section “Proposal” from previous years, which bring culture into the time and space of ordinary life, outside of consumption and so called representative manifestations. By emphasizing this goal, the proposal shows to be an alternative to the majority of contemporary interventions into the historical core of Zagreb, which refresh objects and spaces perfunctorily and superficially by repairing or adorning their visible surfaces simply as a background of sorts, without going into the essential reasons of their steady degradation and without striving to stop it as the only condition of revitalization and health of a historical urban space. By dealing with space and objects, but without considering them as cultural monuments1, the proposition for the renovation of the stairways is unlikely to succeed. Even if it is remembered, it will find its place in the already vast space of Zagreb’s urban utopia that grows progressively as the historical core of Zagreb deteriorates and the incompetence of all its big city urban projects to valorize it instead of exploting it remains.
Mira Wenzler Halambek, A Proposition for the Renovation of the Upper Town stairways, 1986.
a) Zakmardi’ Stairs
The restoration of the stairway according to the Ehrlich’s idea; creating a quality impression at the entrance; offering information at the walls of nearby houses; attention to reshaping of green surfaces; opening of a panaroma of the Lower Town roofs through the greenery of the gardens of Grič; the renovation of the green shrouds on the supporting masonry of the promenade; the redesign of the green corner (“alpinum”); the opening of a pedestrian link to Ilica through the gardens; resting benches on the straight parts of the serpentines
b) Felbinger’s stairs and Prečac
A reshaping of the greenery next to the Hundred Stairs by importing more permanent sorts of trees and shrubs, discrete addition of evergreen overtones; a conversion of the gardens on the slopes above Kožarska (south side) into a public green belt; restoration of the stairway and the equipment according to the Lenuci project; covering of the bare floor of greenery next to Vraz’s Promenade with permanent evergreen plantlife; restoration of the hedge; signposts with maps of the city at the entrance to the Prečac Stairway from Radićeva Street
c) Mlinske Stairs
Renovate the stairway and the part of the fence wall with the same type of rock; renovate the lamps; shape new greenery with motives of old suburbian gardens – larch, hollyhock, holly, climbing plants under the parts of the concrete walls; renovate the small park according to Zemljak’s plan; close the unwanted panoramas to the northern part of the supporting masonry with larch trees; repair the surface of the wall next to the stairs; stop the surface moisture; shape the top of the tree above the lamp so the lam can be seen; renovate the lamp
d) Kožarske Stairs
The fixing up of the small access park on Mlinarska Street with a panorama to Šalata; the tidying up of the slopes by reshaping the greenery; removing of the existing degraded greenery and shaping the gardens-orchards as an authentic old motif of these spaces; plant next to the public walkway on both sides hedges of hawthorn; changing the lamp holders (ugly wooden “candelabras”) and the lamps themselves – maybe with the same ones as on Becić’s Stairs; freeing of the picturesque group of ailanthuses from the thicket as a possible quality motive of high greenery