(; en, the Skyscraper) 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 eccentri ...

Ljubljana Ljubljana (also known by other historical names) is the capital and largest city of Slovenia. It is the country's cultural, educational, economic, political and administrative center. During antiquity, a Roman city called Emona stood in the are ...

Slovenia Slovenia ( ; sl, Slovenija ), officially the Republic of Slovenia (Slovene: , abbr.: ''RS''), is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Croatia to the southeast, an ...

, and is one of the city's most recognisable landmarks.Hotel-Mons.com - Architects
Retrieved on 1 January 2008 Its thirteen storeys rise to a height of . It was designed by the Slovenian architect Vladimir Šubic 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 ( sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Kraljevina Jugoslavija, Краљевина Југославија; sl, Kraljevina Jugoslavija) was a state in Southeast and Central Europe that existed from 1918 until 1941. From 1918 ...

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

University of Ljubljana The University of Ljubljana ( sl, Univerza v Ljubljani, , la, Universitas Labacensis), often referred to as UL, is the oldest and largest university in Slovenia. It has approximately 39,000 enrolled students. History Beginnings Although certain ...

, 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 primarily serves coffee of various types, notably espresso, latte, and cappuccino. Some coffeehouses may serve cold drinks, such as iced coffee and iced tea, as well as other non ...

bar Bar or BAR may refer to: Food and drink * Bar (establishment), selling alcoholic beverages * Candy bar * Chocolate bar Science and technology * Bar (river morphology), a deposit of sediment * Bar (tropical cyclone), a layer of cloud * Bar (u ...

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 enclos ...

.
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 and unilaterally adopted by Kosovo and Montenegro. The design was presented to the public by the European Commission on 12 December 1996. It consists ...

2,120,000 to the Australian 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 Miroslava "Mira" Stupica ( sr-cyr, Мирослава Мира Ступица; née Todorović; 17 August 1923 – 19 August 2016) was a Serbian actress best known for her work in the theater, but also had extensive career on television and in fi ...

(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 Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the United ...

styles, and is crowned with pilasters 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, a mentor to Frank Lloy ...

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

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 cur ...

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 () (also written facade) is generally the front part or exterior of a building. It is a loan word from the French (), which means ' frontage' or ' face'. In architecture, the façade of a building is often the most important aspect ...

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 mat ...

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 Lobby may refer to: * Lobby (room), an entranceway or foyer in a building * Lobbying, the action or the group used to influence a viewpoint to politicians :* Lobbying in the United States, specific to the United States * Lobby (food), a thick stew ...

lined with Karst

marble Marble is a metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals, most commonly calcite or dolomite. Marble is typically not foliated (layered), although there are exceptions. In geology, the term ''marble'' refers to metamorphose ...

. 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 American image hosting and 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 a popular way for amateur and profession ...

. 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 gallery or corridor, usually on an upper level, but sometimes on the ground level of a building. The outer wall is open to the elements, usually supported by a series of columns ...

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

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 silhou ...

of city's bell towers, some residents of Ljubljana feared it would spoil the

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

, 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 late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...

monastery A monastery is a building or complex of buildings comprising the domestic quarters and workplaces of monastics, monks or nuns, whether living in communities or alone ( hermits). A monastery generally includes a place reserved for prayer whi ...

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

well A well is an excavation or structure created in the ground 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 poet, translator, and playwright. He is regarded, alongside Ivan Cankar, Dragotin Kette and Josip Murn, as the beginner of modernism in Slovene literature. ...

was inscribed in the foundation stone at the beginning of its construction in 1931. The statics were calculated by the engineer Stanko Dimnik, who was also the responsible engineer. The works were led by the master builder Ivan Bricelj, the director of the Ljubljana Construction Company. The building was constructed with reinforced concrete, 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. It is a component of heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (short: HVAC) systems, which can both cool and warm interior spaces. ...

by automatic fuel oil 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 strictest set of Japanese anti-seismic criteria was followed in the design of the building, therefore it is supported by 16

piling A deep foundation is a type of foundation that transfers building loads to the earth farther down from the surface than a shallow foundation does to a subsurface layer or a range of depths. A pile or piling is a vertical structural elemen ...

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

earthquake An earthquake (also known as a quake, tremor or temblor) is the shaking of the surface of the Earth resulting from a sudden release of energy in the Earth's lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes can range in intensity, fr ...

-safe in Ljubljana.

References

{{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

Architecture

Construction

See also

References