Izvorni znanstveni članak
https://doi.org/10.17018/portal.2018.7
Historical Architecture in the Botanical Garden of the Faculty of Science in Zagreb
Mladen Perušić
Sažetak
Almost the entire original layout of the urban and architectural concept of the Zagreb Botanical Garden of the Faculty of Science has been preserved as it was conceived in 1889 by its founder, Prof. Antun Heinz, a professor of botany at the University of Zagreb. The Garden was designed and built in accordance with contemporary European standards for the design of botanical gardens.
From its foundation until today, the Garden has retained its multiple purposes. As an integral part of the Faculty of Science of the University of Zagreb for more than a century, the Garden has played an extremely important role in university teaching and scientific research in the field of botany, as well as education of the general public. The Garden also has cultural, historical and touristic value for the city of Zagreb and the Republic of Croatia. Since it was founded, it has remained open to the public free of charge, providing visitors with numerous educational and popular activities. It is part of the Green Horseshoe in Donji grad, a cultural good inscribed in the Register of Cultural Goods of the Republic of Croatia as an original architectural achievement, and as a completed, urbanistic, architectural space in the form of a park in the centre of Zagreb, and also as a horticultural monument in the botanical-garden category.
In the first decades after its foundation, a series of functional buildings and structures of park architecture, such as a gazebo, a lookout and small bridges on the lake, shelters and similar elements in various historic styles, were built in the Botanical Garden. As a permanent residence for gardeners, a garden house was built in 1890 in the west part of the Garden, in the direction of Savska cesta. Later, greenhouses were erected and the pavilion was transported from the Second Jubilee Exhibition of Economy and Forestry held in Zagreb in 1891. A rare example of a communal building, a public toilet for parks, based on the 1905 project by Milan Lenuci, has been preserved. The last two buildings were designed by professors from the Faculty of Architecture. In 1933, in the south part of the Garden, Prof. Juraj Denzler built the well of the City Water Supply Network, used by the Garden to this day; and, in 1942, along with the already-built physiological laboratory, Prof. Zvonimir Vrkljan started building the Division of Botany.
Buildings, park architecture, parterre and installation network were reconstructed and renovated over the past twenty years in accordance with the defined priorities and conservation guidelines, projects and supervision of the City Institute for the Conservation of Cultural and Natural Heritage. Several selected examples present recent projects and renovations. Industrial development in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, and new materials – iron and glass – enabled the construction of large halls illuminated from above. Constructors applied this type of knowledge to build greenhouses, essential for the successful cultivation of tropical, subtropical and Mediterranean plants in botanical gardens. Often, this type of old greenhouse is a valuable example of specific architectural heritage. A unique historical structure of this type is preserved in the Botanical Garden of the Faculty of Science in Croatia.
Professor Dr. Antun Heinz took a sabbatical in 1889 and visited European botanical gardens in order to gather experience and the latest ideas he needed for the design and construction of the Botanical Garden of the University of Zagreb. He chose a situational solution, a combination of geometric and landscape style. He decided to design the largest part of the Garden in the landscape – or socalled English – style, with randomly planted groups of trees and shrubs, and curving paths. Only the parterre (ornamental flower beds), located in the west part of the Garden, was built in the French style, with a strict geometric and symmetrical ground plan.
Around the long central axis, a conception typical of Baroque park heritage of the 17th and 18th centuries, he placed the main building of the Garden and the greenhouses with a geometric floral parterre with two symmetrical paths on each side, and most of that open surface is a free composition of the parterre with high and low greenery. The original shape of the exhibition greenhouses built at the end of the 19th century was preserved, but they were in very bad condition. Therefore, renovation was planned and is underway in order to restore the original condition of the complex of exhibition greenhouses.
Fence around the Botanical Garden was gradually added as the city in the immediate vicinity of the Garden developed. In 1900, after the construction of the new street (today’s Mihanović Street), the north fence of the Garden was built with the main entrance portal based on a design by the Royal Building Department of the Land Government, and then the east and west fence were built. Since the aesthetically shaped southern fence did not exist, it was designed as a public walkway with a pergola, and the construction began in 2018.
The oldest fair building in Croatia was preserved in the Botanical Garden of the Department of Biology, Faculty of Science in Zagreb, and restored in 2007. The wooden pavilion was presented at the international exhibition in Vienna in 1890, and in Zagreb in 1891. In 1892, it was moved to the Garden as a building where plants susceptible to frost were kept during winter. Over time, the domes and façade were removed. However, the roof structure and the volume of the building were preserved, and all characteristic elements of the lining were found before the 2005 reconstruction. Based on sufficient data and archival photographs, it was possible to restore the exhibition pavilion to its original form.
Reconstruction and renovation of the Botanical Garden complex and functional historic buildings will continue and contribute to the preservation of the complete historical architectural heritage in the park section of the Green Horseshoe of Zagreb Donji Grad.
Ključne riječi
Botanical Garden of the Faculty of Science in Zagreb; greenhouses; pavilion; park architecture; reconstruction
Hrčak ID:
218329
URI
Datum izdavanja:
30.12.2018.
Posjeta: 2.015 *