Plečnik Parliament

Plečnik Parliament (

.

Slovene Acropolis

In response to a personal government invitation during the late 1940s, Plečnik initially proposed the fairly radical idea of placing the parliament on the hilltop above the

at the foot of Castle Hill.

The authorities were caught off-guard by the radicalism of the plan. Deeming it unimplementable, they instead called for a second round of proposals, this time in the form of an open competition and with a location for the building specified: the Ilirija swimming pool complex in Ljubljana's

. While annoyed by the cold shoulder given his idea and not in the habit of entering competitions due to his age and status, Plečnik's initial reluctance eventually subsided. His second design, the "Cathedral of Freedom," is now far better known than the first and the far more common referent of the term "Plečnik Parliament," although the first proposal is technically encompassed by it as well.

Cathedral of Freedom

A square,

Fate

Nominally, the principal reason the project remained unrealized was the financial burden it would have imposed on the struggling post-World War II recovery economy; in practice, numerous other obstacles existed, many of them even less surmountable:

• The structure was widely perceived as being too grandiose for a legislature of what was at the time a
  Yugoslavia, and therefore a potentially dangerous focal point for nationalism
  .
• While Plečnik continued to hold a position of honour as the nation's preeminent architect, his devout
  idiosyncratic architectural style
  had fallen out of fashion with the public.
• The first design had been deemed additionally unacceptable for entailing the destruction of a historic landmark.

In 1954, work finally began on a permanent

. Nevertheless, the building's general plan is thought to contain faint echoes of Plečnik's "Cathedral" design. It was completed in 1959, two years after the architect's death.

Cultural significance

Plečnik's second parliament (the Cathedral of Freedom) retains resonance with many Slovenes, who view it as a minor national symbol:

• Laibach
  .
• The first stamp issued by Slovenia on June 26, 1991, one day after its declaration of independence, depicted the Plečnik Parliament in silver on a blue-green background. Carrying a denomination of 5 units of the then as-yet-unnamed national currency, it was immediately banned by Yugoslav postal authorities.^[2] The stamp had been issued illegally, as Slovenia was not yet a member of the Universal Postal Union.
• Slovenian band Laibach included 3D animation of Cathedral of Freedom in the music video of song cover version "In the Army Now" from their 1994 album NATO.
• On 7 October 2005, the Plečnik Parliament was unveiled as the design for the national side of
  € Euro coins
  .
• On 24 April 2007, the Slovenian World Congress called for the construction of the Parliament, predicting that its "conical tower would serve as the unifying axis, the omphalos, the axis mundi of world Slovenedom."^[3]
• During August 2008, a maquette of the Parliament was featured at the Project Plečnik exhibition on the architect's life, held at the Council of the European Union building in Brussels, Belgium on the occasion of the Slovene EU Presidency. The exhibition's curator Boris Podrecca described the Parliament as "the most charismatic object" of Plečnik's opus.^[4]

See also

• Palace of Soviets
• Große Halle

References

1. ^ Darila.com Archived 2003-08-10 at the Wayback Machine (in Slovene)
2. ^ Filatelija.com: Slovenia's First Stamp (in Slovene)
3. ^ Svetovni Slovenski Kongres: "stožčasti stolp bo združevalna os, omphalos, axis mundi slovenskega svetovja" Archived 2007-08-10 at the Wayback Machine (in Slovene)
4. ^ Triera.com: Podreccova slovenska trilogija v Bruslju^{[permanent dead link]} (in Slovene)

External links

• 3-D rendering of the Parliament
• Official video Laibach - In the Army Now