Trg Edvarda Kardelja

The Central Town Square

Edvard Ravnikar imagined the main town square (trg) as a grand space that would symbolise the new town's pride and energy, intended for large-scale celebrations.

The green area in front of the town hall was initially intended to be a paved square. Despite numerous design and layout competitions over the decades, the space has remained a lawn, acquiring symbolic significance as the opposite of Gorica, where the central square is colloquially called Travnik (“lawn”), even though it has been paved for centuries.

According to the original plan, a building similar in size to the district authority was to be built opposite today's municipal building (then called the District People's Committee), and a slightly taller building for the Communist Party committee was to be built on the site where the theatre stands today.

In 2018, Ravnikar’s conceptual panoramic sketch of the town centre was exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York as part of the exhibition Towards a Concrete Utopia: Architecture in Yugoslavia, 1948–1980, where an entire room was dedicated to the architect’s work. It can also be seen in Teater Bar.

Avtor: Blaž Kosovel

Kraj: Nova Gorica

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