(; ) is a prominent high-rise located in the

centre Center or centre may refer to: Mathematics *Center (geometry), the middle of an object * Center (algebra), used in various contexts ** Center (group theory) ** Center (ring theory) * Graph center, the set of all vertices of minimum eccentricity ...

Ljubljana {{Infobox settlement , name = Ljubljana , official_name = , settlement_type = Capital city , image_skyline = {{multiple image , border = infobox , perrow = 1/2/2/1 , total_widt ...

, Slovenia, and is one of the city's most recognisable landmarks.Hotel-Mons.com - Architects
Retrieved on 1 January 2008 Its thirteen

storey A storey (English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English) or story (American English), is any level part of a building with a floor that could be used by people (for living, work, storage, recreation, etc.). Plurals for the wor ...

s rise to a height of . It was designed by the Slovenian architect

Vladimir Šubic Vladimir Šubic (23 May 1894 – 16 September 1946)Bernik, Stane. 1999. "Vladimir Šubic." ''Enciklopedija Slovenije'', vol. 13. Ljubljana: Mladinska knjiga, p. 163. was a Slovene architect. He designed several moderate functionalist buildings ...

for the Pension Institute, the building's investor. Construction began on 19 April 1931 and the building opened on 21 February 1933. It was, upon completion, the tallest building in the

Kingdom of Yugoslavia The Kingdom of Yugoslavia was a country in Southeast Europe, Southeast and Central Europe that existed from 1918 until 1941. From 1918 to 1929, it was officially called the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, but the term "Yugoslavia" () h ...

, and the ninth-tallest high-rise in Europe.Ifko, Sonja (1995),
Recent Slovenian Architecture
'',

University of Ljubljana The University of Ljubljana (, , ), abbreviated UL, is the oldest and largest university in Slovenia. It has approximately 38,000 enrolled students. The university has 23 faculties and three art academies with approximately 4,000 teaching and re ...

, pp. 13. Retrieved 3 December 2007. It was and would remain for some time the tallest residential building in Europe. Predominantly a place of business, the Nebotičnik skyscraper is home to a variety of shops on the ground floor and first storey, and various offices are located on floors two to five. The sixth to ninth floors are private residences. Located on the top three floors are a

café A coffeehouse, coffee shop, or café (), is an establishment that serves various types of coffee, espresso, latte, americano and cappuccino, among other hot beverages. Many coffeehouses in West Asia offer ''shisha'' (actually called ''nargi ...

, bar and

observation deck An observation deck, observation platform, or viewing platform is an elevated sightseeing platform usually situated upon a tall architectural structure, such as a skyscraper or observation tower. Observation decks are sometimes enclosed from we ...

.
Ljubljana.si - Skyscraper
''. Retrieved 3 December 2007. The café reopened in July 2010, while the bar and a new restaurant opened on 2 September 2010. Floors nine to thirteen were sold in auction on 12 June 2007 by the Pension Fund Management (KAD) for

€ The euro sign () is the currency sign used for the euro, the official currency of the eurozone. The design was presented to the public by the European Commission on 12 December 1996. It consists of a stylized letter E (or epsilon), crossed by t ...

2,120,000 to the

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

n company Terra Australis. The company hoped to restore the Nebotičnik skyscraper to its former glory.Australian Slovenian Buys Top Floors of Ljubljana Landmark
Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Slovenia. Retrieved on 1 January 2008.

Architecture

The Nebotičnik building, originally designed as an eight-storey structure, was designed by Vladimir Šubic, with assistance from Ladislav Kham, Ivo Medved (

pavilion In architecture, ''pavilion'' has several meanings; * It may be a subsidiary building that is either positioned separately or as an attachment to a main building. Often it is associated with pleasure. In palaces and traditional mansions of Asia ...

on the terrace), Marjan Mušič ( tempietto on top), Marjan Sever, and Bojan Stupica (fittings of the cafe). The building was decorated with sculptures by Lojze Dolinar (the female figure on the side façade in the height of the sixth floor), Boris Kalin (the relief above the main entrance), and France Gorše (four bronze heads in the main hall). Its design is based on the neoclassical and art-deco styles, and is crowned with

pilasters In architecture, a pilaster is both a load-bearing section of thickened wall or column integrated into a wall, and a purely decorative element in classical architecture which gives the appearance of a supporting column and articulates an ext ...

on the upper floors. Its design follows the classical tripartite division of tall buildings pioneered by the American architect

Louis Sullivan Louis Henry Sullivan (September 3, 1856 – April 14, 1924) was an American architect, and has been called a "father of skyscrapers" and "father of modernism". He was an influential architect of the Chicago school (architecture), Chicago ...

—it is composed of a base designed to interact with the street and pedestrians, a homogeneous shaft, and a crown, topped by a

cylindrical A cylinder () has traditionally been a Solid geometry, three-dimensional solid, one of the most basic of curvilinear geometric shapes. In elementary geometry, it is considered a Prism (geometry), prism with a circle as its base. A cylinder may ...

colonnade In classical architecture, a colonnade is a long sequence of columns joined by their entablature, often free-standing, or part of a building. Paired or multiple pairs of columns are normally employed in a colonnade which can be straight or curv ...

with a mounted flag pole, which was added after the completion of the tower.Slovenia.info – Architectural heritage – Ljubljana, Nebotičnik Skyscraper
Retrieved 24 December 2007. The

façade A façade or facade (; ) is generally the front part or exterior of a building. It is a loanword from the French language, French (), which means "frontage" or "face". In architecture, the façade of a building is often the most important asp ...

is interrupted by evenly distributed rectangular

window A window is an opening in a wall, door, roof, or vehicle that allows the exchange of light and may also allow the passage of sound and sometimes air. Modern windows are usually glazed or covered in some other transparent or translucent ma ...

s framed in stone, an accentuated ground level and first floor, and semi-circular windows in the café on the eleventh storey. The entrance on the ground floor leads to a lobby lined with

Karst Karst () is a topography formed from the dissolution of soluble carbonate rocks such as limestone and Dolomite (rock), dolomite. It is characterized by features like poljes above and drainage systems with sinkholes and caves underground. Ther ...

marble Marble is a metamorphic rock consisting of carbonate minerals (most commonly calcite (CaCO3) or Dolomite (mineral), dolomite (CaMg(CO3)2) that have recrystallized under the influence of heat and pressure. It has a crystalline texture, and is ty ...

. Upper storeys are accessible by elevator or the spiral stairway at the centre of the building.
world66.com – Ljubljana Sights
'' mentions staircase
Nebotičnik Stairway
on

Flickr Flickr ( ) is an image hosting service, image and Online video platform, video hosting service, as well as an online community, founded in Canada and headquartered in the United States. It was created by Ludicorp in 2004 and was previously a co ...

. Retrieved on 3 December 2007. Two of the elevators are fast and lead visitors to the café on the upper floors, while the third is slower and leads to the residential levels. The stairway terminates at the tenth floor. The façade is adorned by a four-metre (13 foot) tall sculpture of a woman, the work of the Slovenian sculptor Lojze Dolinar, to help alleviate the connection between the tower and the lower bank next to the tower. Sculptures in the

loggia In architecture, a loggia ( , usually , ) is a covered exterior Long gallery, gallery or corridor, often on an upper level, sometimes on the ground level of a building. The corridor is open to the elements because its outer wall is only parti ...

were designed by the Slovenian sculptor France Gorše. Located to the west of the Nebotičnik building is a six-storey residential structure, designed by the same architect.

Construction

Construction of the Nebotičnik building, ordered by the Pension Institute, was controversial. Being the first building to surpass the

Baroque The Baroque ( , , ) is a Western Style (visual arts), style of Baroque architecture, architecture, Baroque music, music, Baroque dance, dance, Baroque painting, painting, Baroque sculpture, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished from ...

silhouette A silhouette (, ) is the image of a person, animal, object or scene represented as a solid shape of a single colour, usually black, with its edges matching the outline of the subject. The interior of a silhouette is featureless, and the silhouett ...

of city's

bell tower A bell tower is a tower that contains one or more bells, or that is designed to hold bells even if it has none. Such a tower commonly serves as part of a Christian church, and will contain church bells, but there are also many secular bell to ...

s, some residents of Ljubljana feared it would spoil the

skyline A skyline is the wikt:outline, outline or shape viewed near the horizon. It can be created by a city's overall structure, or by human intervention in a rural area, rural setting, or in nature that is formed where the sky meets buildings or the ...

, and labelled the building a "freak". The building is located on the site of a

medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with the fall of the West ...

monastery A monastery is a building or complex of buildings comprising the domestic quarters and workplaces of Monasticism, monastics, monks or nuns, whether living in Cenobitic monasticism, communities or alone (hermits). A monastery generally includes a ...

, and while preparing its foundation, contractors came across a 13th-century

well A well is an excavation or structure created on the earth by digging, driving, or drilling to access liquid resources, usually water. The oldest and most common kind of well is a water well, to access groundwater in underground aquifers. The ...

. A verse by

Oton Župančič Oton Župančič (; January 23, 1878 – June 11, 1949; pseudonym ''Gojko'' ) was a Slovene language, Slovene poet, translator, and playwright. He is regarded, alongside Ivan Cankar, Dragotin Kette and Josip Murn, as the beginner of modernism in ...

was inscribed in the foundation stone at the beginning of its construction in 1931. The geological survey for the construction of the building and geological supervision were carried out by . The statics were calculated by the engineer Stanko Dimnik, who was also the responsible engineer. The strictest set of Japanese anti-seismic criteria was followed in the design of the building, therefore it is supported by 16

piling A pile or piling is a vertical structural element of a deep foundation, driven or drilled deep into the ground at the building site. A deep foundation is a type of foundation that transfers building loads to the earth farther down from th ...

s each extending into the ground. This makes the Nebotičnik building one of the most

earthquake An earthquakealso called a quake, tremor, or tembloris the shaking of the Earth's surface resulting from a sudden release of energy in the lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes can range in intensity, from those so weak they ...

-proof in Ljubljana. The building was constructed with

reinforced concrete Reinforced concrete, also called ferroconcrete or ferro-concrete, is a composite material in which concrete's relatively low tensile strength and ductility are compensated for by the inclusion of reinforcement having higher tensile strength or ...

, and features many technological elements which were innovative at the time. It has

central heating A central heating system provides warmth to a number of spaces within a building from one main source of heat. A central heating system has a Furnace (central heating), furnace that converts fuel or electricity to heat through processes. The he ...

by automatic

fuel oil Fuel oil is any of various fractions obtained from the distillation of petroleum (crude oil). Such oils include distillates (the lighter fractions) and residues (the heavier fractions). Fuel oils include heavy fuel oil (bunker fuel), marine f ...

burners, and water is supplied to the top seven floors by automatic pumps. The café has pressure ventilation, and hot water is supplied from the basement. The works were led by the master builder Ivan Bricelj, the director of the Ljubljana Construction Company.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Neboticnik Skyscrapers in Ljubljana Cultural venues in Ljubljana Art Deco architecture in Ljubljana Neoclassical architecture in Ljubljana Cultural monuments of Slovenia Buildings and structures completed in 1933 Skyscraper office buildings Residential skyscrapers Yugoslav Slovenian architecture

Architecture

Construction

See also

References

External links