Samo Lenarčič, Majda Medvešek, Vlado Novak, Marta Perše, Andrej Poredoš, Jelka Ribič, mag. Niko Stare, Maksim Sešel, Tomaž Trobec, Olga Zadravec-Klemenčič, Andrej Šmid, Janja Židanik, Nada Živec External associates: Igor Brejc, Jurica Čavlek, mag. Miran Gajšek, Damijana Počaj Horvat, Marko Korošec, prof. dr. Vilibald PremzI, Andreja Podlipnik, dr. Marjan Ravbar, dr. Ana Vovk, Project council Prof. dr. Vilibald Premzi (president). Ljubo Mišić, (deputy president), Boris Stergar, mag. Miran Gajšek, dr. Uroš Krajne, Janez Krešević, prof. Janez Koželj, prof, dr, Janez Marušič, prof. mag. Braco Mušič, Bojan Pavlinič, dr. Jože Voršič 2 The first draft contains four volumes: Land use. Networks, Regimes of management, Spatial planning units. The cartographic material contains 16 thematic maps. Each map contains one main map (scale 1:12500) and three sub-maps (scale 1:30000), supplementing the main map. The first draft thus contains 64 maps, that enable comprehensive overview. List of main maps (sub-maps are in brackets): 1. Regional town (functions of regional importance, networks); 2. Land use (new residential areas, new areas for central activities, institutions, education and health care, new areas for production activities); 3. Central areas (distribution of commercial and non-commercial activities, new central areas and mixed use areas, distribution of public open spaces and hierarchy of central activities and semi-public spaces); 4. Areas for production activities (Suitability (flexibility) of production areas, areas of restructuring, vision of development of production areas); 5. Residential areas (new residential areas, clean and mixed residential areas, settlement density); 6. The green system (design elements of the green system, parks and sports surfaces, generators of the green system); 7. Traffic network (traffic network (intercity and local) functioning as access routes between Maribor and its suburbs, parking and areas of traffic calming, cycling paths); 8. Water supply - development of the waterworks system (protection belts, areas of high and low pressure in the network, Drava, rivers and flood planes); 9. Sewage and processing refuse water (proposed collectors, primary collectors, protection belts); 10.1 Energy - development of the natural gas and hot water network (situation of the long distance heating system TOM, situation of the natural gas network with buildings using natural gas for heating, situation of buildings heated from boilers according to heating fuel); 10.2 Energy - proposal for energy supply in the town - long distance and individual heating (development of the TOM network, development of the natural gas network, areas of extension of long distance heating); 11. Electrical energy network (The electricity network, areas fed by particular transformer stations, including the electrical system of Maribor into the national electricity supply system); 12. Communication network (tc-network and tc-corridors, post offices, radius of acceptable accessibility and limits of postal areas, radio and TV network); 13. Town form (structural model, design elements of the natural system, dimensions); 14. Regimes of management and phases (concept of global distribution of spatial planning units, prevailing land use in spatial planning units, areas of complex development and renewal); 15. Building sites (size and relations for different types of land, land use on undeveloped building sites and land for public economic infrastructure); 16. Spatial planning units (Rotovž, Melje, Košaki, Drava, Tabor, Studenci, Radvanje, Tezno, Pobrežje, Brezje). Illustrations: Figure 1: Abstract image of the four towns Figure 2: Four town parts - quality of urban space drops counter clockwise Figure 3: The town as a fractal - work and trading in the East, Government and residences in the West - transfer from the left to the right bank Figure 4: The traffic network - the inadequate network of existing primary town roads (black), will be complemented by new ones (grey), so that they connect all four town parts in both directions. The railway terminal, highway and aero-port (intermodal node) are in the South, the highway in the East, river traffic will be established on the river Drava. Figure 5: Central activities will develop along the main access roads and near the town entrances. Transfer of central activities to the right bank, centralises the contact zone on the right bank connecting all four town parts into one. Figure 6: New residential zones will be established on cleared and renewal areas, thus restructuring central areas, presently occupied by production and warehousing activities and by complementing existing residential areas, thus forming a major part of the built edges in all the town parts Figure 7: Production activities are moving from the town centre, only a small part of the Melje industrial zone will be maintained, to the South and West edges. Each of the four town parts will gain a manufacturing zone, along the highway services and warehousing activities are proposed Figure 8: Green areas - the four town parts in the green vessel, its edge defined by the green ring, green wedges (fingers) connect the town centre with the green belt and hinterland Figure 9: Division of the East part of fvlaribor Jasna KRALJ PAVLOVEC Edo Mihevc - Urban planner, architect and designer Evaluation of postwar urbanism of the Slovenian coast „The decisions guiding the professional path of Mihevc were always complexely balanced and directed into a long-term perspective. He was guided by understanding the needs of social development. The search for technological innovations and humanistic ethics was reflected in his implementations of all kinds through a convincing personal artistic note. As a result of the author's consistency and his irreproach- able principles, his enthusiastic activity echoed throughout the former Yugoslavia, contributing to raised values w/ithin the entire territory of the country" (Brezar, V., 1985). 1. introduction Edo Mihevc (1911-1985) was one of the protagonists of Slovene mordern architecture after World War II. The time distance of more than a decade after his death and almost a generation after the most productive period of his activity enables an unbiased view on one hand and raises a series of questions, dilemmas and assumptions on the other. One such question would undoubtedly be why Mihevc wrote so little or almost nothing about his work and about his perspectives of the architecture, although he was relatively talkative when lecturing to students and even more in an intense and suggestive professional discourse within the narrow circle of his collegues and students. Since he always used to carry a pencil and emphasized each word with a line, a sketch or a drawing on the legendary sketch paper, one of the possible explanations would simply be that drawing was his language and that this is heritage he brought from the Plečnik school. He disliked the public media and avoided them. Reporters and collegues wrote about him -pollemically and otherwise - however, he „never gave a statement". Why? Maybe he underestimated the importance of the public media, maybe he thought his work spoke itself. In principle, a creative process in architecture (and otherwise) is an intimate matter of intuition and gesture; when you talk about it you have already desecrated and interpreted it. An interpretation, however, is never more than an approximation to the original truth. If something like this eventually happens, it is a rare exception and reading it leaves an uncomfortable feeling that the revealed truth is banal, regardless of the author's efforts to mistify it with a hermetic vocabulary. Another interpretation is also possible: his partisan political episode was a huge burden for him: - every statement he would have given in the 1950's and 1960's would bear an additional weight and connotation in a sense that he spoke from the position of power (although informal). Mihevc belongs among those Plečnik's students that separated from his manner and believed in the new world of Modernism which was at that time already overwhelming Europe and the World. After-the-war euphoria of „reconstruction and industrialisation of the homeland" was an ideal opportunity and an alibi for modern ideas to be implemented in a reality. The teacher's influence was of course too strong: some of his former students have „killed the father" only on the declarative level, some of them only formally, some got lost, while only a few have developed into independent personalities. If the discourse at this point is narrowed down to the two most frequently mentioned: Mihevc and Ravnikar, it has to be stressed that I avoid their direct comparison in spite of the tempting fact that the easiest way of enlighting things is with the use of contrasts or antipodes, Considering various interpretations - known to the professional public - of the role and the importance of Ravnikar as a continuator of Plečnik's tradition, the only appropriate assumption (without unnecessary ambitions) would be that Mihevc remained faithful to Plečnik's tradition in terms of detail, implementation, professional attitude towards all matters and people. This, however, does not diminuish his devotion to Modernism in any aspect (i.e. in terms of formal language, func-tionalism, the use of reinforced concrete frame, innovative construction solutions in industry, etc). At the same time, his Modernism in all areas is subject to the genesis into something else: internationalism in urban design and planning was replaced with the search for a regional identity; new, more humane forms (multi-apartment villa, tower apartment buildings, terraced housing, town houses, etc) were searched in housing construction instead of modern types; in the area of the reshaping of urban structures he detached himself from the residential district doctrine and used traditional methods of urban design (squares, piazzettes, streets, vertical elements - campaniles, displacements); in tourist architecture, although intended for mass tourism, he tried to emphasize an individual character and new forms; public building interiors (halls, restaurants) were given virtually a sacral character. Apart from being a child of his time (according to the old good millieu theory), Mihevc also influenced it - of course, I refer to the first three decades of the Slovene post-war architecture. Born in Trieste and educated in Ljubljana, he lived his life between the two cities. In his architecture he remained faithful to the Mediterranean feeling for the ambientai environment on the level of the exterior and to the Central European civic tradition of the ambientai culture in designing the interior architecture. 2. The areas of Edo Mihevc's activity His architecture has always been a reflection of demanding tasks the profession was assigned by the society, and at the same time an echo of modern European and Worldwide search in the area of architecture. In industrial buildings - i.e. the complex of the Litostroj factory - he was faced with problems that have been unknown to Slovene architecture until that time: large spans, extraordinary technological requirements and quick construction. The use of reinforced concrete was an entirely constructive task he managed to translate to the level of architectural design of large prefabricated elements in a way that they -apart from their supporting function - also contribute to the expressiveness of the entirety, i.e. they speak in the language of Modernism with geometry, concrete and functional simplicity. This language was unknown to the Plečnik's school, however his students managed to learn it by themselves, For Mihevc, the functionalism that together with the views of the Modernist avantguarde of that time (i.e. Le Corbusier, Gropius, Mies van der Rohe and others) represented also the basis of the new post-war Ljubljana school of architecture, was primarily the opportunity to give sense to the new and the different, therefore to reduce the distance in relation to the old and the traditional. Tourist architecture is a special area in which some of his most mature creations were perhaps reached. Apart from a series of hotels designed in Ohrid, Ljubljana and along the Slovene coast between Ankaran and Portorož, unconven- letnik 10, št. 2/99 tionat forms of tourist architecture (tower apartment buildings, multi-apartment vilas, bungalows, etc) and tourist infrastructure buildings gave him the opportunity to express his attitude towards the sensitive coastal region, its message and its climate imperatives and, at the same time, to introduce the most modern principles of tourism industry into this area. Tourist settlements, i.e. apartment houses in Ankaran and Lucija, were a kind of innovation called „Settel" - a settlement + hotel in greenery. This was a form of tourist building/settlement representing a cluster of buildings instead of a hotel block, designed in a manner of a compact village in the best sense of the Istrian tradition, offering a guest also an adequate human-friendly ambient, a high degree of intimacy and the connection with nature. The Slovene coast is also dotted with another type of buildings: restaurant complexes on all important tourist and transport crossroads (Žusterna, Belvedere, Lucija, etc). Restaurants have a special place in Mihevc's work because he unleashed all of his creative energy while designing them: he designed unusual constructions, searched for new volume shapes, used new materials and the old ones in new ways. In a noble synthesis of concrete, stone and Mediterranean tiles, the architecture of these restaurants is given an almost sacral place. A pillar has a special role in it, be it only a simple support of a pergola or a central bearing wall of the building. Wall decoration is not only an application but an actual structure of the materials used in a unique way. And above al! - the Istrian white stone, connecting elements into an entirety as a hypotenuse, is always used in an architectural way and is always the closest to a person that touches it. Public buildings, such as business buildings, theatres and cultural centres, are placed in larger city centers. Business buildings, built in the Ljubljana city center, are today a typical counterpart of the city center outlook. From the Impex corner building which remains classical in total subordination to the street area and the use of stone for wall sheeting, to the Metalka and the Avtotehna buildings which give Ljubljana a new City character with a new scale and design, the path was marked along which the country's construction engineering capabilities and capacities were developed. In spite of being seemingly simple, the frame of the Metalka building nevertheless required an extremely high quality of concrete for that time, while the pre-fabricated aluminium suspended facade was a challenge for the domestic aluminium industry rather than striving for an innovation at all costs, since the structure of the front facade successfully incorporates into the environment of the post-earthquake and Secessionism Ljubljana despite its modern technology. The most important public buildings include both Slovene cultural centres in Italy. The exterior of the first one, built in Trieste in 1964, is characterized by modern geometry and classic proportions, while its interior is a real feast of the Slovene spirit, a bounty of the variety of spaces and their characters, functional in the best sense of rational functional-ism, furnished in a cooperation of numerous subcontractors from Slovenia and decorated with artistic works of the entire cultural circle of Slovenes living abroad. The Cultural Centre in Gorica was built in 1976 on an extremely unfavourable location and with limited funds, however its language is much richer than the materials used in construction. Apart from tourist buildings, residential buildings are the most quantitative area where the first applications of certain housing types in Slovenia are recorded: • An urban residential district - Belvedere in Koper represents the first town district in Slovenia with a gradation of housing types from a multi-apartment house to a high rise apartment building with a skillfully designed exterior and the inclusion of Istrian identity in designing urban attributes; • A city housing block - the Kozolec in Ljubljana is one of the most characteristic multi-apartment buildings. The mode! of the Corbusier's Unite d'Habitation block that has been copied worldwide is here nevertheless used in a disciplined way, taking into consideration the existing urban fabric as well as the construction line and orientation, avoiding the principle of „a box in greenery". In its scale, programme and materials, this is a genuine urban element with a main-street function in a ground floor and the housing part in higher floors, protected with belts of balcony horizontals; the frame construction, remaining an exception in housing construction in Slovenia until today, enables free layout design and the adaptation of the building in accordance with changing demands. • A multi-apartment villa (Lucija) and a town house (Piran) are a combination of a multi-apartment building and a villa or a detached house in terms of the content and the design. In principle, Mihevc was not involved in mass housing construction manifested in large residential districts. An exception is his early period when modern Koper was in the phase of construction and the idea of the residential district was still a novelty. Such an example is the Semedela residential district in Koper, offering much better living conditions than other residential districts in Slovenia of that period. The planned size of the Semedela residential district later got out of control - it expanded considerably and reached the boundary of the Izola municipality. Among numerous detached houses, the Metuljček (Butterfly) house in Ježića, Ljubljana should be mentioned. It was built according to modern principles which was more an exception than a rule at that time. An extremely thoughtful design of the ground plan organism and a functional system, the connection of individual spaces separately with the equally designed exterior, the inclusion of greenery into the comprehensively designed environment - all this reflects the humane housing culture to which the functionalism doctrine and an unconventional design of the building mass represent means rather than a goal. The difference between the architecture in larger urban centres and the architecture of the coastal region lies in its expressiveness. On one hand, the architecture is monumental, urban, without author's rntensions to leave a personal mark, yet it is designed in accordance with human needs and takes into account the urban fabric in line with urban design guidelines of Modernism; on the other hand, the architecture of the coastal region managed to preserve and reintroduce a typical littoral character, which was achieved by following the principles of the modern architecture development. Numerous forms also reflecting the environmental variety and scale differences include modest atrium terraced housing in Šalara near Koper, a type of detached houses which served as a model for the further massive housing construction in this environment; and furthermore, terraced housing, housing blocks, high rise apartment buildings and above all tower apartment buildings and multi-apartment villas. The latter housing type was developed as the most rational form of housing development adapted to small coastal towns and the local way of life. Mihevc dedicated special attention to details (the design of fences, lamp-posts, chimnies, pillars, stone fences, etc) which he as well as his teacher Plečnik considered distinctive expressive power and a relationship in the understanding of classical architecture. With a strong personal note, the details reflect the colourfulness and the character of the Slovene landscape and its people. As a designer, Mihevc was active in three different areas. In a series of permanent and temporary exhibition pavilions throughout the world (Vienna, Paris, Bah, Trieste, London, Milan, New York, Kopenhagen, etc) he primarily expressed his perspectives on the artistic problems related to this area that was usually under a severe pressure caused by the lack of time, prices and technical and innovation demands. The second area is a complete antipode to the first one: designing of memorials where the cooperation of an architect, a sculptor, a painter and a poet is presented in a framework of free expression in the first, as well as the second area. In his spatial concept, an architect detached himself entirely from the detailed artistic idea; he conditions the size and place of the sculpture. Besides, monuments were designed in the period of socialist realism where realism and monumental sculpture were intertwined with a new concept, however Mihevc's monuments are an antipode of this period - they are abstract and traditional in terms of design and materials; they are also commonly designed in line with regional identity. His installation of a statue of a member of an underground movement in Ljubljana seems so natural that it serves as an example never surpassed in Ljubljana. The heroes' tumb is also exactly what it should be: a quiet, sacral place, a peaceful island in the middle of vibrant life in the city center. He achieved this with modest, however monumental means: a stone shaped as a sar-cofag, an axis, trees, ... The third area is a series of interior architecture, characterized by original, intensive approaches, introducing a series of new materials and processes (photo wall papers, intar-sions, woodcuts, mosaic, etc) where he designs everything from chairs and lamps to the last screw and inscription. Especially worth mentioning are the interior of the Palace hotel in Ohrid, night clubs in Ljubljana (Slon Bar) and along the Slovene coast (Tri papige), the Cultural Centre in Trieste and the interior equipment of his tourist facilities. As a town planner Mihevc was active in the Slovene coastal region and Istria. One of his first design plans for individual settlements, designed as part of a wider framework of concrete projects, is the Regional Development Plan of the Slovene coast and Istria, the first of this kind in Slovenia. Apart from the plan's role, Mihevc's long-lasting urban planning discipline is also very important since he managed to interpret it to social factors as their own goal. Indeed, the landscape appearance of the Slovene coast is a result of this simple discipline which includes certain principles of the structuring of building masses, the use of local materials, the uniform use of Mediterranean tiles for roof covering, the consistent use of shutters for sun protection and the intensive introduction of greenery in exterior design. His development predictions according to which Koper would become the only Slovene port and the Slovene coast would develop as an integral tourism region proved to be correct. His plans for the predominantly tourist use of the coast turned out to be realistic. However, instead of treating the coastal area as a longitudinal phenomenon along the coastline, he treated it transversally towards the inland with a hierarchical distribution of functions and spaces, with international transport directed through the hinterland area and green areas between the centres. The educational work of Mihevc was typical of a creator who grows from his rich intuition and is able to take each task as a unique, new challenge. Educated by his master Plečnik, he always pointed out that the language of an architect is primarily his drawing, followed by words only later, let them be spoken or written. He also tried to implant his attitude towards materials and masters that work them into his students' minds. A model or a maquette was always an essential counterpart of his creative process, therefore he always organised cooperation between students and a model workshop during his seminars as a permanent part of activities. However, the most valuable contribution was his consistent connection of the educational work with a concrete creative practice which took place in a series of summer schools when the most active core of his seminar moved to the field, to the construction site itself, during summer vacation. Among his students - more than four hundred altogether -there are now ten university professors, six doctors of science and three masters of science. His social activity was tightly connected with his work. Apart from numerous functions he performed within the Faculty of Architecture and the University of Ljubljana, he was also engaged as a consultant for various areas of architecture and town planning in Slovenia as well as abroad (Greece, Ethiopia). His work related to both Slovene cultural centres in Italy also had a special political role since working on such a joint building project, engaging numerous people and groups from abroad as well as from Slovenia, represented a distinctive integration phenomenon. 3. Town planning Due to the intensive construction of residential districts, industrial areas and megallomanic traffic connections within and between the settlements, the contours of town centers started to disappear in the course of Modernism. At the same time, the integration of a town center gradually took place - the decomposition of a traditional town perimeter as a (until that time) controllable town boundary that could be viewed from the highest point in the town. This period was marked by a rapid growth of towns which were turning into large cities, metropolis and even conurbations. Ideal regional concepts appeared that were not based so much on the design - instead, they stressed social component of residence, work, rest and recreation (Košir, F., 1993). It is known that avantgardistic architects and town planners in distinctively anti-communist countries were also socialists by their view of life. Far from designing only garden cities for rich classes, they were mostly enthusiastic about designing settlements and districts for the working class. Urban functionalism with new theoretical orientations on one hand and traditionalism with historically proven spatial solutions on the other prevailed until the end of World War 11. letnik 10, št. 2/99 Mihevc established a dialogue between both theoretical orientations in such a way that he established: • New values and qualities in areas with tourist settlements; • Protection of green areas; • New industrial and residential areas; • Harmonization of traditional spatial values with new development perspectives. All urban plans designed by Mihevc, from regional plans to micro urban plans, are derived from natural conditions in the treated area and a thorough knowledge of this area. A complete knowledge was based on extensive analyses (Investbiro Koper, 1966) covering: the situation, topography and natural conditions, protected areas, agricultural land and forests, terrestrial and marine communication infrastructure, production and industry, population structure and density, limiting and development factors related to town functioning and suggestions regarding the possibilities of town growth and the development of new/planned activities by sectors. Therefore, an area with all its characteristics was taken into consideration, its absolute and relative identity (Kalčič, L, 1992), as well as living habits of the local population. And, as Geddes (Geddes, P., 1915) said and Mihevc put into the reality, the process of town or landscape planning was possible exclusively on the basis of extensive analyses which were a base of knowledge about an area. When characteristics of an area and its identity were recognized and taken into consideration, the planning and designing of this area changed into a constructive link between the past and the future. As aforementioned, Mihevc was - as a town planner - active mainly in the Slovene coastal region and in Istria in Croatia. Apart from the coastal region he also planned Ljubljana town quarters (Figovec, Metalka - the Metalka mall, Na trgu -Kozolec, sindikati - Holiday Inn), the Dolenjska region, especially Šmarješke toplice and Dolenjske toplice thermal resorts, Novo mesto and the surroundings of the Krka factory complex; and Črni vrh nad Idrijo skiing center. After World War II the Slovene coast was politically divided into two zones which started to develop economically and politically within corresponding states only in 1954 when Trieste was incorporated in Italy and Koper in the former Yugoslavia. A strong influx of workers and educated people from all over Slovenia, especially the Štajerska region, and other parts of the former Yugoslavia accelerated the process of urbanization in all coastal towns with tourism as a long-term development orientation. Due to its position and the vicinity of the state border, Koper was planned to take a central role in the Coastal region, connecting the coast with the hinterland - through the development of a new modern port connected to road and railway networks. A fishing-in-dustrial and tourism functions were designated to Izola, while Piran was planned as a tourism-oriented pearl of mediaeval architecture. The need for planned development of the Slovene coast required the elaboration of a common regional plan for the entire region. Until 1958 only several sequence solutions have been proposed, such as the Ankaran coast design plan by Viljam Strmecki and the Piran peninsula regional plan by Edo Ravnikar and Savin Sever (Arhitekt, 1965). The first one is an attempt to establish a relationship between agriculture and tourism. The second one reflects the need for establishing an equal relationship between tourism and natural environment. In 1959 Mihevc was offered to elaborate the draft regional plan of the Slovene coast between Debeli Rtič and Sečovlje by Primorski biro and later by Investbiro Koper, searching for a town planner that would be prepared to take over the design outlay of the entire coastal area. 4. Examples of urban plans of the Slovene coast by Edo Mihevc Five urban plans are presented in this paper, from the Slovene Coast Regional Plan to individual urban plans of towns and tourist centers in the Slovene coasta! region. Each plan is presented in four points: • Graphical presentation - plan; • Planned (studies, suggestions, outline schemes and plans by Mihevc); • Implemented (what has been actually or partially implemented); • Changes (false presumptions, development changes). The examples of urban plans of the Slovene coast presented in a chronological order present genesis of the Slovene post-war urban planning in the coastal region. With their regional identity, humanistic philosophy of design, visionary planning and spatial art, these plans confirm the quality of planning in terms of time and space as well as the identity of the landscape and the coutry as a whole. The selected plans include: • The Slovene coast regional plan (1959-1963) and a vision of the traffic solution for the Slovene coast; • The Koper urban plan (1961); • The Simonov zaliv (St Simon's Bay) urban plan (1968); • The Izola urban plan (1971); • The Piran-Bernardin-Portorož urban plan (1973); • The urban plan of the water complex of the Portorož marina in Lucija (1960-1985) 4.1 The Slovene coast regional plan (1959-1963) With the help of students Mihevc elaborated the first draft regional plan that was confirmed the same year. Based on this, study plans were made for Ankaran and Strunjan in 1960, a regional plan of the Piran municipality and Lucija in 1961 and an urban plan of Koper and Izola in 1963. Findings and solutions of these plans were incorporated into the updated Slovene coast regional plan in 1963. Rapid development of the economy, especially the tourism sector, requred the combination of several working stages, therefore the regional plan assumed the character of a development plan. The regional plan from 1963 treats the entire coastal area as an uninterrupted, integrally designed belt where the catering-tourism function of the coastal area was designed in detail. Primarily, the Slovene coast regional plan defines the new traffic solution, land use and an outline of land organization. Based on the Slovene coast regional f?lan, variant urban plans for Koper, Izola, Piran, Ankaran, Žusterna, Simonov zaliv (the Roman Haliaetum), Belvedere, Strunjan, Fiesa, Portorož, Bernardin and Lucija were elaborated under the leadership of Edo Mihevc in the period 1960-1973. These urban plans served as the basis for design plans of individual areas: the Tacco square in Koper, the tourist complex in Anl