History in the museum, the museum in history: from a baroque palace to a garage

Round table
(about the cultural strategies of Upper Town museums and galleries)
Lotršćak Tower or the hall in the ground floor of the Arko house, Basaričekova 24
Monday, October 10, 7pm
Participants: Andrea Zlatar, Snješka Knežević, Silvije Novak, Marijan Hržić, museum and gallery representatives
Moderator: Dea Vidović (Kulturpunkt)

The noticeable chaos in Upper Town cultural institutions is well illustrated by the fate of the Oršić-Rauch Palace: although it is the only palace that has maintained its baroque characteristics both in its interior and exterior, they are kept hidden by the redesign needed for the functioning of the Historical Museum located there. The planned relocation of the Museum into the space of a former tobacco factory could be an opportunity to return the Oršić-Rauch Palace interior to its original state and to turn it into a museum-palace, a unique monument to a type of urban typology and a certain way of life. It could be, if there weren’t for a plan to move the Naive Art Museum to the Palace, to a context, let it be said, which is entirely inappropriate. At the same time, the context which the Historical Museum will be moved into is also interesting: a nine-storey office building with a garage in a part of the factory still owned by Adris Group.
We wonder if it is possible to examine the various cultural strategies of Upper Town museums and galleries within the same context, with an aim to develop a constructive cooperation which would tie their practice to the wider urbanistic context of the city. We wish to start the discussion while we can still talk about plans instead of commited errors, as well as to include into it the employees of institutions, government representatives, experts of various fields, citizens of Zagreb and Upper Town denizens, trying to disprove the ingrained opinion that the broader concerned public cannot participate in the conceptualization of cultural strategies.