Ivan Vurnik

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Ivan Vurnik
Born(1884-06-01)1 June 1884
Vienna University of Technology
OccupationArchitect
BuildingsCooperative Business Bank
Cooperative Business Bank Building (Ljubljana)

Ivan Vurnik (1 June 1884 – 8 April 1971) was a

urban plans, among these the plans for Bled (1930), Kranj (1933–1937), and Ljubljana (1935).[3]

Life

He was born in an artisan's family in the Upper Carniolan town of Radovljica, Austro-Hungarian Empire, present-day Slovenia. His father was a rather wealthy stonemason and Ivan was sent to school first to Kranj and then to Ljubljana.

Vurnik graduated

Helena Vurnik
née Kotler in 1913.

During the

Tyrol. In 1917 and 1918 he worked on designing Austrian military graveyards in Aleksinac, Leskovac and Niš in Serbia. From 1919 he lived in Ljubljana.[4]

Work

In October 1912, Vurnik was employed by the Ludwig Baumann. He renovated the interior of the parish church in Bled in the same year and in 1913–15 bishopric chapel in Trieste.

Vurnik's search of Slovene "National Style" begun after the

Slovene tricolor's "national colors" was actually created by Helena Vurnik.[1]

In the late 1920s he turned to a purely

Slovenian Sokol movement, known as Sokol Hall or Tabor Hall, because of its location in the Tabor quarter of Ljubljana, and two very similar structures, one in Golnik and another one, which was destroyed during World War II, in Kranj
. He rejected the search for a "National Style".

In 1919, Vurnik managed to establish a department of architecture within the Technical Faculty of the University of Ljubljana. Upon his invitation, the great Slovene architect Jože Plečnik became one of its founding faculty.

Nevertheless, a rival relationship developed between the two. Vurnik thought it was Plečnik's influence in the conservative circles of local Slovenian policy-makering that prevented him to carry into effect his more functionalist projects. Another reason for the antagonism between the two architect might have also derived from their different political ideology, since Plečnik was a conservative and fervent

Roman Catholic, while Vurnik (although also religious) belonged to the Slovenian progressive and national-liberal
tradition.

After 1925, he devoted his time mostly to teaching. He continued to draw architectural and

utilitarian
style.

In 1965, Vurnik renovated the Slovenian national Catholic shrine at Brezje, thus briefly returning to the "National Style" which he had abandoned earlier in his career.

Awards

  • In 1961, Vurnik was awarded Pechtl Award in Vienna[4]
  • In 1966, Vurnik was awarded Prešeren Award in Ljubljana

In media

In 2013, Slovenian

National TV
broadcast a film, directed by Alma Lapajne, about the Vurnik couple's life story.

See also

References

  1. ^ a b The Most Beautiful House in Ljubljana (In Slovene: "Vurnikova hiša na Miklošičevi: najlepša hiša v Ljubljani"), Delo, 8 April 2011
  2. RTV Slovenia
    , 8 February 2013
  3. ISSN 1408-6611
    .
  4. ^ a b Vurnik Ivan in "Who's who in Upper Carniola" (In Slovene: "Gorenjci" - biografski leksikon znanih Gorenjcev in Gorenjk)

Further reading

  • Miran Kambič, Arhitektura Ivana Vurnika (Ljubljana: Arché, 1994)
  • Janez Koželj (ed.), Ivan Vurnik: 1884-1971. Slovenski arhitekt = A Slovenian architect, bilingual Slovenian-English special edition of the Architect's Bulletin of Ljubljana (Ljubljana, 1995).
  • Breda Mihelič, Art nouveau Ljubljana (Ljubljana: Zavod za turizem, 2005).