Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.17685/Peristil.59.10
Monuments and Urban Planning in Senj from 1949 until 1955
Marko Špikić
orcid.org/0000-0002-2219-1448
; Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb, Department of Art History
Abstract
The paper discusses the relation between urban planning and conservation in the town of Senj between 1949 and 1955, during the first period of activity of the town’s honorary conservator Vuk Krajač (1895–1962). As a state official in the ministries of pre-war Yugoslavia, Krajač imposed himself as commissioner of the
Conservation Institute of Croatia (Konzervatorski zavod NR Hrvatske) in Zagreb and obtained the honorary title in April 1949. The paper discusses the implementation of concepts of reform and nostalgia in the heavily bombed town, devastated during the Second World War in some fifteen air raids of both German and Allied Powers’ troops. The two concepts had their advocates, political protagonists (the mass and members of the People’s Committee/Narodni odbor) and professionals (conservators from Zagreb and Rijeka, who in Krajač found their most important ally). The first part of the paper gives a description of the political context in Senj in the period of Krajač’s appointment
as honorary conservator, based on contemporary press reports on political ideas, projects of rebuilding the new reformed state, ideology of progress and the idea of remembrance within the post-Stalinist concept of the past. This is complemented by the activity of Vuk Krajač, whose conservation-related arguments were aimed at defending the city from the intrusion of a highway and demolition and negation of local architectural particularities. Significant in this respect are Krajač’s texts (“Promemorija” of 1947 and “Elaborat” of 1949) dedicated to the synthesis of the town’s reconstruction and to the development and preservation of its monuments. The paper also mentions Krajač’s most important achievements in Senj during the first period of his activity: the foundation of the Museum Association (Muzejsko društvo, which gathered almost ten percent of the
town’s population), stylistic restoration of the Vukasović palace adapted into Town Museum, his efforts to encourage development and at the same time preserve the specific features of old Senj. The paper also lists other Krajač’s accomplishments: preservation and restoration of the Renaissance fort of Šabac in the town port,
discovered within the demolished industrial steam mill complex, discussions with the municipal authorities related to constructions within the devastated city centre (market on the Mala placa square), proposals for the construction of the Uskok mausoleum on the site of the demolished church of St Francis, motions for the revitalization of demolished quarters by means of “small architecture” of Senj. All these achievements are compared with European examples. The author interprets Krajač’s idea of new architecture reminiscent of old structures as a Stalinist model of town building, marked by national forms and socialist content. The definition of relations between the main monuments and their devastated surroundings reveals similarities with the concepts of the East German monument protection service (with the so-called “tradition islands”, “die Traditionsinseln”), but distinguished by a more pronounced sensibility and nostalgia towards the former town, reminiscent of the concept of preservation of old environments characteristic for Central Europe, but also of the Italian tradition of restoration from Giovannoni to Brandi.
Keywords
Senj; conservation; urbanism; Vuk Krajač; reconstruction
Hrčak ID:
178999
URI
Publication date:
1.3.2017.
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