ARCHITECTURE LIVE: RAVNIKAR IN NOVA GORICA
10:00–11:30

Meeting point: Exhibition The Radiant Invisible City, ground floor of Eda Center, Delpinova 18, 5000 Nova Gorica

The spatial qualities of Nova Gorica that we recognize today as its most distinctive features originate from the city plan designed by architect Edvard Ravnikar in the early postwar years, as part of his search for spatial expressions of new boundaries and a more humane environment. Although many elements were never built for economic and financial reasons, these voids still shape the city today. In addition to Ravnikar, who worked on the Nova Gorica project for only a few years, many other architects left their mark on the city: Vinko Glanz with the municipal building, Marijan Vrtovec with the first designed pedestrian zone in former Yugoslavia, longtime city urbanist Tomaž Vuga with the well-known Gradnikova brigada neighborhood, Vojteh Ravnikar with the theater and library, and Sadar+Vuga architects with the recent renovation of the train station and underpass within the ECoC district.

We will explore Nova Gorica starting from the exhibition The Radiant Invisible City, prepared by the Nonument Group at the Eda Center in Nova Gorica as part of the European Capital of Culture 2025 program. The exhibition investigates and highlights demolished, rebuilt, half-finished, abandoned, and unrealized projects — public spaces, buildings, and other architectural elements designed with love and dedication to the “city of roses,” yet now invisible in the physical space. Many of them, such as the concrete sun sculpture behind the legendary Argonavti complex, were demolished long ago. Others, like the Park of Knowledge by architect Boris Podrecca, remained only as ideas on paper. Still others, such as Ravnikar’s project of 12 apartment blocks, were only partially realized — six buildings were built on the southern side of the Magistrala avenue, while their mirror counterparts on the northern side were never completed.

Through these empty spaces and unfinished layouts — which give the city a dual image of an unattainable ideal and a perpetual construction site — Nova Gorica continues to preserve the seed of a utopian city, a quality that usually vanishes quickly once utopias are realized.

The walk through Nova Gorica will explore the interweaving of the city’s built and unbuilt layers. The tour will be led by Eva Sušnik, co-author of The Radiant Invisible City exhibition, an architect living and working in Nova Gorica. She contributes as a writer to the architectural magazine Outsider as well as to Razpotja and Isonzo–Soča magazines. Her research focuses on the spatial and architectural history of the twin cities of Gorizia and Nova Gorica.

BOOK PRESENTATION: THE STRUCTURE OF MODERNITY – THE QUESTS OF EDVARD RAVNIKAR
12:00–13:30

Presentation of the bilingual scientific monograph on Edvard Ravnikar and discussion with editor Dr. Miloš Kosec and other contributors.

Architect Edvard Ravnikar continuously demonstrated through his working method that creativity arises from creative doubt and critical analysis of the present, both of which form the foundation of every original intervention in the world. Thus, in the era of social and environmental transformation of the 21st century, Ravnikar’s architecture is not merely a chapter in the history of modernism but also an intellectual challenge — showing how an architect, through the cultivation of creative doubt in space, drawing, painting, and writing, can engage with the social sphere and construct a framework for a better world.

The newly published book The Structure of Modernity presents new research contributions on the work and thought of Slovenia’s leading modernist architect, who is also regarded as the father of Nova Gorica’s urban form. Based on the research of Ravnikar’s legacy — donated to the Museum of Architecture and Design (MAO) by his heirs in 2022–2023 and enriched by material from the Faculty of Architecture, part of the MAO collection for more than 15 years — both the exhibition and the book The Structure of Modernity: The Quests of Edvard Ravnikar emerged. The project shifts the focus from Ravnikar’s completed works toward his creative process, examining development, experimentation, dilemmas, transformations, and the fate of some of his key works, through which he critically questioned the design dogmas of the international style and laid the foundation for the autonomous modernism of the Ljubljana School of Architecture.

The book’s five thematic sections represent turning points in the intellectual and creative development of architectural modernism in Slovenia and beyond:

• Susanna Campeotto writes about Ravnikar’s memorial complexes from the 1950s and early 1960s, which forged a new, landscape-rooted memorial language blending modernist aesthetics with lessons from Plečnik’s school.

• Aleš Vodopivec interprets the design and construction of the District People’s Committee Building in Kranj as an original synthesis of modernism and tradition — the cornerstone of Slovenia’s architectural self-confidence in the 20th century.

• Vladimir Kulić reads the creation of Revolution Square in Ljubljana as the generation of new architectural knowledge — both grounded in and emancipated from tradition.

• Miloš Kosec explores Ravnikar’s unrealized urban plans for Skopje and Venice, tracing the architect’s radical urban thinking based on critical analysis of the failures of orthodox modernism in the 1960s.

• Martina Malešič highlights Ravnikar’s architectural seminar as a creative laboratory for exploring ideas of modern housing and their dissemination in professional and public discourse.

• Nika Novak and Maruša Dražil discuss the curatorial challenges of preserving and processing Ravnikar’s legacy within MAO, opening broader questions about the conservation and accessibility of architectural archives in the 21st century.

The book includes archival materials from MAO’s Ravnikar Collection and photographs by Peter Žargi, offering a contemporary visual commentary on the state, preservation, and (mis)use of Ravnikar’s works in 2023. It is interwoven with excerpts from Ravnikar’s personal diaries — largely unpublished and held by his descendants.

MAO COLLECTION – LIVE VIEWING OF NOVA GORICA PLANS
13:30–14:00

Presentation of selected Ravnikar plans and sketches for Nova Gorica from the MAO collection, displayed on the ground floor of Eda Center, Delpinova 18, 5000 Nova Gorica.

The Museum of Architecture and Design (MAO) holds an extensive archive of Edvard Ravnikar’s works, including several plans, sketches, and photographs from the period of Nova Gorica’s conception. This event offers visitors a unique opportunity to view these materials in person and discuss them with MAO curators and experts on Ravnikar’s architecture.

The event is organized in collaboration between MAO, MoTA – Museum of Transitory Art, Nonument Group, and GO! 2025.

Registration: izobrazevanje@mao.si