Urbani izziv, volume 29, no. 1, 2018
110 Reviews and information
Breda Mihelič
Paris: A modern architecture Mecca and magnet for 
Plečnik’s young students (Reflections on the book)
Title: Plečnikovi študenti in drugi jugoslovanski arhitekti v Le Corbusierovem ateljeju  
(Plečnik’s students and other Yugoslav architects in Le Corbusier’s studio)
Author: Bogo Zupančič
Publisher: Muzej za arhitekturo in oblikovanje (MAO)
Place and year of publication: Ljubljana, 2017
Number of pages: 232
[ISBN: 978-961-6669-47-4]
As the author mentions in the intro-
duction, the release of this book com-
memorates three important anniversa-
ries: the 130th anniversary of the birth 
of Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, known 
as Le  Corbusier, one of the twentieth 
century’s greatest modern architects; 
the sixtieth anniversary of the death of 
Jože Plečnik, the greatest central Euro-
pean architect of the twentieth century; 
and the hundredth anniversary of the 
birth of Edvard Ravnikar, the leading 
Slovenian modern architect, who in a 
way also represents a link between the 
first two.
This book is the result of thorough 
research in Slovenia and abroad, and 
a detailed review of extensive material 
scattered between Ljubljana, Zagreb, 
Sarajevo, Belgrade, Cambridge, and 
Paris  (where an important part is held 
by the Le Corbusier Foundation). The 
author has been engaged with this im-
portant topic for over ten years. He first 
presented it in 2007 at an exhibition at 
the Vžigalica gallery in Ljubljana, he has 
held several talks and published several 
articles on the subject, and in  2017 he 
staged a major exhibition at the Ljublja-
na Museum of Architecture and Design 
titled Plečnik’s Students and Other 
Yugoslav Architects in Le  Corbusier’s 
Studio in Paris.
This book provides the first-ever com-
prehensive presentation of this topic 
within the wider context of modern 
developments in architecture in Slove-
nia and abroad, especially Paris. As its 
author explains in the introduction, it 
is primarily intended for experts and 
connoisseurs. The fundamental ques-
tion that the author, Bogo Zupančič, 
addressed is how Plečnik’s students and 
other Yugoslav students that trained 
with Le Corbusier contributed to shap-
ing Slovenian and Yugoslav urban-plan-
ning thought and practice before and 
especially after the Second World War.
The book is divided into three parts. 
The first part presents Plečnik’s stu-
dents that trained in Le  Corbusier’s 
studio between  1929 and  1940, the 
second covers other Slovenian archi-
tects and civil engineers that trained in 
Paris between 1925 and 1938, and the 
last part discusses Croatian and Serbian 
architects at this studio between  1927 
and 1937. The work concludes with an 
extensive literature review, which will be 
of tremendous help to future research-
ers. The book is richly illustrated and 
many of the photographs, which have 
been collected from various sources in 
Slovenia and abroad, have been pub-
lished here for the first time.
In the first chapter, the author presents 
seven architects that graduated under 
Plečnik and then left for Paris to work as 
draughtsmen in Le  Corbusier’s studio. 
He lists the following individuals based 
on the documents studied: Miroslav 
Oražem, Milan Sever, Hrvoje Brnčič, 
Marjan Tepina, Jovan Krunič, Edvard 
Ravnikar, and Marko Župančič. Tradi-
tionally, Slovenians had good relations 
and close contacts with France. At the 
initiative of Slovenian intellectuals, the 
French Institute was founded in Lju-
bljana as early as  1921 (i.e., soon after 
the establishment of the University of 
Ljubljana). Because of the close contacts 
and historical connections with France, 
and a good command of French, stu-
dents were provided good opportunities 
to travel and also had access to French 
government scholarships. It is therefore 
natural that they used these opportuni-
ties well. Paris was the most attractive 
European and world cultural and art 
capital during the interwar period, and 
it drew artists, architects, and intellectu-
Urbani izziv, volume 29, no. 1, 2018
111Reviews and information
als from all over the globe. In addition 
to architects, many Slovenians studied 
and worked in Paris during the  1920s 
and 1930s, including the painters Veno 
Pilon and Nikolaj Pirnat, the writers 
Josip Vidmar, Bratko Kreft, and Ciril 
Kosmač, as well as other students, law-
yers, engineers, and linguists, and cer-
tain politicians. The French Institute 
had an extensive library, where students 
could read the latest journals. As one 
of Plečnik’s students, Janko Omahen, 
wrote in his book, this was also how stu-
dents learned about Le  Corbusier and 
modern developments in architecture, 
which they heard only little about from 
their teacher, Jože Plečnik. Plečnik was 
reserved regarding Le  Corbusier and 
modern functionalism, and he more 
or less discouraged his students from 
engaging in modern endeavours, even 
though he paid close attention to devel-
opments in modern architecture, which, 
among other things, is also proved by 
his extensive library. On the other hand, 
his students were increasingly interested 
in modern developments. In 1925, they 
attended the International Exhibition 
of Modern Decorative and Industrial 
Arts in Paris, where they were com-
pletely swept away by Le  Corbusier’s 
Pavillon de l’Esprit Nouveau (Pavilion 
of the New Spirit).
Based on an exceptionally detailed re-
view of sources and literature in Slove-
nia and abroad, the author proves that 
seven of Plečnik’s students worked in 
Le Corbusier’s studio before the Second 
World War: Miroslav Oražem, Milan 
Sever, Hrvoje Brnčič, Marjan Tepina, 
Jovan Krunič, Edvard Ravnikar, and 
Marko Župančič. Alongside these, there 
were also other Slovenians working 
there, including the architect Feri No-
vak, the civil engineer Janko Bleiweis, 
and most likely also the civil engineer 
Fran Tavčar. This was a relatively high 
number compared to architects coming 
from other, larger countries that worked 
at the studio. Because of their excellent 
knowledge of classical architecture and 
the drawing skills that they learned from 
Plečnik, Slovenian students were highly 
regarded by Le  Corbusier. The author 
provides precise information on when 
individual Slovenian architects arrived 
at Le Corbusier’s studio, how long they 
worked there, and which projects they 
were involved in. He also confirms 
this with some certificates signed by 
Le Corbusier himself, plans and sketch-
es  (mostly held by the Le Corbusier 
Foundation in Paris), photos, and corre-
spondence. Zupančič dedicates a special 
chapter to the relationships between 
the Slovenian and other architects at 
Le  Corbusier’s studio, who came from 
all over the world. Slovenian architects 
kept in touch with some of them even 
after the war; thus, for example, the 
Swiss architect Alfred Roth was invited 
to give talks in Ljubljana and contribute 
articles to the journal Arhitekt.
Even before the Second World War, 
Plečnik’s students used the experience 
they had gained in Le  Corbusier’s stu-
dio in numerous design competitions 
in their home country, where they won 
a series of prizes. This is also described 
in detail in the book. Among the most 
high-profile competitions was definitely 
the one for the urban development of 
Ljubljana in  1939, in which Ravnikar 
and Tepina directly applied some of 
Le  Corbusier’s urban-planning princi-
ples in their project proposals. Le Cor-
busier’s orientation, which Slovenian 
architects already applied to some de-
gree before the war, also prevailed in 
architecture and urban planning after 
the war, with a short intermezzo of com-
munist-style architecture. The author 
describes this in three chapters, in which 
he highlights the plans for the Sloveni-
an town of Nova Gorica and the Novi 
Beograd neighbourhood in Belgrade, 
and a series of architectural designs in 
Slovenia and elsewhere, and he discuss-
es the inclusion of Slovenian architects 
in international organizations  (e.g., 
UIA and CIAM), their participation 
in prominent international conferences 
and exhibitions, and staging of archi-
tectural exhibitions. Among the latter, 
the 1953 Le Corbusier exhibition held 
at the Ljubljana Museum of Modern 
Art and the 1956 exhibition Stanovanje 
za naše razmere (An Apartment for Our 
Conditions) staged at the unfinished 
Kozolec (Hayrack) building in Ljubljana 
met with an especially wide response.
The second part of the book presents 
architects (Plečnik’s students) that 
trained in Paris, but did not work in 
Le  Corbusier’s studio: Dušan Grabri-
jan, Boris Kobe, and Gizela Šuklje. In 
addition, it also presents the architect 
Feri Novak and the civil engineers Janko 
Bleiweiss and Fran Tavčar, who did 
work there. The author presents each 
of them separately, with designs that 
reflect Le Corbusier’s influence.
In the third part of the book, Croa-
tian and Serbian architects: Zvonimir 
Kavurić, Ernest Weissmann, Jurij 
Neidhardt, Ksenija Grisogono, Krs-
to Filipović, Milorad Pantović, and 
Branko Petričić, that also worked in 
Le  Corbusier’s studio are presented in 
a similar manner. During the interwar 
period, Slovenian architects established 
significantly close ties with them, both 
privately and professionally via the jour-
nal Arhitektura, which was published 
from  1931 to  1934 as a joint publica-
tion of Slovenian, Croatian, and Serbian 
architects.
Bogo Zupančič’s book is an exception-
ally valuable document about the inter-
war period, when alongside the great 
Plečnik a new modern architecture was 
being born. Despite its seeming devia-
tion from the great Slovenian mentor, 
it actually expanded the valuable skills 
and information that Plečnik imparted 
to his students with new ideas conveyed 
in the works of Le Corbusier and other 
pioneers of the modern movement. The 
author provides detailed descriptions 
of the young Slovenian architects’ path 
from their home architectural envi-
Urbani izziv, volume 29, no. 1, 2018
112 Reviews and information
ronment suffused with Jože Plečnik’s 
personality to the world’s art and cul-
ture capital, filled with new challenges, 
where a completely new spirit of mod-
ernism prevailed during the  1920s. It 
was a spirit filled with optimism after 
the end of the First World War and a 
desire to improve the world, to which 
the young architects believed architec-
ture could also contribute its part.
Breda Mihelič, Urban Planning Institute of 
the Republic of Slovenia, Ljubljana, Slovenia
E-mail: breda.mihelic@uirs.si
Information about the book
The book’s internet site:  
http://mao.si/Publikacije.aspx