Maribor with eyes wide shut by KIBLA press

Maribor with Eyes Wide Shut â&#x20AC;&#x201C; A Romantic City Tour Guide

Maribor

with Eyes Wide Shut

A Romantic City Tour Guide

Maribor with Eyes Wide Shut A Romantic City Tour Guide Publisher: Association for Culture and Education KIBLA, Ulica kneza Koclja 9, Maribor, Slovenia Represented by: Aleksandra Kostič TOX – a timetable of the three thousands Year 18, No. 43, pages: 156 Text, overall concept, selection of motifs and photos by: Aleksandra Kostič Translated by: Helena Fošnjar Proof-reading by: Cameron Bobro Photos: Boštjan Lah; most photos were created during the EU-PA urban research workshops Creative student group from Central Saint Martins London, led by Mirjana Rukavina: Adeline Yeo, Flavia D’Amico, Lizon Tijus, Margherita Poggiali, Mia Kennedy, Radha Mistry, Rebecca Wood and visiting artist Martin Romero Matej Kristovič, Dino Schreilechner, Marko Petrej, Damjan Švarc, Branimir Ritonja, Nataša Berk, Matjaž Wigele, Danilo Cvetnič, Irena Kacafura, Andrej Lukasev, Saša Bizjak Photo archives: KIBLA, Pokrajinski arhiv Maribor, Pokrajinski muzej Maribor, Zavod za turizem Maribor, Univerzitetna knjižnica Maribor, Ljubor, Metalna, OŠ Martin Konšak, Galerija likovne umetnosti Slovenj gradec, EPEKA, Primož Premzl, Slovensko narodno gledališče Maribor, Dolenjski muzej, Carmina Slovenica, Wikipedia Covers: motifs of Maribor Photo: Boštjan Lah Layout: Samo Lajtinger Print: Repro Point d. o. o. Slovenia, 2013 Print run: 200 copies This publication was created as part of EU-PA – the European Public Art Project, a creative experiment in culture-led urban regeneration that is taking place in four European cities: London, Maribor, Prague and Jesolo. The EU-PA project has been funded with the support of the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein. All rights reserved © 2013 Association for Culture and Education KIBLA

CIP - Kataložni zapis o publikaciji Univerzitetna knjižnica Maribor 908(497.4Maribor) KOSTIĆ, Aleksandra, 1966Maribor with eyes wide shut : #a #romantic city tour guide / Aleksandra Kostič ; [photos Boštjan Lah]. - Maribor : #Association for culture and education #Kibla, 2013. - (Tox : #a #timetable of the three thousands ; year 18, no. 43) ISBN 978-961-91080-5-5 COBISS.SI-ID 76585985

Aleksandra KostiÄ?

Maribor with Eyes Wide Shut A Romantic City Tour Guide

Maribor 2013

Index Introduction 1. The Railway Romantic Trail

9 12

The Northeastern Romantic Trail

The Socialist Romantic Trail I

The Socialist Romantic Trail II

The Medieval Romantic Trail

The Koroška Romantic Trail

The Jewish Romantic Trail

The Gosposka (Lords’) Romantic Trail

The Baroque Romantic Trail

10. The Student Romantic Trail

11. The Kamnica Romantic Trail

12. The Vineyard Romantic Trail

3. 4. 5.

1. Maribor Railway Station – 2. The Prlek Inn – 3. The Intes Factory – 4. The former Customs office – 5./6. The Meljski Dol quarter – 7. Tower 1. Maribor Railway Station – 2. The Tomšič Avenue – 3. The City Park – 4. The Maister Square - 5. The Leon Štukelj Square 1. Kojak – 2. Gic’s Café – 3. Pekarna – 4. Partizanska Street – 5. The Tito Bridge 1. The Rakuša Square – 2. The Hutter Block – 3. The Jemec Garden – 4. IZUM (Institute of Information Science) – 5. The Piramida Hill 1. Splavarski prehod (The Rafter’s Passage) – 2. The Vojašniški Trg Square (Barracks Square) – 3. The Monorite Monastery – 4. The Judgment Tower – 5. The Žiče Manor – 6. The Water Tower 1. Kolosej – 2. The City Hotel – 3. The Narodni Dom (National Cultural Center) – 4. The Glavni Trg Square (Main Square) – 5. The Velika Kavarna Coffee House – 6. The Town Hall – 7. Regional Archives Maribor – 8. Koroška Road – 9. Maribor Art Gallery – 10. Maribor Marketplace – 11. Lent 1. The Grajski Trg Square (Castle Square) – 2. Vetrinjska Street – 3. The Židovski Trg Square (Jewish Square) – 4. The Gosposka Passage – 5. The Glavni Trg Square (Main Square) – 6. Poštna Street – 7. The Slomšek Square – 8. Orožnova Street 1. Gosposka Street (Lords’ Street) – 2. Tyrševa Street – 3. Mladinska Street – 4. The Maister Square – 5. The Grajski Trg Square (Castle Square) – 6. Slovenska Street – 7. Barvarska Street 1. Church of St Aloysius – 2. The Plague Memorial – 3. Gosposka Street (Lords’ Street) 1. Smetanova Street – 2. Prežihova Street – 3. Gosposvetska Street – 4. The student dormitory – 5. The Fontana Spa 1. Mladinska Street / Ljudski vrt Stadium – 2. Villa Transsylvania – 3. Mitnica Bar – 4. The Kamnica Avenue – 5. The Vrbanska Platform – 6. Hippodrome – 7. Kamnica 1. Kamnica – 2. The Urban Hill – 3. Gaj – 4. The Tojzlov Vrh Peak

13. The Studenci Romantic Trail

14. The Romantic Trail across the industrial and military heritage of the 19th and 20th centuries

15. The Tabor Youth Romantic Trail

1. Lent – 2. The Studenci footbridge – 3. Studenci Railway Station – 4./5. Portal – Remiza (the old boiler room) 1. Portal – 2. The Railway Residential Colony – 3. TVT (Factory of Vehicles and Heating Technology) and the Steam hammer – 4. The Planet Tuš mall – 5. The Cadets’ residence 1. The Magdalena Park – 2. Pekarna – 3. Druga Gimnazija High School – 4. The High School Center – 5. France Prešeren Elementary School – 6. Betnavska Street – 7. Jezdarska Street – 8. Puškin Street – 9. Ob železnici Street – 10. Ljubljanska Street – 11. The Vurnik neighborhood – 12. The Swaty Factory

16. The Romantic Trail across the southern edges of Pohorje

109

17. The Melje-Pobrežje Romantic Trail

113

18. The Old River-Bed Romantic Trail

121

19. The Agronomic Romantic Trail

123

20. The Wine Romantic Trail

127

21. The Drava Romantic Walkways

131

22. The Drava River Romantic Walkways

135

23. The Pohorje Romantic Trail

138

24. Romantic Trail

141

25. The Tezno Romantic Trail

144

26. Romantic Trails to castles 27. The Romantic Trail to Ptuj References

147 149 153

1. The Pekrska Gorca Hillock – 2. The Pekre stream – 3. Radvanje – 4. Betnava – 5. Poštela – 6. Bohova – 7. Pivola- 8. Hoče – 9. Slivnica 1. Maribor Bus Station – 2. Meljska Road – 3. Melje – 4. The Melje Hill – 5. The Svila Factory – 6. Europark – 7. Karantena/ex-prisons – 8. The railway triangle Maribor Railway Station – Melje – Melje Power Plant – Drava Regional Park 1. The City Park – 2. The Slomšek Institute – 3. The Račji Dvor Manor – 4. The Kalvarija Hill – 5. Za Kalvarijo Street – 6- The Three Ponds – 7. The Ribniško Selo Village – 8. Vinarje 1. The Old Vine/ the Vinag Wine Cellar – 2. Meranovo – 3. Svečina 1. the left bank of the river Drava – 2. the Koblar Bay – 3. Mariborski Otok Island – 4. The Dravske Elektrarne Power Plant – 5. the Bresternica Embankment 1. the right bank of the river Drava – 2. the Tabor Embankment – 3. Obrežna Street – 4. the Limbuš Embankment 1. the city center – 2. The Vzpenjača Canle Car – 3. Pohorje 1. Ruše – 2. the Šumik waterfall – 3. Fala 1. Metalna Factory – 2. TAM (Maribor Car Factory) – 3. The Martin Konšak Elementary School

In the same manner as the Romanticist writers of the 18th century fostered a subjective view of the world and freedom of spirit, and enthused over the relics of the past and the might of nature, this subjective verbal and photographic account draws inspiration from different contexts of time, stories, documents and objects inside Mariborâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s natural and urban spaces. By looking into the past, this account tries to confront the present and some of the possible gateways to the future. The romantic emptiness of the cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s remains and degraded areas offers plenty of new possibilities. The city guide before you does not depict all of Mariborâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s aspects. On one hand it splays out the existing cultural, artistic, recreational, ecological and other characteristics and potentials, on the other it rediscovers forgotten objects in pursuit of more or less successful attempts to revitalize some of the town quarters, squares, courtyards, streets, lanes, buildings, roads and natural ambiences in this Slovene town, characterized by a turbulent local history. In the heart of Europe, on the border between the German and Slavic territories, under the dictates of rapidly changing ideologies, amidst the string of economic rises and falls and disasters both natural and political, in a constant stream of people with different origins, the present-day inhabitants of Maribor are still searching for their identity and ways of survival. With an 80% urban population, the countries of the European Union constitute the most urbanized part of the world. One of the basic characteristics of Europe is that it has numerous metropoles, but at the same time also a relatively large number of middle-sized and small towns. 453 European cities have a population of over one hundred thousand inhabitants. Therefore Maribor with its 95.000 inhabitants is one of about five hundred European towns that are comparable in size, while the Republic of Slovenia belongs to the group of ten smallest European countries. Until World War I the town of Maribor, first written out in the Slovene orthographic form in 1836 by Stanko Vraz in his letters, or Marburg an der Drau, as it was named by the Germans and Austrians, or Marporg in Slovene folk language in the time before the two world 9

wars, was mainly inhabited by Germans who constituted the greater part of the city’s administration, economy and culture. In terms of economy, they capitalized on its extremely favorable location - Maribor lies on the banks of the river Drava, at the crossroads of five regional units: the Drava River Valley with its traffic and energy supply system, the Pohorje Mountain Ridge with its livestock-farming and tourist offerings, the wooded and agricultural hills of Kozjak, the wine- and fruit-producing Slovenske Gorice Hills, and the rural lowlands of the Drava Plain. From a wider geographical perspective, Maribor sits on the exact border between Europe and the Balkans, according to the border suggested by the German fascist map and strategically marked by Adolf Hitler when he stopped at “Gross Maribor”, the southernmost town of the Third Reich, on his way to the Balkans. Slovenes are well acquainted with the cultural language of Western European nations – having lived in the Habsburg, German, and then Austrian political community up to the downfall of Austro-Hungary in 1918; as well as the Slavic cultural language of the Western Balkans as part of the political formations of the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, and later the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. After the downfall of the SFRY (Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia) in 1991, Maribor’s gigantic strategic industry, mostly heavy equipment and textiles, was broken down into smaller units, or ceased completely, due to the loss of the Yugoslav markets. These conditions led to the highest unemployment rate in the whole of Slovenia. One of the reasons foreign capital links have not been successful was the state’s inefficient interferences with the economy by making endowments to preserve workplaces and to facilitate companies’ liquidity. The former greyness of the industrial cauldron vanished and the city profited with a large number of sunny days per year. Unintentionally, Maribor became a city that could have developed on the basis of renewable energy sources, tourism, and fresh, self-organized city incentives. The city’s contemporary cultural development should be based on mobility, communicativeness and connectivity of opposing entities of nature, culture, science, sports, recreation, engineering and technology, which should be intertwined and complementary.

In over twenty years of existence, the independent Slovene politics in government have not had the means or the knowledge to systematically, on a long-term scale, transform Mariborâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s industry into something else. Nor was it capable of celebrating the exceptional achievements, past and present, of Slovene innovators, engineers, ecologists, artists, cultural workers, sportsmen and others; to connect as many diverse initiatives, interests and knowledge as possible simultaneously, and create appropriate laws to be able to follow these developments more flexibly. The text and photographs in this book were created mainly in the period before and after the project of European capital of culture 2012, which was held by Maribor with partner cities of northeastern Slovenia. Most of the photographs were taken in the ice cold days of January 2012, when the town outlined itself as an empty ambient in the spirit of Giorgio de Chirico, and then in 2013, some six months after a series of mass revolts in which thousands of people highlighted the unbearable unemployment conditions, overthrew the mayor and other, even national, politicians as symbols of a period of questionable moral values and wrong solutions, then designated a new mayor in the hope of a better future. As Monet said, it is the imperfect paintings that affect us most, as their imperfection is a source of inspiration for countless diverse creative ways and solutions. In the same spirit, may this imperfect city guide inspire the individual to reflect on this town and its possibilities, on the basis of different starting points and perspectives! This guide was created as part of the European project EUPA (20112013), which focused on a possible revitalization of degraded, abandoned city points, an evaluation of urban spaces, intended for the people and for new social initiatives in Maribor, Jesolo, London and Prague. Aleksandra KostiÄ?

1. The Railway Romantic Trail 1. Maribor Railway Station – 2. The Prlek Inn – 3. The Intes Factory – 4. The former Customs office – 5./6. The Meljski Dol quarter – 7. Tower In the second half of the 19th century, after the building of the railway through Maribor, the town began to grow quickly. Thus in 1851, together with its suburbs (the Koroško, Graz, Melje and Magdalena suburb), it had a population of only around 4000 inhabitants; in 1869 the number had already risen to 16.000, and in 1900 to around 30.000 inhabitants. In 1860, a railway line was built that branched off from the Southern Railway at Pragersko and connected to Hungary through Ptuj and Čakovec. In 1863, it was followed by the Koroška Railway that connected Klagenfurt with the Lower Styria region. One of the first travellers to board the train after the opening of the southern railway in 1846 was Anton Martin Slomšek. Slomšek, who was abbot of Celje until that time, had to travel to Salzburg urgently, to be ordained bishop by cardinal Schwarzenberg.

Railway station, photo: Boštjan Lah 12

MELJSKI DOL

NS PI E

EV A

IC A

PAR T

IZA

NSK A

CES

CA LI AU JN

I PR

2 MELJSKA CESTA

At the age of eighteen conductor Robert Stolz obtained the position of second bandmaster in the German theater in Maribor in 1898. Later in his memoires he described getting off the train in 1898 at the Marburg an der Drau station, as the train arrived from Vienna: “On some foggy morning I got off the train in Marburg. It was a station like I’d never seen before. Even as we approached the town through the murky landscape, I could sense the dreariness. I would have preferred to turn around right then and there, for what I came to was truly provincal…” 13

Pendolino, Railway station, photo: Boštjan Lah

Today’s Railway Station was built in the period between 1949 and 1955 (architect Milan Černigoj) and is a symbol of the town in the sense of symbolizing the workers who arrived to Maribor from the southern parts of the former SFRY. South of the station lies the Prlek Inn, the former Happy Farmer Inn, where Nikola Tesla indulged in card games with local street drifters at the age of 22 during his stay in Maribor. Not having received a scholarship, he quit his study of electral engineering at the Austrian technical college in Graz and worked as a technical draftsman at a local engineer’s office in Maribor between 1878 and 1879, earning 60 gulden a month. He scraped by on Tegetthoffstrasse. Without a valid residence permit, Tesla returned to Gospić on March 24th 1879, accompanied by the police. Today, the small building situated by the northern part of the Maribor Railway has a changed purpose and serves as an occasional meeting Nikola Tesla place for the local underground night scene. At the time of the SFRY, Maribor was designed as the most powerful industrial center of the northern part of the state. Today, most of 14

Intes, photo: Boštjan Lah

the former gigantic factories have become storage buildings or are occupied by smaller businesses, since the economy had to be restructured after the downfall of the SFRY – many of these industrial buildings are presently abandoned and dilapidated. Few of them live as fully as they did in the past. One distinct example is the Intes Factory. Grain silos and mills were very important to Maribor and its residents. The Scherbaum steam mills (1872) limited the inflow of flour from Vojvodina and at the same time completely destroyed local mills of the Podravje Region and stimulated the sowing of grains on the Drava Plain and in Intes’ silos - detail, photo: Boštjan Lah the Pomurje Region. In 1874 the lord of Melje Castle, nobleman Alojz Kriehuber, established the Styria steam mill behind the main train station in Melje. In 1833 it was bought up by Ludvik Franz, who built an additional pasta factory and the Franz (Intes) Villa, and he was also the investor for the 15

The former Customs office, photo: Boštjan Lah

The former Customs office, photo: B. Lah

Lacto-vegetarian and vegan restaurant in the Melje Dol quarter, photo: Boštjan Lah 16

Sales gallery in the Melje Dol quarter, curator Vojko Pečar, photo: Boštjan Lah

er, Lah

A view from the Košaki bridge, the Tower and Intes Factory in the background, photo: Boštjan Lah

Velika Kavarna Coffee House on Main Square (Theresienhof) and the commercial and residential building on Poštna Street 1. Intes’ silos store over 25.000 tons of wheat produced by Slovene producers. By moving the mill from Ljubljana and the recent merger of mills on a single location, Maribor became the Slovene center of the milling industry once again, holding the single largest mill in the country. Nonetheless, generally speaking Slovenia and Maribor are still unable to critically evaluate their rich industrial and socialist heritage. Such objects are not listed and protected in national registers, most have already become private property, in the hands of which they are either decaying or being demolished. 17

2. The Northeastern Romantic Trail 1. Maribor Railway Station – 2. The Tomšič Avenue – 3. The City Park – 4. The Maister Square - 5. The Leon Štukelj Square TOMŠIČEVA ULICA A C EST A

PA R

M A I S T R OV T RG

TIZ

MESTNI PA R K

TRG LEONA ŠTUKLJA

The Tomšič Avenue, photo: Adeline Yeo, Central Saint Martins 18

The Tomšič Avenue (as well as the northern area of the city center in general) with its numerous luxurious villas from different eras, but mostly from the period between the first and second world wars,

Benoit Maubrey, photo: Boštjan Lah

The City Park, photo: Lizon Tijus, Central Saint Martins 19

The Hutter Villa, photo: Boštjan Lah

is considered as Maribor’s historical Beverly Hills. Josip Hutter for example, an enlightened engineer, a “capitalist with a social instinct” and a man ahead of his time, lived in a villa near next to the

The Tomšič Avenue, photo: Adeline Yeo, Central Saint Martins 20

The City Park during Lent Festival, photo: BoĹĄtjan Lah

City Park with everything on the inside and the outside that must have been typical of real Hollywood houses in 1935. The then state of the art lifestyle technology inside his villa, and later on also

The City Park during Lent Festival, photo: BoĹĄtjan Lah 21

in the Hutter Block, reflects a tendency towards functional technical progress. In 1929, in the time of economic recession, he built a holiday villa on Pohorje (today’s Ribniška Koča Cottage), which was one of the top modern houses of its time with a proper electricity production capacity. The City Park was created between 1871 and 1890. The first part was planted by the Graz landscaper Marauschegg in 1872 and stretched from today’s Maister Street to the north end of the chestnut avenue, which wound from the castle to the manor house under Piramida hill. In that time, many city streets were embellished by chestnut avenues, and the specialty among them was – and still is – the Tomšič Avenue. Towards the end of the 19th century, the area of the Three Ponds was included in the park, and a musical pavilion was built. To this day, the green surfaces of the city are connected to the park right from the town center, and continuing into the woods behind Piramida and Kalvarija hills, passing the Three Ponds. This was where Hugo Wolf used to stroll and compose music. The park also has a large children’s playground and an aquarium-terrarium. During the spring and summer, the pavilion is the site of daytime concerts. The Maister Square was named after General Rudolf Maister, the famous fighter for the northern border and symbol of Maribor’s po-

Protests in Maribor, Prva gimnazija, November 2012, photo: Boštjan Lah 22

litical rebelliousness. He disarmed the German army in 1918, freeing Maribor and a large part of today’s southern Austrian territory. This was followed by a political decision for the annexation of Maribor to the newly formed Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes – even though Maribor, given its economic structure, was supposed to belong to Austria. The Slovene language became the official language for the first time. Culture, art and social life in the Slovene language have thrived and developed since that time. Maister was a mountaineer, poet, fine artist and great supporter of Slov- Rudolf Maister Vojanov ene art. To this day, he remains one of the most popular and celebrated inhabitants of the city. He died in 1934 and was buried at the Pobrežje Cemetery, accompanied by thousands of locals. Today’s Prva Gimnazija High School is a former German secondary school (Realschule) dating back to 1873. In the second half of the 19th century, Maribor was mostly inhabited by immigrants from the Slovene countryside. On the city streets you could hear more Slovene than German talk. But the German part of population was still socially, economically and politically privileged. German nationalism grew strong in these years, and national relations between the Slovenes and the Germans became increasingly strained. The only Slovene city school of that time was situated in the Magdalena Quarter, today known as Tabor. In 1863, the first Slovene newspaper Slovenski narod was established, which demanded equality of the Slovene language with German. The German authorities were not particularly fond of it, having recognized it as a support to Unified Slovenia, a Slovene party that strived towards the downfall of Austrian dominance and supported the wish to establish a southern Slavic state under Russian lead. Anton Tomšič and Josip Jurčič were the paper’s editors until 1872, when it was moved to Ljubljana due to the debts with the printing factory. 23

The Maister Square, a view of the castle, photo: Radha Mistry, Central Saint Martins The Leon Ĺ tukelj, a view to the south, photo: BoĹĄtjan Lah

Leon Ĺ tukelj, photo archive: Dolenjski muzej, Novo mesto 25

3. The Socialist Romantic Trail I 1. Kojak – 2. Gic’s Café – 3. Pekarna – 4. Partizanska Street – 5. The Tito Bridge 3

1 TITOVA CEST A

Kojak - a detail, photo: Mia Kennedy, CSM

Gic’s café, Tyrševa Street, photo: Boštjan Lah 26

ESTA

C NSKA

ZA PARTI

One of the largest monuments, dating back to 1975, is dedicated to the national liberation front. It is the work of an important Yugoslav sculptor Slavko Tihec, a Maribor native, and one of the most interesting statues of its kind; locals refer to it as the “Kojak”, because it resembles the bald head of Telly Savalas, the star of a famous American detective television series in the 1970’s. When a person from Belgrade visits Maribor, they can still feel at home. The majority of the local population speaks Serbo-Croatian, practically everybody understands it. The people of Maribor have not yet fully abandoned our historical partisan struggle against the Nazis and the fascists, nor completely abandoned the post-war socialist order, which, under Tito’s leadership was substantially more open-minded than the Eastern-German, Romanian or Czech communist reality, dictated by the Soviet union. Among other things Tito was the founder of the Non-Aligned Movement (Tito, Nehru, Nasser), an alliance that connected the underdeveloped third world. Artists and cultural workers still recall the wild seventies of the six Slavic Balkan nations and the saying: “Dok je bilo Tita, bilo je i šita.” (“When we had Tito, we had shit*, too.” *hashish). This famous Yugohippie line marked the attempts of free-thinking radicals to legalize marijuana in the city and in Slovenia, attempts which remain unsuccessful even now decades later.

The Trg svobode Square and Kojak during protests in November 2012, photo: B. Lah 27

The Tito statue in Pekarna, photo: Mia Kennedy, CSM

Tito turned away from Stalin in the 1950â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s and leaned upon the West for political support. Yugoslavs were free to travel to the countries of the western capitalist world; regular cross-border shopping and travels were possible thanks to our passports, which were considered valuable on the black market. This is why those of us who are partly nostalgic treasure the symbolic relics of the era of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The former Tegetthoff Street in Maribor still carries the name Partizanska (Partisan) Street, though most of the streets in Slovene towns that were named after Tito have long since changed their names. The biggest town bridge is still called the Tito Bridge; the original name of the revived Udarnik (Revolt) Cinema has been kept; the former Partisan Cinema is now an exhibition venue; and we are still maintaining the National Liberation Museum and the names of elementary schools after partisan heroes, e.g. the PolanÄ?iÄ? Brothers Elementary School, the Franc Rozman Stane Elementary School and others. The urban and architectural heritage of the 20th century represents a segment of high value to the town of Maribor. After World War II, the city established an urban and architectural development on the doctrine of modernism. In 1949, the first post-war urban plan of Maribor was developed. In this time, the city instituted nearly three quarters of new spaces and formed the concept of four cities in one. 28

At that time, huge socialist factories have already begun to operate: TAM – the Maribor Car Factory, Metalna (construction company), TVT – the Factory of Vehicles and Heating Technology, Elektrokovina (metal products factory), MTT – the Maribor Textile Factory, Zlatorog (chemical industry), Lilet (shoe factory), the Maribor Foundry Factory, Hidromontaža (electrical appliances and assembly), Marles (construction company, wood industry), Primat (metal equipment), Intes (food combine), Svila (textile industry)… Thirteen industrial disciplines were developed in the town before 1952, with metal industry leading the way and textile industry in second place, followed by wood industry and production, and electrical energy processing. In the 1960’s, Maribor’s industry reached a fullgrown level of development. Metal, textile and electro-technical industries were still at the top. New industrial disciplines emerged: colored metallurgy, building materials’ industry and oil derivatives’ production. The key characteristics of Maribor’s architectural and building development were first based mainly on a reconstruction of the city’s urban infrastructure and rehabilitation of the areas damaged during the war, and later on the development of the construction industry with pioneer models of residential housing and engineer objects: the old Ljudski Vrt Stadium grandstand and the Tito Bridge were erected between 1960 and 1963, they are the works of engineer Boris Pipan.

The Tito Bridge, photo: Boštjan Lah

4. The Socialist Romantic Trail II 1. The Rakuša Square – 2. The Hutter Block – 3. The Jemec Garden – 4. IZUM (Institute of Information Science) – 5. The Piramida Hill

PREŠERNOVA ULICA

The Rakuša Square is the mirror image of the Maister Square, visually connecting the Hutter 5 Block, the Union Hall, the Jemec Garden, the Faculty of Economics and Business and the new bank. Two Forma Vivas are located nearby: one on the platform in front of the Faculty of Economics and Business – forma viva 1970 by Bradford Graves, and the other on the façade of the Jemec Garden on Prešeren Street – Forma viva 1973 by Janez Boljka. The Hutter Block (194045), a work by architects Aleksander Dev and Jaro4 slav Černigoj, Plečnik’s students, is known as the first deluxe apartment building of that time in 2 Maribor, equipped with 3 all functional technological innovations of that time. The first work1 ers moved into the Hutter Block in 1941. The location of the building was previously occupied by horse stables and storages. There are eight 30

The Jemec Garden, photo: BoĹĄtjan Lah 31

Hutter’s Block, protests in November 2012, photo: Boštjan Lah

entrances and elevators in the building; each floor has a couple of apartments ranging from one-bedroomed to five-bedroomed flats. It is distinguished by the concept of shared spaces equipped with contemporary technical appliances (laundry room, drying room, etc.) Originally the façade was supposed to be made out of marble from Metlika, but the completion was interrupted by the beginning of World War II, after which the marble stored in the courtyard was used elsewhere. The Union Hall was built in 1911 and is now home to the world-famous girls’ art choir Carmina Slovenica, which has been active since 1997; the hall is also used to host the Attacca choir festival and most of the classical music concerts of the Maribor Festival. The Jemec Garden, a commercial and residential building by architect Borut Pečenko from 1975, ambiguously carries the name of the garden – it is located in the same space that used to be the garden. The building island at its corner is completed by creating a smaller green square in front of it, as an extension of the nearby park; considering the heights of the adjacent buildings and at the same time highlighting its important position inside the city tissue. IZUM (the Institute of Information Science) is located on Prešeren Street. It was formed out of the University Computer Center (RCUM), which evolved in the period between 1980 and 1990 from a traditional 32

organization of this kind into a contemporary information infrastructure center, occupying the building from the 1970’s. In 1987, the former RCUM acquired the VAX 8800, which was at that time the top high-performance computer system in the country. IZUM, photo: Boštjan Lah

The Piramida Hill, viewpoint, photo: Becky Wood, CSM, London

The Rakuša Square, Union Hall, photo: Boštjan Lah

Girls’ Choir, Carmina Slovenica, photo archive: Carmina Slovenica 33

5. The Medieval Romantic Trail 1. Splavarski prehod (The Rafter’s Passage) – 2. The Vojašniški Trg Square (Barracks Square) – 3. The Monorite Monastery – 4. The Judgment Tower – 5. The Žiče Manor – 6. The Water Tower Maribor was documented as a market borough in 1209, and in 1243 as a town. The original Maribor castle was located on the top of Piramida Hill and was first mentioned in a document in 1164. It was called Marchburch (German for “March Castle”) and represented the center of Podravje County, as well as the administrative, military and judiciary base. The most important preserved items from that time are the seal ring of Ulrich III of Maribor and a ceramic document casing bearing two prints of the same seal ring, both kept at the Regional Museum Maribor inside the Maribor castle. Marchburch Castle was erected towards the end of the 11th century and was the largest fortress of that time on Slovene soil. In the 13th century, the medieval town of Maribor had deSplavarski prehod (Rafter’s Passage), veloped under the castle, which The photo: Boštjan Lah already had busy raft traffic on the river Drava (the rafting disappeared after 1947, when the Mariborski Otok power plant was built). The fort itself began to decay due to the loss of its geostrategic position. The first archeological excavations on Piramida Hill, otherwise a popular local walkway, began in the 1980’s and continued in the spring of 2010. After the restoration of the walls, the area plans to be developed as a tourist attraction. The novels by Zlata Vokačeva, Marpurgi (Marpurgers, 1985) and Knjiga Senc (The Book of Shadows, 1993) describe Maribor’s medieval history, forming 34

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a different image of the value system of this town. Maribor is depicted as a multicultural, multilingual and multinational living environment with tolerance and harmony residing among the inhabitants. Maribor, the white city upon the river Drava, also referred to as “Little Venice”, is a place where people from all over Europe flow to (it used to be the midpoint on the way between Prague, Vienna, Budapest and Venice), either as fugitives or as culturally distinct individuals, finding their place under the sun. The author devotes special attention to the Jewish community in Maribor. Lent, a view to Vojašniška Street, photo: Flavia D’Amico, CSM

House of literature, photo: Boštjan Lah

The Minorite Church, photo arhiv: KIBLA

The Vojašniški Trg Square, photo archive: KIBLA

The Vojašniški Trg Square during the Lent Festival, photo: Boštjan Lah 36

KGB Club, photo: Boštjan Lah The courtyard in front of the KGB, photo: Boštjan Lah

The Žiče Manor, Lent, photo: Boštjan Lah Jože Šubic’s project at the Žiče Manor, photo: Matej Kristovič

Even though the setting of the novels takes place in the second half of the 15th century, capturing wider European and more specific local events of that time, the idea behind them expresses praise for the spiritual freedom and independence, as well as an emotional sense of belonging to the town of Maribor. The remains of the medieval town wall, which served well as a defense against the Hungarians in the 15th century, are kept in the form of the Judgment Tower (14th century), the Water Tower (16th century), the Čeligi Tower, the Maribor Cathedral (Stolna cerkev sv. Janeza Krstnika) on Slomšek

Square from the mid-13th century, and partly in the Maribor Castle. Witch trials took place in the Judgment Tower: the witches were prosecuted, tortured, forced into making senseless confessions and then burnt at the stakes in the Main Square. They came from the surrounding outskirts of Maribor and had old-fashioned Slovene names like Urška, Marina, Alenka… Historic documents from 1273 first mention the name of a city judge, Walter. Witch trials have been documented between 1546 and 1712, convicting around fifty persons. The Maribor Puppet Theater has been moved to the restored Minorite Monastery in 2010. In its thirty years of existence it won recognition as a theater creating mostly children’s shows based on the novelties of contemporary Slovene children’s and youth literature; from 1974 the theater has been active under the name of Maribor Puppet Theater with an international program. Their repertoire includes world classics arranged for the puppet stage, which are brought to life by means of different puppeteer technologies. They appear regularly on numerous international festivals home and abroad. Since 1990 they are the organizers of the international puppet festival, the Summer Puppet Pier, and the Biennial of Puppetry Artists of Slovenia. Lent, a view of the Judgment Tower, photo: Becky Wood

Lent, the Water Tower, photo: B. Lah

6. The Koroška Romantic Trail 1. Kolosej – 2. The City Hotel – 3. The Narodni Dom (National Cultural Center) – 4. The Glavni Trg Square (Main Square) – 5. The Velika Kavarna Coffee House – 6. The Town Hall – 7. Regional Archives Maribor – 8. Koroška Road – 9. Maribor Art Gallery – 10. Maribor Marketplace – 11. Lent 9

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The Kolosej cinema theater offers nine traditional, modern-equipped cinema auditoriums and one 3D cinema hall. In 2006, it replaced the existing city cinemas that were operational in the time of socialism. The head architect Janko J. Zadravec was disappointed after the Kolosej, photo: Boštjan Lah

A view from the terrace of the City Hotel, photo: B. Lah

investor did not consistently follow the design of the project that was selected on a public call for tenders. 40

Narodni dom Maribor, photo: B. Lah KIBLA, photo: B. Lah

Festival Lent, photo: B. Lah Turkish coffee house with shishas, photo: B. Lah

Narodni dom (National Culture Center; 1898) was built on the pattern of the town hall in Pardubice (architect Jan Veyrich) and was the center of Slovenes’ social life in the city until World War I. In 1901, the German inhabitants protested strongly against the Slovene population that gathered in Narodni dom. In a politically charged debate about the building of the bridge, the new bridge was supposed to part from the Narodni dom building across the river Drava, but this was never realized. Today, Narodni Dom is home to a cultural event-organizing center and KIBLA, association for culture and education. Narodni Dom Maribor is the organizer of Lent Festival - the largest city festival that has been taking place since 1993 and includes an international folklore program, classical, jazz and popular music concerts, the Art Camp with creative and children’s programs in the City Park, and the Live Courtyards project occupying the old city courtyards. This two-week festival takes place every year from the end of June to the beginning of July, occupying a number of venues: the Main Stage on the Drava River, Jazzlent, the Večer Stage, the Jurček Stage and additional small stages in the City Park. The town squares are transformed into street performance venues, while the City Park offers a place to relax in the tree shadows during the day. Narodni dom with its long-time manager Vladimir Rukavina is one of the most powerful cultural institutions in the city; it was established by the city authorities and thus operates with a number of locations that are owned by the municipality and are intended to serve as cultural venues: Narodni dom, the Union hall, the Judgement and Water Towers, Karantena and others. Multimedia Center KIBLA is a contemporary interdisciplinary cultural space connecting information technologies, art, culture and science on an international level since 1996. KiBela Gallery and a cyber café operate under its wings. KIBLA is the producer behind KIBLIX, an interdisciplinary festival that combines with other similar festivals at KIBLA Portal on Valvasorjeva Street. KIBLA is part of the Slovene network of multimedia centers, a coordinator and partner of numerous international projects and as such occupies the leading position in this field in Slovenia. 43

Glavni Trg Square 22, photo: B. Lah

In 1315 the former Town Square (Mestni trg), today known as the Main Square (Glavni trg), is first mentioned as the center of trading in the city. GT22 on Glavni Trg Square 22 offers room to a number of different cultural practices for youth, as well as interdisciplinary culturecreative labs, a collection of old cameras that belonged to photographer DragiĹĄa Modrinjak, a small skateboard hall and a DJ-ing space. The ground floor of the building is home to Ajda, a popular eco- and vegetarian grocery store. Ludvik Franz was the investor of the commercial and residency building on PoĹĄtna Street 1 and the Velika Kavarna Coffee House in the Glavni Trg Square (Theresienhof), which was erected in 1913. For many years, the Maribor Casino was hidden behind the draped windows of this building; after its bankruptcy it was closed for a couple of years and today it is home to the Salon, which opened the curtains, exposed the inner spaces and is now organizing modern, large-scale social events inspired by the old-fashioned ways. The Town Hall dates back to the 16th century and was built in Italian style, with a renaissance balcony. Another Italian influence is the renaissance fortification artillery practice that can be observed in the castle bastion. The Town Hall is also the location of KIT, a small 44

A view of the Rotovški Trg Square, photo: B. Lah

The Town Hall, photo: Flavia D’Amico

The Velika Kavarna Coffee House, photo: B. Lah

photo: Adeline Yeo

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cyber café, exhibition space and multimedia classroom (in the basement) for informal education in the field of IT and other contents. The Town Hall passage leads the way to the Rotovž Square (Town Hall Square) and the library. The Rotovž Square is adjacent to the Slomšek Square. The museum exhibition venues Archivum, Per gradus and Had at the Regional Archives Maribor use a thematic approach to present archive materials: parchment documents originating between the 13th and 19th centuries; archival document collections; acreage landowner documents from the 15th century onwards and monastic communities’ documents from the 17th century; historical documents from administrative organs, courts, companies, monetary institutions, groups, associations and institutions from the mid-19th century onwards; materials from the post-World War II period; private and historical collections. The goal of the European Capital of Culture 2012, to restore and revitalize Lent (the first renewal, not necessarily well-chosen, dates back to 1983) and Koroška Road, which would revive the decaying infrastructure into a vital arts&culture part of the city and thus encourage cultural tourism and motivate the artistic-cultural segment of the local population, was not fulfilled. The concept is now being realized gradually, by renting out locations that belong to the Municipality of Maribor to the local creatives and agents. The revitalization of Koroška Road is oriented towards the creation of a socio-cultural environment of the past, present and future, i.e. a social, cultural, educational, sociable, public urban space, an appealing cultural spot and tourist destination of a modern town. The cultural event-organizing spaces on Koroška Road are: Central Station (Koroška 5, profiled by contemporary intermedia artistic approaches), Epeka (Koroška 8, a socially committed institution), K18 Gallery (Koroška 18; presenting the works of visiting young artists), Maribor Photographic Museum (Koroška 19; involved with Maribor’s technological heritage; keeper of Anton Bohanc’s photographic collection); Cultural Incubator (Koroška 18; a space for the activities of the Maribor Youth Center – MKC), Vinilija and Alphawave (Koroška 24; contemporary electro-musical events). 47

Koroška Road, photo: Boštjan Lah, students of CSM, EPEKA

Donate, exchange or take a chair!, photo: Martin Romero

Donate, exchange or take a chair!, photo: BoĹĄtjan Lah

Maribor Art Gallery, photo: Boštjan Lah

It is not just what happens inside these buildings that matters, but also outside, on the streets – to integrate the local inhabitants. An example of such a project is a public space intervention as conceived by the students of Central St Martins from the University of Arts in London, who visited Maribor and focused on the revitalization and communication of the inhabitants of part of the Koroška Road and Main Square. The communicative and connecting elements were chairs, donated by individuals, as well as an evening art program at the abandoned courtyard of the old Koper Inn, a former brewery. Maribor Art Gallery is situated in a building with an intriguing history that was first mentioned as early as 1314-1316, when townsman Valter and townswoman Kunigunda donated two of their houses to the Benedictine monastery. The adapted manor was bought by Celestine nuns in 1760 and turned into a convent. Less than a century later, in 1843, an entrepreneur from Bremen arranged the place into a coffee surrogate factory. In 1844, Graz architect Josef Hasslinger designed the northern façade (Orožnova Street), which has been preserved entirely and is considered the finest late classicist building in town. In 1869, the complex was bought by Baron Hermann GoedelLannoy, doctor of juridical science, noted politician and financier from Vienna. His aristocratic title traces back to the Belgian prince 51

Lannoy, who lived in the beautiful Viltuš Manor near Maribor (see Romantic Trails to Castles). He arranged the building into a city palace with a neo-renaissance façade against the Strossmayer Street and a romantic garden designed by engineer Černiček. In the years 1951-1954 the building was restored following the designs of architect Aleksander Dev and presented to the Maribor Art Gallery, which performs museum and gallery-related activities and originates from the tradition of art club Grohar, founded in the 1920’s and fine arts’ club Brazda, founded in the 1930’s. Today, the gallery holds a permanent collection of primarily regional fine arts’ heritage and operates actively in the field of contemporary visual arts. The basement of the building is the location of an extremely popular jazz club Satchmo from the 1990’s, though today it is mostly intended for the student population and popular music. In front of the Art Gallery Maribor there is a forma viva sculpture from 1986 by Will Nettleship. The renovated Maribor Marketplace is accessible through a colorfully painted subway, with a small store located in the lower part of the market, called Čajnašop (Chinashop).

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The Marketplace, photo: Flavia D’Amico

The marketplace passage, photo: R. Mistry Čajnašop, photo: Nataša Berk Jasna Kozar’s 3X Gallery on Lent, Pepper’s Cafe on Lent, photo: Boštjan Lah photo: B. Lah

7. The Jewish Romantic Trail 1. The Grajski Trg Square (Castle Square) – 2. Vetrinjska Street – 3. The Židovski Trg Square (Jewish Square) – 4. The Gosposka Passage – 5. The Glavni Trg Square (Main Square) – 6. Poštna Street – 7. The Slomšek Square – 8. Orožnova Street The center of Maribor’s castle dates back to the final quarter of the 15th century and is famous for its richly decorated double-flight rococo staircase from the 18th century. The Maribor Regional Museum has occupied the castle since 1938 and owns a number of collections: fashion items, pharmaceutical paraphernalia, baroque artworks, items belonging to the field of glass industry, industrial heritage artifacts; a numismatic collection, a collection of weaponry, and a

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The Grajski Trg Square, Regional Archives Maribor in the Maribor castle, a view from the cinema terrace, photo: B. Lah A view of Maribor from the cinema terrace, photo: B. Lah

The Vetrinje Mansion, photo: Boštjan Lah The Vetrinje Mansion courtyard, photo: Boštjan Lah

collection of tin soldiers as an example of children’s collections. The city castle festival hall hosted a concert of Franz Liszt in 1846. The arrangements were made by writer and poet Eduard von Lannoy, owner of Viltuš Manor. The always popular Astoria Coffee House is situated on the location of the former castle stables. On April 8th 1941 the first Nazi army units had already arrived tin Maribor to restore Nazi authority. Even the German population disapproved, as they were cultivated enough and largely used to the co-existence and confrontations with other ethnic groups, mostly Slovenes. At first they believed they were going to acquire a more favorable status in the city, which they had lost in 1918 with the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes; however, they soon realized that the procedures were brutal and that even themselves were not excluded from them. The Slovene language was banned from public life; soon the first arrests followed as well as deportations of ethnically “impure” and politically questionable Slovenes to Serbia. When the war itself started, the first hostages were shot behind the walls of the Maribor prison, while the town and the outskirts and villages of Pohorje became the focal point of resistance. Beside the Orel Hotel, in the Volkmer Passage, a group of high school students set two German cars on fire on April 29th 1941. According to some recollections, the three young men were sent to one of the first concentration camps Mathausen near Linz. The number of all Maribor hostages amounts to over six hundred people. After the war, the Memorial to Hostages (Spomenik talcem) on Tito’s Road was erected in their memory, one of the most beautiful post-war monuments, designed by Jaroslav Černigoj. As early as 1785-1806 the hall of the Vetrinje Mansion hosted guest appearances of travelling art groups. In this time, Maribor gained its first formal cultural and social structures: a theater association, the first printing factory, the city hospital on Slomšek Square (moved to the present location already in 1855); in 1823 the association Kazinsko društvo was established, followed by Glasbeno društvo (Musical association) and the male choir. Cinemas Partizan and Udarnik – both had been closed to the public for several years – are open again. Udarnik operates as a non-commercial cinema theater and cultural venue. The building originates from 1935, a work by architect Vladimir Šubic, otherwise author of 57

Vetrinjska Street, photo: B. Lah

Ancora, Jurčičeva Street, photo: B. Lah

the Ljubljana skyscraper, the first European building made out of reinforced concrete. Apart from the auditorium, Šubic also designed a bowling alley in the basement, a restaurant, café and some shops on the ground floor, offices on the 1st and apartments from the 2nd to 4th floor. The diversity of the building’s purposes can also be observed from the modernist-oriented exterior. The top of the house has an authentic old terrace with a beautiful view. The city and its surroundings offer countless restaurants and bars. The food is of great quality and relatively inexpensive. The most popular is the Štajerc Restaurant. It is worth mentioning that Slovenia has an increasing number of small-scale beer producers. The city that kept growing in size and number of inhabitants required appropriate communal services. Oil lighting was already replaced by petroleum lights in 1863. The Maribor Gas Company was founded six years later, followed in 1870 by modern gas lighting on the city streets. The once filthy town with narrow streets got a public sewerage system in 1862 and the water distribution system no earlier than 1901. In 1883, the age of electrification began in Slovenia. In the be58

In front of the Udarnik Cinema, photo: B. Lah

ginning, only factories were lit, while public city lighting was postponed until later. The first modern light bulb in Slovenia lit up in Maribor on April 4th 1883, merely four years after it was patented as a carbon-filament bulb in America. Karl Scherbaum, owner of the steam mill, introduced electrical lighting with thirty-six light bulbs in his production and business spaces, as well as on the doorway of his family home on Castle Square (Grajski trg). The Jewish Square and JewA sign on Vetrinjska Street, ish Street are remains of photo: D. Schreilechner the former Jewish ghetto, first mentioned in 1274. The Jewish religious and cultural center was the synagogue built in the second half of the 13th century. The ghetto of that time was substantially larger, incorporating part of the Main Square, the lower part of Vetrinjska Street and also a part 59

Vetrinjska Street, photo: Adeline Yeo

of the Kneza Koclja Street. Marpurg was the birthplace of Chief Rabbi Israel Isserlein ben Petachia. For some time in the 14th century, Maribor was the seat of the Chief Rabbinate of southern Habsburg lands. In 1496, Emperor Maximilian I ordered the expulsion of Jews from Styria and Carinthia. They emigrated partly to Venetia, while the synagogue was rearranged into a Christian church. The names Exhibition by Ksenija Čerče at the Synagogue, photo: Damjan Švarc 60

of the exiles can be traced in Trieste (Morpurgo), Austria and Germany (Marburger). The Synagogue Cultural Center occasionally organizes thematic exhibitions concerning Jewish cultural history, as well as artistic and cultural-historical exhibitions. The following galleries are active The Synagogue, a view of the wall, photo: Flavia D’Amico

Photo-gallery Stolp on Židovski Trg Square, photo: Becky Wood

Židovski Trg Square, photo: F. D’Amico

Židovski Trg Square, photo: B. Lah 61

in the Jewish Square today: Stolp Photogallery, Media Nox, DLUM, and LM Festić with an extension to the Main Square with Hest Gallery. With a common social strategy, they often organize openings in the Jewish Square at the same time. The Gosposka Passage exists for a number of years and is a similar attempt at “pool-working” of the cafés, bars and restaurants, from Cantante and Rožmarin to Barista. Another example of such a connected business strategy is the Poštna Street with its pubs, bars and restaurants working late hours every day. The street has become popular with the locals, tourists and even football fans. Behind the corner, only steps away on the Slomšek

The Gosposka Passage, photo: Boštjan Lah

Poštna Street

photo: Flavia D’Amico

photo: Boštjan Lah

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Slovene National Theater, photo: Marko Petrej

Edward Clug: The Architecture of Silence, photo archive: Slovene National Thater 64

Pandur Theaters: Baroque, photo archive: Slovene National Theater

Square, lies the pioneer among such bars in Maribor – Tildo’s from the early 1990’s; and further down the street is jazz club Satchmo. The picture of the nightlife is completed by a couple of bars and pubs on Splavarska Street and Lent. The Slomšek Square was named after Anton Martin Slomšek, a nationally conscious Slovene. The history of unified Sloveneness reaches back into the year 1859, when Bishop Anton Martin Slomšek moved the episcopal See of the Lavantine bishopric from Carinthia to Maribor, thus joining almost all Styrian Slovenes under a single bishopric. It was under their wing that the first institution of higher education was established in Maribor. In 1861, the Slavic reading society was formed, representing the center of Slovene cultural activities until World War I and causing the first public manifestation of Sloveneness in the town. At the end of the 19th century, most representative utility buildings on Slomšek Square were created, such as the City Savings Bank (today the rectorate of the University of Maribor) in 1886, and the post office in 1894. The structure of the societal, institutional, sports, social and cultural life in Maribor was outlined under the German rule. The economic worthies of the time tried to resolve the situation on the monetary market by founding the city savings bank. It was supposed to regulate the disorderly credit conditions and protect the craftsmen, tradesmen and farmers against loan sharks. In 1862, the idea was put into action. In this era, the craftsmen of Maribor found themselves in the middle of powerful economic factors that dictated a redirection of their businesses into the farming field or trade. Only the crafts with an industrial character were preserved, as they were the only ones that could endure the competition on the home market (i.e. in Maribor and the Podravje region fairs) with their quality products. The history of theater, at first as host and later with its own performance, dates back to the end of the 18th century. The Maribor Theater was established in the modest theater building on the corner of Slovene Street and Theater Street in 1852. The casino part of the building was added in 1865, with a neo-classicist façade on Slomšek Square, which served as a venue for social events. The Theater and Casino society was formed, which operated in that same building. The present building was adapted and restores on multiple occasions be65

photo: Boštjan Lah

Toto Bar, photo: B. Lah

tween 1975 and 2003. The Slovene National Theater Maribor (SNG Maribor) is the largest cultural institution in Slovenia, joining Drama, Opera, Ballet and the Maribor Theater Festival (the Borštnik Festival) under its roof – as such, it is a bold, cosmopolitan, societal and social center of the city, reflecting social conditions and changes, and staging artworks of the past in current topical versions. Productions by Tomaž Pandur and Edvard Clug have put Maribor’s theater and ballet creativity on the international map. The Maribor Theater Festival (the Borštnik Festival) has existed since 1969 and is the successor of the Slovene Drama Week from 1966. The festival is traditionally held in Maribor and has lately, under the artistic guide of Alja Predan, been reaching the topmost level with an international extension mostly within the Slavic geographic regions. Between 1894 and 1903, Maribor was the hometown of Herman Potočnik Noordung, a rocket engineer and pioneer of space technology. After her husband’s death, his mother and the four children moved to Maribor, to be closer to her mother, Herman’s grandmother, Camilla Kokoschniegg. As the widow of a war veteran, she was rented out a new apartment on the second floor of a 1894 palace on the corner of today’s Slomšek Square and Poštna Street. Herman thus visited the first four grades of elementary school in Maribor, together with his brothers Adolf and Gustav (who later became navy officers) and sister Frančka. The field of art crafts (belt making, goldsmiths, engraving, photography, and blacksmiths) is still alive today. There is an organized workshop on Orožnova Street as part of the Regional Museum Maribor. Numerous courtyards, like the one in Orožnova Street, are preserving a hint of the old days. 66

The history of Maribor University Library began in 1903 and is the fruit of numerous individual and social endeavors. By joining international library systems it operates on a European level. Its target audiences consist primarily of students. Among its many activities, special relevance should be acknowledged to its scientific-research institution. Belt-making workshop in Orožnova Street, photo: Boštjan Lah

Live courtyards in Orožnova Street, photo: Boštjan Lah

8. The Gosposka (Lords’) Romantic Trail 1. Gosposka Street (Lords’ Street) – 2. Tyrševa Street – 3. Mladinska Street – 4. The Maister Square – 5. The Grajski Trg Square (Castle Square) – 6. Slovenska Street – 7. Barvarska Street

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Gosposka Street (Lords’ Street) is the central street with numerous shops, stores, bars and restaurants. Relevant sights include restored buildings, like the Wibmer House with a decorated façade from 1763, the Selška House – the present location of a bank; two houses MLADINSKA ULICA from 1835 and 1793; and 3 the former Zamorc Hotel, presently a Youth Hostel. The latter features a statue of the Immaculate from 1730, a work 2 by Johann Jakob Schoy. Mary with a humbly bowed 4 head kneels on the globe, pressing down against the rising dragon. The northern side of GosSLOVENSKA ULICA 6 poska Street is finished 5 off by Slovenska Street BARVARSKA ULICA 7 (Slovene Street). Between the years 1820 to approx. 1835, Gosposka Street 31 used to be the resi1 dence of Archduke John of Habsburg, also called the Archduke of Styria. A lot of the merits for Styria’s cultural and economic development can be attributed to him, mostly the building of the Southern Railway and his 68

Gosposka Street, photo: Adeline Yeo

influences on the development of wine culture. His enthusiasm about the industrial revolution was reflected after his visit to England in 1816. The residency was transformed into a hotel after his death in Live courtyards in Gosposka Street, photo: BoĹĄtjan Lah

The Little Inn on the Corner, Gosposka Street, photo: Boštjan Lah

Skrinja, Gosposka Street, photo: B. Lah 70

1858, naming it “The Archduke John Hotel”. After World War I, the building became the location of the Slovene Reading Society. The bank building of Nova KBM bank on Slovenska Street 12 and Tyrševa Street 2, the three-storied palace of the Dravska banovina savings bank (Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes), a work of architects Jaroslav Černigoj and Saša Dev from 1931-32, is considered the first example of modern architecture in Maribor. Černigoj was labeled as one of the first modern functionalists among Slovene architects. Despite his retreat from Plečnik’s basis, Černigoj’s realizations,

a corner of Tyrševa and Slovenska St., photo: B. Lah

Aroma, Slovenska Street, photo: B. Lah

including those designed together with Aleksander Dev, maintain a carefully considered composition and accurately designed details. The savings bank was built on the location of the birthplace of the reputable vice admiral Wilhelm von Tegetthoff, who became famous in the battle of Vis Island in 1866. Due to the rapid development of industry, the city had to provide appropriate communal services. Thus, in 1932 the Municipality of Maribor organized city companies that included a slaughterhouse, bus company, water distribution system, gas company, electro-distribution company, building administration, traffic office, city swimming pool complex, funeral inPetra Varl’s painting beside the stitute, cemetery and others. All of Faculty of Law, Tyrševa Street, the above were then subordinate to photo: B. Lah the central administration of the City companies. Once the question of electrification was resolved, the most important issue was the city traffic. The bus company was established in 1926, connecting mostly those city surroundings that didn’t

Urban and the house of Hugo Wolf on Mladinska Street, photo: Boštjan Lah 71

have access to the railway; the Slovenske Gorice Hills and the Drava Plain. The building of a swimming pool complex on Mariborski Otok Island in 1930, which was considered the most modern in southeastern Europe, was a boost for the city’s tourism. Other city companies also had an impact on the development of the whole town, mostly the City Electricity Company, given the fact that in 1933, Maribor was the single greatest consumer of electricity in Yugoslavia. Art song composer Hugo Wolf spent his student years (1873-75) in a house on Mladinska Street. On a spring day in his fourth year of secondary school, which was located nearby on the same street, he composed his first sonata during a walk through the city park and in the woods behind the three ponds. Five other art songs were composed that same year. He decided to leave Maribor after a disagreement with his catechesis teacher. This period is also marked by the birth of the first important educational institutions. The first College of Education was established in 1870, followed by the School of Fruit- and Wine-Growing in 1872, the Realschule (Real School) in 1873 and finally in 1892 H. Wolf, the Gymnasium (the last two are a type of secphoto archive GLU ondary school). In 2012, an architectural exhibition venue Urban was opened on Mladinska Street 3, in the same building where the second degree of the study program of architecture by the Faculty of Civil Engineering is conducted. The Maribor House of Architecture established a number of collaborations with the Chamber of Architecture and Spatial Planning of Slovenia (ZAPS), the Architects’ Society of Ljubljana (DAL), the Maribor Association of Architects and some other international architect associations. The National Liberation Museum Maribor is a history museum engaged in the museological and historiographical treatment of northeastern Slovenia’s recent history, including rich children’s programs. The museum is located in the urban villa on the corner of Mladinska Street and Heroj Tomšič Street, which was ordered in the mid-1890 by the local entrepreneur Scherbaum. For some time during World War I it hosted the Austro-Hungarian General Staff of the Isonzo Front (Soška fronta), and later the Maribor city authorities (1920’s), the Forestry School (after 1930), after World War II the Maribor OZNA 72

(Department of National Security), then some other city political organizations and finally, since 1954, the before mentioned museum. Croatian pianist Ivo Pogorelić was seriously interested in buying the villa. The Friends of Youth AssoThe National Liberation Museum, photo: B. Lah ciation (ZPM) is located in the House of Creativity on Razlagova Street in the vicinity of Maister Square; they organize creative workshops for youth and other – mostly children’s – programs. Behind the corner of the Maister Square is the First Stage of the Prva Gimnazija High School, which also belongs to the field of youth activities. The Premzl Gallery on Slovenska Street 8 is well supplied with (mostly fine arts’) artworks by local virtuosos of the past two centuries and all the way to the present day; it is also marked for its collections and publishing activities, both of which cover mostly Maribor’s history (Germans and Maribor, Josip Hutter, City Guide, etc.). Fashion collection, Regional Archives Maribor, photo: Irena Kacafura

The Rococo staircase, Regional Archives, photo: D. Cvetnič

Čajek Tearoom, photo: B. Lah Barvarska Street, 0,04m3, photo: N. Berk

Slovenska Street, photo: B. Lah

Primož Premzl Gallery, photo: B. Lah

Slovenska Street, photo: B. Lah 74

Arty’s Restaurant, photo: B. Lah

9. The Baroque Romantic Trail

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The abundance of open-air baroque statues functioning as church decorations in 18th century Maribor originates from two sculpture workshops, owned by Jožef Straub and Jožef Holzinger. The largest in town is the Plague Memorial. In 1681 a plague sign was erected by the locals as a sign of gratitude after the plague was over. In 1743, it was replaced by the work of local artist Jožef Straub. The statue is one of his best works, and also one of the finest, top works of Slovene baroque in general. The memorial in the Main Square is a copy, the original being kept at the Maribor Regional Museum. The baroque and former Jesuit Church of St Aloysius, photo: D. Schreilechner Church of St Aloysius from 1769 is the most important baroque building in Maribor, which used to form part of the Jesuit complex, together with the collegium and the gymnasium that operated until the abolition of the Jesuit order in 1773; soon after that, the Minorite, Capuchin and Celestine orders were also abolished. The premises were occupied by the 2 military, establishing mili1

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1. Church of St Aloysius – 2. The Plague Memorial – 3. Gosposka Street (Lords’ Street)

tary dressing rooms – the first textile workshops with a few hundred employees. The baroque trail across northeastern Slovenia: Church of St Aloysius in Maribor, the Betnava Mansion in Maribor, the Dornava Manor, the Dominican Monastery in Ptuj, Sladka gora Mountain, the Štatenberg Mansion… In the second half of the 16th century, the Betnava forest and castle on Streliška Road was the location of the Herberstein Castle, arranged as a Lutheran post until its abolition in the time of antiReformation.

The plague sign and Robovox, photo: D. Schreilechner

The Glavni Trg Square, photo: Lizon Tijus 76

10. The Student Romantic Trail 1. Smetanova Street – 2. Prežihova Street – 3. Gosposvetska Street – 4. The student dormitory – 5. The Fontana Spa In the 1960’s, Maribor was conceived as the biggest northern industrial center within socialist Yugoslavia, with an emphasis on information- and computer science development – the University of Maribor, established in 1975, was the owner of the first super-computer in the SFRY. Smetanova Street is mostly the location of faculties and technical secondary schools: engineering, electro-engineering, computer sciences, textiles education, civil engineering, architecture… The lawn on Gosposvetska Street 46 features a Forma Viva made of reinforced concrete by Slovene sculptor Tone Lapajne, who participated in the 1st Maribor Sculptors’ Symposium - Forma Viva 1967, together with Lino Tine’ (the Kidrič Square statue) and Takeshi Kudo (the lawn in front of Frankolovska Street 7). The execution of the Maribor concrete Forma Viva inside the city, in the streets and squares, involved collaboration with the city’s building companies Gradis,

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Smetanova Street, photo: Boštjan Lah

Konstruktor and Stavbar. In the six international Forma Viva symposiums between 1967 and 1986, the city space as a sculpture park was endowed, at a relatively inexpensive cost, with nineteen sculptural works. Unfortunately, some of them have already been removed (e.g. the fountain by Lujo Vodopivec from 1977 in front of the Nova KBM bank, across the former Slavija Hotel, today’s radio and TV broadcasting center). Forma Viva was thus included in the building of the “new Maribor” on the right bank of the river Drava. The venues in the domain of the student dormitory are located on Tyrševa Street near the City Park and in the student ghetto on GosSarajevo Buffet, Gosposvetska Street, photo: B. Lah

ŠTUK, photo: B. Lah

posvetska Street. Students come to Maribor to study from across the country – most of them from the Koroška Region and the northern part of Slovenia – with an additional few thousand foreign students as well. In part, this belongs to the tradition of the SFRY, which supported international study programs, especially when they involved third world countries of India, Africa and other Non-aligned movement countries. Some of these former foreign students remained here, and so today we come across blacks named Mojca, Jasna or some other typically Slovene name, who are indigenous, proper local Maribor girls. The students of today are virtually non-engaged in the social, cultural and committed spheres of Maribor. The heart of the student area is also the location of MARŠ Student Radio, which has been active since the late 1980’s, and is still broadcasting today, despite the many financial obstacles. The highlight of MARŠ’s creative period is definitely centered in the 1990’s: the numerous cultural, political and above all music shows, witty jingles, commentaries and excellent hosts; a daily topical program that reflected the local, national and international events. One of its most famous jingles was: “Maribor is such a blast; it has three…four bridges; it has two accents; Maribor – the metropolis of Štajerska; Maribor has MARŠ!” A popular Sunday night call-in comedy show was called “Thank god the weekend is over”. Forma viva on Gosposvetska Street 46, photo: B. Lah 79

11. The Kamnica Romantic Trail 1. Mladinska Street / Ljudski vrt Stadium – 2. Villa Transsylvania – 3. Mitnica Bar – 4. The Kamnica Avenue – 5. The Vrbanska Platform – 6. Hippodrome – 7. Kamnica The stadium was named Ljudski vrt (Folk Garden, German: Volksgarten) after a public park that used to be located nearby. Today it features a variety of sports facilities including tennis courts – as a city sport, tennis has a powerful tradition in Maribor. After the formation of the Sokol gymnastic society in 1907 the local sport life progressed and developed. In the time before World War I, the predominantly German population practiced swimming, light athletics, table tennis, football, sailing, boxing, volleyball, fencing, cycling, handball, water jumps and others. The history of Maribor sports boasts two world-class gymnasts: Leon Štukelj and Jože (Toš) Primožič. The former was the winner of one gold and two bronze medals at the Olympic Games in Amsterdam 1928, while the latter won one silver and one bronze at the same event, and even four gold ones from the world championship in Luxembourg in 1930. At the infamous 1936 Olympics in Berlin, Leon Štukelj won the silver medal in the category of rings. It was the first time that the Olym-

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Stadium, photo: B. Lah

pics were fully captured on camera, the work of Leni Riefenstahl in the spirit of her time – with a few hundred cameras she immortalized the athletes’ bodies as the epitome of beauty, but was later accused of collaborating with Hitler, which caused her beautiful footage to retreat to the hidden archives. Leon Štukelj lived to be a frisky hundred and one, passing away in 1999. A new square in the city center is named after him. The first football field in the area was built in 1920, the first stadium in 1962 with a roof made of pre-tensioned concrete 138 meters wide and 17 meters tall (engineer Boris Pipan). The most recent renovation the exposed stands were torn down and replaced by a covered grandstand; the stadium’s current capacity is just under 13.000 spectators. The biggest turnout of some 20.000 people happened in the time of the SFRY, in 1973 at the match of the 1st Yugoslav league against Proleter Club from Zrenjanin. In 1962 the rivalry between FC Maribor and FC Olimpija from Ljubljana began. The matches between the two clubs are still known as the Eternal Derby. FC Maribor delivered some of its best results in the period after the independence, winning nine consecutive state championship titles. In 2011, they became the first Slovene club to classify for the group part of Europa League. Today, FC Maribor is one of the most successful businesses 81

in town; with profit from player sales, box office incomes and fan merchandise. The club’s supporters come from across Europe and most often move around Poštna Street and Castle Square (Grajski trg). Fritz Friedriger, a Transylvania-born German studied in Vienna and lived in Maribor on the brink of centuries as an active architect in the time of one of the most prolific periods for building and construction in Maribor, under a mayor that was himself a building engineer. He is the author of the new bridge (today: the Old Bridge) from 1913, as well as regulation plans for the city quarters. He has been labeled as the creator of the purest Secession in Maribor’s architecture, building twenty-three family houses in the Koroško suburb alone, among them the Transsylvania Villa, where he lived with his family until 1920. The name Mitnica marks a historical point where a sort of a tax was collected on the entrance into the city (similar to the tax called “octroi” in English expression). Today, Mitnica Bar is located on a road that used to be the main connection between Maribor and Graz (Austria). These points had a special function throughout history as mail and customs posts that executed government-appointed decrees related to mail packages, transport and passenger traffic. The Villa Transsylvania, photo: B. Lah

first postal connection in these parts was established in 1573, when a regular walkway between Graz and Ljubljana was established by the order of Archduke Karl II. On every fourth day, runners would deliver and collect official and private letters. Soon Mitnica Bar, photo: B. Lah after, a postal connection with horses was set up on the same route. In 1730, all the goods that travelled from Vienna, Graz, the Czech or Moravia to Trieste or from Trieste, were exempt from the customs fee. Beggars and regular mail were exempt from toll bridge taxes, but not the persons travelling by post coaches or carriages. Indeed, there were not that many bridges in the 17th century; the post was transported across the rivers by ferries. Around 1870, Maria Theresa introduced a regular daily postal service in the Austrian lands, on the Graz – Ljubljana road. Under the French rule and following an order from 1809, post coaches travelled from Vienna to Trieste every five days. After the end of the Illyrian provinces in 1813, the Austrian postal administration was re-established and the post coach journey from Vienna to Trieste was restored. Since then, mail was delivered on a daily basis on the postal road Ljubljana – Graz. In that time, the small towns of Slovenske Konjice and Ptuj were given their strategic traffic location, more important than Maribor (the mid-18th century road was: Vienna – Slovenske Konjice – Trieste). With the building of the railThe Kamnica Avenue, photo: B. Lah

way in the middle of the 19th century, Maribor once again assumed the leading role. In 1894, the city got its first telephone connection with Vienna. The hippodrome and Equestrian club are located ahead of the chestnut avenue beside the Vrbanska platform, which is one of the main water reservoirs of the city water distribution system for Maribor and 16 other municipalities. It is a protected conservation area. Here, the waters of Kozjak Hills mix with the groundwater of the river Drava. The race track is the location of a variety of harness racing events, horseback riding practices and horse riding rentals for individual rides in the nearby hills. From there on lies the The Vrbanski Plato Platform, photo: B. Lah picturesque suburban village of Kamnica, its old center protected as part of architectonic heritage. The village is pressed under the very foot of Kozjak Hills, which places it right on the border between the Alps, the lower Pohorje and Kozjak Hills, and the hilly slopes of Slovenske gorice that stretch all the way towards the Pannonian lowlands. Hippodrome, photo: B. Lah

12. The Vineyard Romantic Trail 1. Kamnica – 2. The Urban Hill – 3. Gaj – 4. The Tojzlov Vrh Peak Above the town of Maribor rise the hills of Pi3 ramida, Kalvarija, Mestni hrib (City Hill) and the tallest among them, 4 Urban. The Urban Hill is 2 an orientation point offering spectacular views of the city, the Slovenske Gorice Hills towards Hungary, Croatia and neighboring Austria; on a clear day even the peaks of Austrian moun1 tains and a large part of Pohorje. A winery is located on the top of Urban, but it is open only on the weekends. From Urban, the road leads to the peaks in the direction of Gaj nad Mariborom (a settlement in the hills), where the former school building used to be the haven of a handful of painters, but is now Kamnica, photo: B. Lah

Urban Hill, photo: B. Lah

abandoned. Next to the building is a city bus station. You will also find a little inn and a few agritourism farms just ahead of the old school and the church of the Holy Cross (Cerkev Sv. KriĹža). A lovely way leads to the Tojzlov vrh Peak with a mountain hut open during the weekends. Gaj, photo: MatjaĹž Wigele, Wikipedia

13. The Studenci Romantic Trail 1. Lent – 2. The Studenci footbridge – 3. Studenci Railway Station – 4./5. Portal – Remiza (the old boiler room)

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The medieval raft port or “lent” (an old German word for “port”) has been shrinking and changing throughout the entire time of its history. By building the new bridge in 1913 (today’s Old Bridge), a large OB BRE 1 2 part of the existing port GU was demolished, as the bridge is fairly wide and also occupies the former footpaths to the river. 4 5 In 1968, due to the rising VALV 3 river level, the old Lent ASOR JEVA bastion called Venice ULIC 6 A was torn down; it used to stand directly next to the Judgment Tower and was leaning heavily towards the Drava River. The river Drava, at the time the most important traffic connection, was the greatest contributor to the growth of the existing trade. Boats (šajka) and rafts were the principal means of transport. Before the railway was built, up to 1200 rafts and 800 “šajka” boats were counted each year, sailing on the river Drava. The direction of trade thus matches the direction of the river flow, which connected different production areas such as the Koroška Region, Maribor, the Benetke (Venice), photo archive: Primož Premzl

Žajfa Bar next to the Pristan swimming pool complex, photo: B. Lah

The Studenci footbridge, photo: B. Lah

Drava Plain and the Slovenske Gorice Hills, and in the wood industry also the southern areas of the Pannonian lowlands. When the Southern Railway plant was built next to the KoroĹĄka train station, it employed around 1200 people. The workers were given apartments in the new residential colonies and private houses. The

The Studenci footbridge, photo: B. Lah

way to work was quite long, so the municipality built a new traffic connection across the river in 1885 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; a footbridge that connected the city with the Studenci quarter. In 2007, the Studenci footbridge was replaced by a new one. The same bridge won the first award among footbridges a couple of years ago in Porto (Portugal). It was built 88

on the remains of the old bridge, that is, by using its support pillars which divide the bridge into three sections. Because of the dam, the river level is much higher today than it used to be. The project group came up with an extremely elegant and original solution of the Rafting, photo archive: Maribor Tourism Institute problem which was to permit pedestrian and bicycle accessibility, while allowing rafts to sail under the bridge. Maribor became an important crossroads not only for the rafting traffic on the river Drava towards the Black Sea, but also for the railway traffic towards the Adriatic to Trieste and towards Budapest via Pragersko. Thus, in 1863 the Koroška Railway was built, connecting Maribor and Klagenfurt. In 1885, a part of the storage house of the Southern Railway was transformed into a train station, which was then moved into a large residential house in 1904, where it remains to this day. Portal is a former textile factory built in 1929. Between 1922 and 1941, the town had created fifteen textile factories employing nearly seven thousand workers. Maribor’s textile industry, which profited from all the benefits and possibilities – from the cheap electricity and low-cost manpower, to the vastness of the Yugoslav market – was included in the 1925 customs barrier, thus becoming a high profit field. The first factory to settle in Maribor at that time was Doctor in drug. Edvard Doctor and Ernest Zucker began to build it in 1922

The Monika Inn, photo: B. Lah

Studenci Railway Station, photo: B. Lah 89

by buying a construction lot called “Križni dvor” (Cross Court) on the right bank of the river Drava beside the Koroška train station, a former location of a bicycle race course. Already in 1928, the company was a fully-operational entity equipped with a spinning mill, weaving mill and finishing (sealing and varnishing) department. It employed around a thousand manual workers and other employees. The capital was of Czech origin, as the Yugoslav market was at that time an important client of the Czech textile industry. The expert staff members were Czechs as well. Gradually, they became replaced by the locals. The conflicts between work and capital sharpened and in September 1936, a great strike of erupted among the textile workers, who stood up against the ruthless exploitation of the workforce. The economic potential of the Maribor industrial pool was included in German military production immediately after the Fascist invasion. Even the German fascists setting up their war industry in Maribor have pointed out the importance of Maribor in the sense of its production and traffic capacity. The factories TAM, Metalna, Livarna and others manufactured car parts, planes and bomb casings. There were fifty-five British-American air-raids on Maribor. The worst impacts affected the industrial zones in Melje, Tezno and Studenci. Today, the building of Portal is the location of KIBLA Portal, CAAP (Center for alternative and autonomous production), sport associations, small-size companies, warehouses and shops. The CAAP communal or social center is the first of its kind in Slovenia. It was established in 2012 as the initiator of new economies and incubator of social entrepreneurship and new social and ecological practices: it currently involves the Seed Library, a distribution and A view of Maribor, photo: Branimir Ritonja

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KIBLA Portal, photo: B. Lah

commercial part called the Dobrina Cooperative, a bike workshop of the Maribor Cyclists’ Network, and the social-cultural associations Frequency and Rizom. KIBLA Portal stretches over 2000m2 of a former textile hall, organizing large-scale exhibitions, festivals, concerts, conferences and workshops from the field of art, culture, science, new technologies and informal education. The old boiler room (“remiza”) from 1863 is located inside the former common railway zone beside the Koroška train station, on the south side of the area between the tracks and the railway colony in Tabor. It was originally built to maintain trains, mostly the Southern Railway locomotives, and later also for the maintenance of the entire southern railway zone. The premises used to serve to ignite the steam locomotives’ boilers and handle repair works. The building is registered as part of Slovene cultural heritage, and is used to this day to repair and maintain electrical and diesel locomotives and diesel motor trains. It is one of the rare wholly preserved objects of technical heritage in Maribor. The workshops later developed into the metal-processing industry and consequently the technical intelligentsia forming the identity of this former industrial town. 91

KIBLA Portal, photo: B. Lah

Remiza, photo: B. Lah

14. The Romantic Trail across the industrial and military heritage of the 19th and 20th centuries 1. Portal – 2. The Railway Residential Colony – 3. TVT (Factory of Vehicles and Heating Technology) and the Steam hammer – 4. The Planet Tuš mall – 5. The Cadets’ residence During the time of European cap1 ital of culture 3 2012 we witnessed the conception of Maribor’s Indus4 trial Heritage Tour with its museum niches and 2 the Museum of Socialism that was supposed to – by presenting the material, social and cultural image of that time 5 – provide a continuity, which had been erased in the time of Slovenia’s transition. The proposed object was the ex-Customs office in Melje, which is now decaying in the hands of a private owner. None of the promised actions have yet been realized. From the building of the southern railway in 1846, Maribor had developed as an industrial town, while the domain of “Slovenia’s industrial capital” and “military center” of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy (or Yugoslavia) had been established prior Slovenia’s independence, a fact which is strongly reflected in the city’s morphological structure and architectural fond. First, the industrial part of the town is developed east of its medieval core, while industrial areas on the right bank of the river Drava are set up in the Tabor 93

Workers in one of the railway halls in 1943, photo archive: Maribor University Library

quarter, beside the complex of the railway boiler room and residential colony; followed by further industrial areas in the Tezno quarter in the period between the two world wars - a part of this complex in the former industrial zone of TAM, as well as the historic part The Railway residential colony, photo: Dino Schreilechner

More then 100 years old steam hammer, photo: BoĹĄtjan Lah 95

of the former TAM Car Factory in Melje is still present today. Most often, the term industrial heritage is charged with a negative connotation; however, it is a form of legacy that hides a lot of potential. By revitalizing buildings and landscapes a new, innovative environment can be shaped. Our largest steam-powered smithing hammer, more then hundred years old, in the Railway workshops of the TVT Boris Kidrič (Factory of Vehicles and Heating Technology), a successor of the original Southern Railway workshops in Preradovičeva Street in Studenci, is a cultural heritage monument of national importance. Soon after the opening of the railway workshops, the number of available residences in town was no longer sufficient, which is why the Southern Railway Company built the railway residential colony at the same time when they were building the workshops. The colony was built following a shared, unified plan, together with the entire infrastructure and a fairly high residential standard. Thus, between the years 1863 and 1868, 40 houses with 750 apartments and attached garden plots were constructed. To educate children and adults, they built their own school in 1872 and a kindergarten in 1874. In the same year a shopping magazine was set up for the workers, followed by two swimming pool complexes. All the buildings were the propriety of the workshops, which were also responsible for their maintenance. The colony is registered as part of the Slovene cultural heritage. Thus, the “Aisenpon” colony (from German “Eisenbahn” – railway) provided the understructure from which the new street network towards the east and southeast of the town is developing. In a part of the former shopping magazine, owned by the Municipality of Maribor, a new Roma (“gypsy”) restaurant is being created as the fruit of a European-supported project of social entrepreneurship. The project is run by the EPEKA Association and has triggered a great deal of reluctance on behalf of the local population of the Magdalena city quarter. In the nearby apartment buildings on Preradovičeva Street, one of the subgroups of the Roma community has wrecked some of the apartments, creating a bad impression that sticks to the entire Roma community. On one hand the people are afraid of crime, on the other their rejection of the Roma restaurant is also a reflection of the stereotypes and prejudice associated with the Roma people, who have otherwise been present in Maribor for a long time. In the time of socialism, they lived in the worst conditions in the oldest apartments on Lent, selling various commercial products. Most of them 96

Setting up the Roma restaurant, photo: EPEKA

still live on welfare today, but the city planners have been ghettoizing them to the more secluded town areas. The future coexistence of the inhabitants of Maribor coming from different national and cultural backgrounds depends on the integration of these different groups into creative social communities, communities which would be capable of establishing positive survival models. In the second half of the 19th century qualified workers came from the north, while an increasingly important role and share was gradually given to the people from the town and its surroundings. The process of proletarianization of the rural population and craftsmanship actually began with the railway, which enabled the invasion of early stage capitalism into our parts. The workshops with their administration and immigrant expert workforce represented the point of Germanization, which found its counterweight in the formation of the first proletariat. National awakening was the result of the cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s economic development and the ethnic battle of Slovenes against the growing Germanization. Apart from the strategic traffictechnical gate to the Adriatic, the Austro-Hungary also wanted to achieve an ethnic shift by means of powerful Germanization. In that time, a progressive, nationally aware working class emerged from the workshops. Indirectly, they attracted trade, commerce and industry 97

Cadets’ residence, photo: Boštjan Lah

and were the first plant outside of the narrow city zone. Working districts were born, to which the trade and commerce followed. The new part of town evolved on the right bank of the river Drava. The cadets’ residence was built between 1853 and 1856 and is the first mighty, quality historical building, introducing the neo-renaissance style to the town. East of the cadets’ residence is the Tabor Hall with a capacity of four thousand seats. To the west of Studenci lies the shopping mall Planet Tuš. With a broad range of services, it is indeed a city within the city, and offers a lot more than just basic commercial and other services: numerous visitors spend an increasing amount of their spare time in such places. It is therefore no coincidence that various contemporary organizers and creators plan their events interactively, in the sense of integrating chance audiences. The Planet Tuš mall in Tabor has eight modern-equipped cinema auditoriums with state of the art audio-visual technology; the biggest with five hundred and fifty seats and the largest movie screen in the city, which is two hundred square meters in size. 98

15. The Tabor Youth Romantic Trail 1. The Magdalena Park – 2. Pekarna – 3. Druga Gimnazija High School – 4. The High School Center – 5. France Prešeren Elementary School – 6. Betnavska Street – 7. Jezdarska Street – 8. Puškin Street – 9. Ob železnici Street – 10. Ljubljanska Street – 11. The Vurnik neighborhood – 12. The Swaty Factory 1 9

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Ob železnici Street, photo: Boštjan Lah

The Tagore statue, Magdalena Park, photo: B. Lah

The Sri Chinmoy statue, Magdalena Park, photo: B. Lah

The investor of the apartment building beside the former Masarykova Street, today’s Ljubljanska Street and Moše Pijada Street, was the Maribor Car Factory (TAM). It was planned by Dušan Černić, built by the Konstruktor building company and completed in 1956. The fourstorey building was designed with 14 apartment units and two commercial spaces on the ground floor. The first, second and third floors have apartments only, while the fourth floor has both, apartments and additional shared rooms. The activities and pursuits of Maribor’s urban youth culture dictate a reflection about the broader perspectives of youth agents, both the centers and other youth organizations that play an important role 100

Playground at the Magdalena Park, photo: Boštjan Lah

on the local, regional and national level in the fields of working with young people, the general role of culture in town and the development of culture (youth) tourism. Individual art projects surpass the level of “urban youth culture” and belong to the framework of wider local and even national cultural achievements. Pekarna Cultural Center is located in the former military bakery and organizes a variety of programs including festivals, concerts, exhibitions, educational and club events, based on the connection between various artistic media and concepts inside the urban cultural scene. Some of the spaces are Hladilnica (exhibition space), studio and rehearsal rooms in Lubadar, the Ciproš book store, a daily clubbing space called MC, and the Gustaf Hall. There are not that many night dance clubs in Maribor, this range of entertainment activities is almost entirely covered by Pekarna with its clubs and dance floors, which offer exclusively all forms of underground, metal, alternative, experimental, ethno and improvised concerts and DJ-sessions in the MC Club, Gustaf Hall, the Supernova and Kurd. The Maribor Youth Culture Center (MKC) is the organizer of the International festival of computer arts (MFRU). It is the first festival inside the Slovene artistic and cultural space in the field of new media run by MKC in collaboration with various partners since 1995. MKC is also the organizer of Performa, a modern performing arts festival, the Media Nox Gallery in Židovski Square and the Cultural 101

Hladilnica (Cooling room), Pekarna, photo: B. Lah

Lubadar, Pekarna, photo: B. Lah

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MKC (Maribor Youth Cultural Center), Infopeka, Hostel Pekarna, photo: B. Lah

Gustaf, Pekarna, photo: B. Lah

MC, Pekarna, photo: B. Lah

Hladilnica, Pekarna, photo: B. Lah

Supernova, Pekarna, photo: B. Lah

Incubator on Koroška Road, a center for young researchers and creatives in the field of culture. Infopeka is an information point and volunteer service. The Pekarna Hostel is the most modern and cheapest hostel in town. The former administrative offices of the Maribor Textile Company (MTT) and the College of nursing from 2002, by architects Janko Zadravec and Branko Čepič, are located on Žitna Street. MTT, Žitna Street, photo: B. Lah

Žitna Street, Street: B. Lah

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Youth Park, photo: B. Lah

Cantante, photo: B. Lah

A view of the Bodočnost factory, photo: B. Lah

VDC Polž, daycare center for people with disabilities, photo: B. Lah

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Čao čao, photo: B. Lah

Mojito Bar, photo: B. Lah

The Chinese Palace, photo: B. Lah

€vropa bakery, photo: B. Lah

The high school educational center includes the Druga Gimnazija High School with international programs and the English Student Theater (in the school’s amphitheater). The Miloš Zidanšek Square is also the address of the health care and cosmetics’ high school. Close by, along Ljubljanska Street you will find the Piramida educational center, its two units being the high school and college of food and food technology. They have a shared park, called the Park of Youth. Janko Zadravec and Branko Čepič are the architects who designed the high school of food technology in 1998. Contemporary eating habits dictate the increasing number of fast food stands along the Ljubljanska Street. To the right, i.e. on Dalmatinova Street, lies the building of Bodočnost, a company involved with activities of what is called special social importance, employing disabled persons performing vocational rehabilitation. The company has acquired the status of a workshop for the disabled. It is of particular importance to the entire Maribor region, because it provides employment also for the disabled from the nearby towns of Slovenska Bistrica, Lenart and Ptuj. The France Prešeren elementary school was designed by architect Jaroslav Černigoj in1936, its ground plan in the shape of the letter A, 105

Puškinova Street, photo: B. Lah

representing a monument to the former Yugoslav king Alexander. The building, located in the Magdalena city quarter on a street beside the Betnavska Road, was declared the then “largest, most beautiful and most modern school building in central Europe” and named “the school palace”. Jezdarska Street was once a distinctly industrial street. Today, it is renovated and successfully makes up a part of a new residential neighborhood with many small-sized businesses and commercial services. Nearby is the Puškin Street that lies crosswise between the Jezdarska Street and the Ob železnici Street. Betnavska Street, photo: B. Lah

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Jezdarska Street, photo: B. Lah

France PreĹĄeren Elementary School, photo: B. Lah

The Vurnik blue-collar neighborhood, named after architect Ivan Vurnik, a representative of the Slovene modern architecture, was The Vurnik neighborhood

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erected in 1928 and is an example of a successful council building and urban design of a large area between the Betnavska Road and the Koseskega, Fochova and Delavska Street. The neighborhood consist of a hundred and forty-seven one-storey single-family terraced houses, situated in a row alongside the streets, with two rows located crosswise, thus forming the inner Schreiner Square. The Swaty grindstone factory was founded in 1879 by chemist Franz Swaty. In the beginning, the production was based on the manufacture of grindstones in mineral binder following their own patented procedure. In 1929 they switched to the production of ceramicallybound grindstones. Today the Swatycomet company production line covers grindstone and cutting boards, as well as flexible grindstones for all types of processing, technical fabrics and industrial grindstone tools. More than eighty percent of their products are still exported to numerous markets across the world.

Jezdarska Street, photo: B. Lah

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16. The Romantic Trail across the southern edges of Pohorje 1. The Pekrska Gorca Hillock – 2. The Pekre stream – 3. Radvanje – 4. Betnava – 5. Poštela – 6. Bohova – 7. Pivola- 8. Hoče – 9. Slivnica Maribor encompasses at least four thousand years of history of a cross-regional territory, which is located historically, culturally and geographically at the intersection of different Euro-Asian nations and nation1 2 alities. Even in the present and future it constitutes an impor3 tant point between the West and 5 4 the East; a territory that forms a connection to the Alpine part of Slavism in the Austrian Koroška region alongside the river Drava, and in the south, through the rivers Kolpa and 6 Drava, with the Balkans. Rich archeological sites lie 7 8 on the southern outskirts of Maribor’s suburbs, beside the archeologically established 9 west-east settlement axis. In prehistoric times, the areas of present sites were connected by a broad distribution of population along the outer outskirts of Pohorje, which is evidenced by archeological urn burial places from the late Bronze Age in Radvanje and Poštela. These areas offered a safe harbor to the population, while in antique times the fertile surroundings of the Roman road alongside the Drava river were a source of survival. The ancient Roman remains point to the direction and power of Roman colonization in the Podravje Region, for example the Roman post above the Drava crossing, and the manor houses 109

The Pekrska gorca Hillock, photo: B. Lah The Betnava mansion, photo: B. Lah

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between Bohova and Limbuš. The archeological trail connects some of the more important archeological sites such as the Villa Rustica in Radvanje, Poštela, the burial mounds in Razvanje and Pivola and the Hoče crypt. Information boards are placed at the sites of these findings, as well as some other additionally declared historic sites. Poštela is an area protected by the cultural heritage protection act, featuring findings from the Iron and Celtic Ages. The location has been known for some time now, it was researched and described on the brink of the 19th and 20th centuries, but after that the interest in research died out, leaving most things untouched, unresolved, and undiscovered. Poštela is one of the largest Hallstatt settlement sites on our soil and definitely the most important in the vicinity of the Austrian border. Apart from the large barrow, there is nothing else to be seen. Pivola is the location of the Faculty of agriculture and life sciences, its botanical gardens and restored facilities at the Hompoš castle, which are all available to the public. Its beginnings date back to the year 1832, when Archduke John established the winegrowing school on his estate above Pekre in Maribor, followed by the Styrian fruit- and wine-growing school (Steiermäkische Landes Villa Rustica, photo: B. Lah

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The Hompoš Castle, photo: B. Lah

Obst und Weinbauschule) in 1872, the High school af agriculture in 1922, the College of agronomy after World War II – which was then changed into the College of agriculture in 1992 and was finally named the Faculty of agriculture and life sciences in 2008, moving to the Hompoš castle in Hoče. Until the 1970’s, The Pekrska Gorca hillock had a little ski jump, and is otherwise known for the Church of Mary of the seven sorrows. The Hompoš Castle, photo: B. Lah 112

17. The Melje-Pobrežje Romantic Trail 1. Maribor Bus Station – 2. Meljska Road – 3. Melje – 4. The Melje Hill – 5. The Svila Factory – 6. Europark – 7. Karantena/ex-prisons – 8. The railway triangle The bus station was built in 1989. The building was designed by architects Borut Pečenko and Ivo Goropevšek. The local, intercity and international bus platforms, as well as the shops and bars are arched by a transparent vaulted ceiling. Factories such as Vesna, Lilet, Zlatorog, Mariborska livarna, MTT and other originally capitalist factories of German, Czech or Slovene origin, are still standing on Industrijska Street, the Oreško Embankment and Kraljeviča Marka Street in the Melje city quarter. Like Josip Hutter, others who failed to move in time had their property taken away; they were accused of collaborating with the German occupying forces and exploiting the working class. Many were deported, shot, sent to prison or to forced labor. In 1926, Josip Hutter in collaboration with the Austrian company Wenzer Hoffelner founded the Josip Hutter in drug textile facto-

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5 ČUFARJEVA CESTA

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photo: B. Lah

ry in Melje. At first, the factory operated with the production and processing of special cotton fabrics mostly used for making pants and trousers. Until 1939, they gradually added a weaving mill, spinning mill, yarn factory and a silk weaving mill. Initially, the factory employed three hundred and sixty workers. Apart from a business streak, one of Josip Hutter’s great interests was the modernization of working processes. After the Second World War, all of Hutter’s belongings were confiscated by the new communist authorities, while Hutter himself was imprisoned. In the early 1950’s they finally allowed him to leave the SFRY, after which he and his family settled in Innsbruck. Totalitarian and military systems have always been photo: Adeline Yeo

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photo: Adeline Yeo

photo: Adeline Yeo 115

The Railway Bridge, photo: Lizon Tijus

The Melje Hill, photo: Lizon Tijus 116

ruthlessly consistent and destructive of the people on the opposite side. After the war, all private property of means of production was nationalized. Like other nationalized textile factories, Hutter in drug was renamed into MTT (Maribor Textile Factory) and became the largest textile factory in Yugoslavia. MTT adopted the pre-war technological innovations and kept them almost until the end of its service. In 1951 it was the first Maribor and Slovene factory to export fabrics and appeared regularly on fairs in Yugoslavia, the former Czechoslovakia and Germany. It exported to Italy, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Tanzania, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iraq and Lebanon. Today, the factory is closed. The Svila Textile Factory was founded in 1928 under the name Mechanic factory of silk products Maribor. It was located on Mlinska Street. The owners expanded the factory plant until 1934, when they bought the building plot in Pobrežje, on the righthand bank of the river Drava. Their production was uninterrupted until bombing in 1944. In 1947, the government joined four factories into what was called Combined Svila Factories. After its modernization in 1978, Svila became the greatest Yugoslav silk company and one of the biggest of its kind in Europe. After the downfall of the Yugoslav market its production diminished. In the 1990’s, Svila formed a supplementary company that employed the disabled. The company’s bankruptcy proceeding was completed in 2007. Apart from the Hutter Block, Josip Hutter also built the workers’ colony in Pobrežje, which – like the building in the city center – considered the most advanced living environment for the blue-collar workers of that time. Josip Hutter addressed the residential issues of his employees by building apartments and providing favorable credit conditions for those who wanted to build on their own. Thus,

The Melje Hill, photo: B. Lah

Svila, photo: Boštjan Lah 117

in 1937, the Hutter colony of twenty one-storey semi-attached houses was built in Pobrežje. The apartments were furnished with a closed wind catcher, lobby, bathroom, toilet, pantry, kitchen, two bedrooms and an attic. All of the houses were connected to the water and electricity distribution systems and had rinse toilets. By paying off the rent, the workers were supposed to become the rightful owners of these apartments, but this never happened in the period of Hutter’s ownership. Maribor’s shopping stores are stocked with most world brands. Apart from the locals, many Austrian and Croatian customers shop in the local malls. The most popular is Europark, situated in the very center of the city, on the righthand bank of Drava beside the Tito Bridge. Europark and other shopping centers are developing into polyvalent urban kernels, whose purpose includes that of culture, ecology, crafts, children’s and youth programs. Recently the clothing shops were presented with competition in the form of an international chain store offering second-hand or vintage clothes. For some time the former prison Straffhaus, today called Karantena, held famous political prisoners like Josip Broz – Tito and Nobel Prize winner Ivo Andrić. Fortunately, the Maribor prison was the model Former prison, Karantena, photo: Boštjan Lah

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The Railway Bridge and Europark, photo: Lizon Tijus

prison of its time, which means the prisoners were allowed to read and be educated; hence the informal title “red university”. Andrić A view from Europark, photo: Boštjan Lah

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Dejan Štampar: the Railway Triangle

referred to the Maribor prison as “little university”, because he started to learn English here, reading Walt Whitman, studying Sören Kierkegaard, translating Oscar Wilde and hanging out with people of similar interests. This was the place where they shot hostages at the beginning of the Second World War In remembrance of over six hundred hostages, a memorial was erected on Tito Street, the work of Jaroslav Černigoj. Today, Karantena is partly renovated and hosts amateur culture programs and top-notch artistic groups: Association of Cultural Societies Maribor, Maribor Dance Room (Plesna izba), Hugo Wolf Chamber Choir and other cultural associations.

Railway Triangle, behind Europark, photo: Dino Schreilechner

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18. The Old River-Bed Romantic Trail Maribor Railway Station – Melje – Melje Power Plant – Drava Regional Park The little hydroelectric power plant Melje is inseparably connected to the Zlatoličje power plant, because it uses the biological minimum water for its operation – water that needs to be directed into the Melje dam river-bed. The Melje Dam anticipated a space that became the location of the little plant’s generator in 1988, followed by another one in 2008. Thus, the Melje dam completes the six kilometer

MELJSKA CESTA

STARA STRUGA DRAVE

reservoir in the Maribor area while beginning the conduit channel of the Zlatoličje hydroelectric power plant, the most powerful of its kind in Slovenia, providing 80% of the total amount of electricity generated by renewable energy sources. The road under Malečnik had been closed for as long as twenty-five years, because of the falling rocks from the Melje hill slope. With its recent reconstruction, Maribor gained a one kilometer modern connection between the east side and the center of the city. It encompasses a sidewalk, bicycle lane, a two hundred meter long gallery and the first animal (reptile) passage, because the area belongs to the Natura 2000 special protection areas, protected by the European Habitats Directive. The Melje Hill was declared a nature reserve of 121

Drava Regional Park, photo: Boštjan Lah

national importance: nine different birds of prey gather here and forty-one wild bird species nest, out of which as many as thirteen are listed on the Slovenia’s endangered bird species’ list. A part of this investment interfered with the protected area of the Drava regional park and the old Drava river-bed area, which is defined as a zoological, hydrological and ecosystem natural asset of national importance. Some of the protected species living in this area are: the Ornate Bluet (Coenagrium ornatum; dragonfly), Carabus variolosus (ground beetle), the Balon’s Ruffe (Gymnocephalus baloni; fish), the Creeping Marshwort (Apium repens; plant), the European River Otter (Lutra lutra), the Geoffroy’s bat (Myotis emarginatus), the Greater Horseshoe Bat (Rhinolophus ferrumequinum), the European Pond Turtle (Emys orbicularis), the Bullhead (Coppus gobbio; fish), the Asp (Aspius aspius; fish) and the Green Snaketail (Ophiogomphus cecilia; dragonfly). The river Drava is truly beautiful here. The old river-bed is only accessible on foot. 122

19. The Agronomic Romantic Trail 1. The City Park – 2. The Slomšek Institute – 3. The Račji Dvor Manor – 4. The Kalvarija Hill – 5. Za Kalvarijo Street – 6- The Three Ponds – 7. The Ribniško Selo Village – 8. Vinarje The Slomšek Institute is a cultural and educational institution founded in 1995 by the Bishopric of Maribor, the predecessor of today’s Archbishopric of Maribor. In 2007-08, the institute, together with the Anton Martin Slomšek Grammar School, the Montessori Nursery School and a subunit of the Anton Martin Slomšek Student Dormitory, was moved to the location of Vrbanska Street 30. The building originates from the period before World War II when it was built to serve as a boarding school, small seminary and theology school, but was occupied by the School of Agronomy after the war. A hall of residence for the high school students is to be built in the future. In 1680, the plague killed nearly five hundred people in Marburg, which was a third of all inhabitants. The chapel of St Barbara was

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Avenue of acacias, photo: Boštjan Lah

The road to Kalvarija Hill, photo: B. Lah

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built in their memory a year later. The Kalvarija (Calvary) Hill was named after a Stations of the Cross path built in the mid-18th century. The Račji Dvor Manor is situated on the outer west plain of Maribor. Most of its present image dates back to the 17th and 18th centuries. Ahead of the Račji Dvor Manor lies a rare example of profane architectural heritage - a type of farm house with a thatched roof. The rich and increasingly rare profane architectural heritage sites in eastern Slovenia are represented by different types of farm houses: the typical regional houses of Kozjansko

Kalvarija Hill, photo: B. Lah

The Slomšek Institute, photo: B. Lah

The Račji Dvor Manor, photo: B. Lah 125

A clay house near the Račji dvor Manor, photo: B. Lah

and Bela Krajina, numerous mills on the Kolpa river and in the Prekmurje region, vineyard cottages and the so-called “black kitchens” from the mid-18th century, the Pohorje smokehouses, the chiseled houses in Prekmurje, farm houses with stone door frames and the old clay-plastered wine cellars (“klečaje”) of Haloze and Goričko. The Brigadir Inn, photo: B. Lah

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The Anderlič Inn, photo: B. Lah

20. The Wine Romantic Trail 1. The Old Vine/ the Vinag Wine Cellar â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 2. Meranovo â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 3. SveÄ?ina If there is one thing truly associated with the Podravje region ever since the Middle 3 Ages (beside its geographical location and climate), and is a landmark of the country in general, it is surely its wine growing. Other traditional activities exist, but the wine reputation reaches the farthest (into the 13th century, when trade, crafts and viticulture were in full swing). It would probably be difficult to describe the typicality and role of this beverage a thousand years into the past. However, it is important to remember its position a century or two ago as part of the living memory of our 1 grandfathers. Wine is associated with old village holidays and customs; it connected 2 the people who worked in the vineyards and traded in wine. Wine growing was included into the autochthonous cuisine and village events. The Old Vine in Maribor is over 400 years old and has been entered into the Guinness book of world records as the oldest vine in the The Old Vine, photo: B. Lah

The Old Vine, photo: M. Petrej

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world. Its grapes produce specialty wine of the sort “žametovka” (Velvet Black) or “modra kavčina” (Blue Franconian), which is one of the oldest domesticated noble wine sorts on Slovene soil. In the core of the city center, below the Trg Svobode (Liberty) Square and further, stretches one of the largest and The old vine, photo: B. Lah oldest traditional wine cellars in Europe. The oldest part of the cellar was built in 1847. Today, the premises measure 20.000 square meters and 2,5 kilometers of underground tunnels that extend under the Liberty Square all the way to Partizanska, Prešernova and Razlagova Streets. The wooden barrels, concrete containers and bottles with wine patina have a capacity of over six million liters. The wine archive stores more than 250 bottles of their best vintages. The hilly slopes of Maribor’s wine-growing surroundings are dispersed with the following tourist and wine trails: Mariborska (Vodole), Podpohorska (Meranovo), Gornje Slovenjegoriška (Svečina) and Archduke John’s (Graz – Maribor). Numerous wineries and tourist farms offer delicious Vinag Wine Cellar, photo: M. Petrej white wines and local culinary delights. The border between Austria and Slovenia is quite fluid in these parts – the borders are open, as they were in the times when wine was transferred by carts. Svečina is a dispersed settlement on the state border with Austria, constituted by individ128

ual farms and hamlets scattered over the hills. North of the village, a natural ridge terrace is the location of a mansion originally built in the 12th century, and adapted to its present late-renaissance form in 1629. The mansion was owned by the Benedictine monastery from Sankt Meranovo, photo: B. Lah Lambrecht in Austrian Styria. The wider SveÄ?ina area is a distinctly wine- and fruit-growing area. Monks from numerous Austrian monasteries have ruled these places from the 12th century onward. They also owned a large part of the estate around the mansion, adapted in 1629. In 1936, the estate and the mansion were bought by the province, founding the Farming and housework school, which was then changed to the Wine- and fruit-growing school between 1947 and 1970. The SveÄ?ina Castle is the beginning of the forest learning trail that ends at the Kopica viewpoint. SveÄ?ina prides itself as the birthplace of Dr Andrej PerMeranovo, photo: B. Lah

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The Svečina Castle, photo: Dino Schreilechner

lah, a noted astronomer and physicist and even the rector of the University of Vienna. In the beginning, the tradition of wineries dictated a quality that was last carried beyond the Austro-Hungarian borders by the Archduke John. His misfortunate expulsion from the Austro-Hungarian court was an advantage to the Podravje Region. This sophisticated fellow with a vivid interest in advanced forms of farming discovered in these parts a favorable microclimate for vine-growing and built his own residency on the outskirts of Pohorje in 1822, more accurately in Hrastnik above Limbuš. Because the climate – considering the general sub-Pohorje conditions – was extremely mild, and because the Archduke owned other lands in Merano, the district was given the name Meranovo. The product of the grapes grown in these parts was well known to the Viennese court. In 1832, the Archduke John began his farming education classes in Kordek above Pekre, established the Winegrowing School and thus set the basis for winegrowing and viticulture in the surrounding Maribor area. In the 14th and 15th centuries there was a steady increase in the competition between the existing Styrian wine traders (Maribor, Ptuj, Slovenska Bistrica, Radgona). The 19th and 20th centuries were a period of rejuvenating the vineyards; a time of education, agricultural schooling and a boost in the wine trade.

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21. The Drava Romantic Walkways 1. the left bank of the river Drava – 2. the Koblar Bay – 3. Mariborski Otok Island – 4. The Dravske Elektrarne Power Plant – 5. the Bresternica Embankment

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From Lent (among other things the location of the Pristan swimming pool complex), a walkway leads on the left river bank of Drava past the Koblar bay to the bridge of today’s Maribor Island, formerly known as the Felber Island or Snake Island, where a contemporary summer swimming pool complex was opened in 1930. During the building the workers discovered a nest of 230 vipers. For some time after, they were unable to find workers, because they were so afraid of the

Bonfire, photo: Boštjan Lah

The Koblar Bay, photo: Boštjan Lah 131

The Mariborski Otok Island, photo: Boštjan Lah

snakes. The legend says that three gold coins were thrown into the river Drava to console the snake queen. Another legend says that right before the bridge was built. The lady of the Limbuš manor wanted the serpent’s crown at all costs, promising her hand in marriage to anyone who would get it for her. Many young men were

The Mariborski Otok Island, photo: B. Lah 132

The Mariborski Otok Island, photo: B. Lah

The Dravske Elektrarne Power Plant, photo: BoĹĄtjan Lah

drowned in the riverâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s water whirls. The island has the status of a geomorphological and botanical natural preserve and is an important habitat to a number of animal species, mostly birds. This is the last spot where the Drava River nar- The Dravske Elektrarne Power Plant, photo: B. Lah rows, before the valley opens up into the Drava Plain, and Drava turns from an Alpine stream into a steady lowland watercourse. Forest bird species can typically be found here; especially in the winter the area is a shelter for the following water birds: the Little Grebe (Tachybaptus ruficollis), the Common Coot (Fulica atra), the Mute Swan (Cygnus olor), the Mallard Duck (Anas platyrhynchos), the Tufted Duck (Aythya fuligula), the Great Cormorant (Phalacrocorax carbo), and the Common Goldeneye (Bucephala clangula). 75 species have been documented, from which 31 species are breeding birds. 133

The Boathouse, photo: Boštjan Lah

The Maribor Lake Regional Park includes the Drava River with its embankment are on the border with the Ruše Municipality and the Mariborski otok Hydroelectric Power Plant. The lake acquired the status of Regional Park in 1992. It is an important recreational area for the locals. With its landscape characteristics, the forests surrounding its right-side bank, and developing water habitats and river shallows; the Maribor Lake Regional Park represents an ecologically important area. Over the last decade, the lake has become the location of a number of tourist and recreational spots. Extended piers and river-beds by the boathouses and tourist objects, as well as the artificial islands and adjustment of the outflows and influxes, preserve and expand the lake’s tourism and sports possibilities, such as the annual rowing regatta. In the past, the village of Bresternica had a tourist complex with a camp and mini-golf course. Today, it is still home to the Bresternica Rowing Club, a boathouse, some restaurants and a Forma Viva sculpture from 1977, designed by Polish author Maciej Szankowski. Sidro, photo: Boštjan Lah

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Mexican restaurant, photo: Boštjan Lah

22. The Drava River Romantic Walkways 1. the right bank of the river Drava – 2. the Tabor Embankment – 3. Obrežna Street – 4. the Limbuš Embankment

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A network of walkways alongside the river Drava, on both sides of the river between the Maribor Island and the Melje Hill dam, is gradually being developed. The new Faculty of medicine, designed by architect Boris Podrecca, was erected in the center of the town on the Tabor embankment. There is no direct connecting road to the Limbuš embankment. At the end of Obrežna Street we reach the location of the Secondary school for forestry and wood technology; turn to Limbuška road, past the Marles Company, known for its prefabricated houses and kitchens, towards the river to the boathouse on the Limbuš embankment. There used to be three boathouses, inviting the locals for a relaxing break in nature. Today, only one remains; it is being restored and expanded and offers a range of water sports activities.

The Faculty of medicine, photo: Boštjan Lah 135

Left bank of the Drava River, photo: Boštjan Lah 136

River gull, photo: Boštjan Lah

Drava Center, photo: Boštjan Lah

The Mute Swan, photo: Boštjan Lah

photo: Boštjan Lah 137

23. The Pohorje Romantic Trail 1. the city center – 2. The Vzpenjača Canle Car – 3. Pohorje The Pohorje mountain ridge is only a twentyminute drive away from the city center, accessible by the city bus nr 6. The Vzpenjača cable car began to operate in 1957 with silvercolored Swiss gondolas, which were replaced entirely by bigger red gondolas during the complete renovation of the cableway a couple of years ago. There are many footpaths, running tracks and ski slopes with cableways in the coniferous forests of Pohorje. The steepest track into the valley, the so-called “FIS track”, past the legendary Luka’s Bar to the finish line in Arena, is the location of the Ladies’ Alpine Ski World Cup race, the Golden Fox, which started in 1964 below the upper station of the Vzpenjača cable car. The competition has been an official part of the Ski World Cup since 1970. Beside the Arena hotel there is the Convention center and a luxury hotel named after Habakuk, the Pohorje dwarf who observed the ruining and devastation of the forests and wondered what it was all for. We could therefore assume that Habakuk and Kosobrin (the little old man from the Slovene classic Kekec by Josip Vandot) were the first Slovene ecologically conscious dwarfs – as the Pohorje woods are being cut down massively to the benefit of the skiing and tourist industries, and the export of wood abroad.

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The Pohorje mountain ridge, photo: BoĹĄtjan Lah 139

The Stara lipa Inn, photo: B. Lah

Arena, photo: B. Lah

Habakuk, photo: B. Lah

photo: B. Lah

The Pohorje cable car, photo: B. Lah

The upper station of the VzpenjaÄ?a cable car, photo: B. Lah 140

Bellevue Hotel, photo: B. Lah

24. Romantic Trail 1. Ruše – 2. the Šumik waterfall – 3. Fala The Summer Stage (Letni oder) is a must-see in Ruše; it is an amphitheater set up in the woods, on the site where nationally aware villagers staged Slovene performances and shows in the past. In 1914 the northern Slovene ethnic border was subject to the pressures of Germanization. The Sokol gymnastic society (with a strongly expressed national awareness) was not allowed to unfold its flag in Maribor. The Ruše Sokol society then invited them to move the ceremony to Ruše, and the celebration happened on June 28th 1914. Nobody suspected that on the same day Ferdinand of Habsburg, heir to the Habsburg throne, would be murdered in Sarajevo. Since the Ruše villagers ignored the ban, the authorities carried out a raid and arrested twenty-one of the nationally conscious locals, accusing them of supporting the Serbs and betraying the Austrian crown. It was then that Ruše was given the nickname Little Belgrade. Many memorials to the 3 fallen fighters for free1 dom are located in Ruše. They were nationally conscious locals whom the Gestapo tried to capture even before the German attack on Yugoslavia on April 6th 1941. Many families disappeared, and many have lost their individual members. As many as two thirds of the streets in Ruše are named after national heroes of the Second World War. The Lobnica stream is 2 the source of the famous Šumik waterfalls on Po141

horje. There is a pathway leading alongside the stream directly to the Šumik waterfall and forest. The Turks invaded in the direction of Vienna, upwards along the river Drava. The Fala Cliff is a natural obstacle. In the 17th century, the Turks besieged Maribor and Ruše. The locals retreated towards the Fala Castle and set up a defense line by today’s Turkish Wall. They threw beehives at the Turks. As the distracted soldiers began to drop their armor, “the locals moved in on them pure Pohorje-style,” – in the words of Slovene writer Franc Mišič. The defeated Turks were tossed in the river, their bodies reappearing in Maribor, where the Turkish army could see them. The Turks were convinced that a powerful army must have come to help the locals, and their fear set them running back to Turkey. The Fala Castle is open to visitors during the weekends. Directly beneath the castle is the hydroelectric power plant Fala. It was created in 1918 and stimulated the development of industry in Maribor. The construction works for the power plant began in 1913, and were completed at the end of the war. Immediately after the war, the loThe Šumik rainforest on Pohorje, photo: M. Petrej

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The Fala Castle, photo: Andrej Lukasev

cal authorities signed a contract with the power plant about the procurement of electrical energy. Thus in 1920, the Fala gas-powered streetlamps were replaced by electric lighting. Fala power plant, photo: Dino Schreilechner

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25. The Tezno Romantic Trail 1. Metalna Factory – 2. TAM (Maribor Car Factory) – 3. The Martin Konšak Elementary School The beginnings of Metalna, the company for machine building, construction and installation date back to the year 1920, when a workshop of 3 the Fala power plant became a separate company by the name 1 Splošna stavbena družba Maribor Tezno (Maribor Tezno General Building Company). At first, the company produced iron constructions. In 1924, a factory produing screws and 2 rivets was established; the company built bridges, skeletal buildings, crane constructions, transmission line poles, mining devices, smaller pipelines, cisterns and reservoirs. After 1945, the factory begin engineering, manufacturing and installing hydro-mechanic equipment and cranes. In 1939, they already started building railway bridges in Greece and after 1945 they were equipping water power plants, harbours and factories all over the world, from Pakistan, Togo, Zambia, Peru, Iraq and Iran Metalna, photo archive: PAM to Thailand, Cyprus and the USA. TAM - the factory of aircraft parts, which was restructured and renamed into the Maribor Car and Motor Factory after the Second World War, was built in 1941 using forced labor by national and foreign prisoners of 144

the occupying regime. Production facilities were extended in March 1942 and the first 120 machines arrived to the factory in June. Regular production started in April 1943, when they also started building underground production halls so that production could run uninterruptedly until the end of the war. During the allies’ first air strike on Maribor in 1944, it suffered a great loss. At the end of that year there were around 1500 machines and 7000 employees. Photo archive: Metalna Factory 1968 During the first 15 years after the war, the factory produced Pionir vehicles and started exporting them to other continents. In Yugoslavia, the company organized their own auto services and car stores. In 1957, they introduced a new TAM 4500 truck, produced according to a license. The company exported its vehicles to Turkey, Burma, Germany, Iraq, China, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Bulgaria, Egypt, Indonesia, Congo, Ghana, Columbia, Pakistan, the Soviet Union and Poland. In the 1980’s, the company was at its peak. Its basic production program included more than 15 different types of trucks, buses and TAM, photo: Saša Bizjak

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special vehicles like firefighter and public works vehicles. In 1990, TAM faced a financial crisis and declared bankruptcy in 1996. Today the former location of TAM is occupied by the Tezno Business Zone. The factory of aircraft motors, TAM, photo archive: PAM designed at the offices of A. Rosenberger by architects Jaroslav Černigoj and Milan Černigoj, was constructed between 1941 and 1943. Its oldest part with the production hall, entrance object and fire station, is protected because the area is not just of great architectural value, but also forms a key part of Maribor’s recent history. In 1947, the company approved the factory’s logo with three circles and a five-point star in the middle, designed by architect Černigoj, which has remained unchanged until the end of the company’s business. In 1947, a new residential area was beginning to be constructed, called the Tezno Dobrava (the Tezno Plain). A part of the TAM car factory was designed by architect Černigoj (mostly 1949-50), as well as the Tezno Elementary School (1953-56). Photo archive: Martin Konšak Elementary School

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26. Romantic Trails to castles

Despite the great number of castles and mansions scattered across northeastern Slovenia, these do not form an integral tourist product, one which would represent a complete and diverse tourist offer, attracting a larger number of local, national and international visitors to these sites. The tourist offer is partly based on artistic, historical, ethnological and natural science museum collections, and less on innovative programs such as international youth activity programs, informal educations in various fields, youth hostels, local craft products and herb-growing, or educational natural and historical trails. The final image of the ViltuĹĄ Manor was completed in the second half of the 19th century, when the then extremely popular historical styles left a mark of the romantic neo-Norman style. The manor was placed inside a vast English-style park with an orangerie, flower garden, lawns, tree park, pond and forest; all in the style of Romanticism with elements of eclecticism and exoticism. As such, it is important from the dendrological and the garden-architectural historical perspective. Today, the mansion is empty, plundered and closed to the public. The Negova castle is open during weekends on good weather conditions. Apart from a tour of the restored exterior of one half of the castle with a renaissance atrium (the older half is ViltuĹĄ, Wikipedia still not restored) and the interior, it does not display any collection. A lovely herb garden and walkway are hidden behind the castle wall. Occasionally, the castle turns into a venue for cultural events. Other castles worth seeing: Dornava, Ptuj, Borl, Celje, Podsreda, Olimje, Negova, Gornja Radgona, PiĹĄece, and Betnava.

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The Negova Castle, photo archive: KIBLA

Dornava, photo archive: KIBLA 148

The Negova Castle, photo archive: KIBLA

27. The Romantic Trail to Ptuj

The bicycle traffic infrastructure is developing intensely, enabling cyclists to visit smaller towns and other tourist attractions. Some of the cycling tracks across suburban areas include: Maribor – Graz, Maribor – Dravograd, Maribor – Celje, Maribor – Ptuj, and Maribor – Lenart. Ptuj is a half-hour drive away from Maribor, if you take the road through Vurberk. On the right side of the road at the Vurberk Castle there is a restaurant set up in the old castle cellar. To the left you will find the remains of the castle, a magnificent view and a special

A view from the Ptuj Castle, photo: Dino Schreilechner

energy-healing path. The southern castle wall, which is also the entry into the castle, has been renovated. The castle courtyard is a large space with a stage that hosts open-air events. Every year towards the end of May or in the beginning of June, there is a Medieval day, an event trying to bring back the long-lost medieval centuries by presenting the typical clothes and customs of that era. Ptuj, a small town on the river Drava with important antique, medieval and other memorials, on the border between the east-Alpine and Pannonian worlds, was under the rule of the Salzburg archbishops 149

The Ptuj Castle, photo: Dino Schreilechner

from 874 onwards (the Lords of Ptuj, who became extinct after 1438, ruled as their ministeriales), under Hungarians between 1479 and The Ptuj Castle, photo: Dino Schreilechner

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1490, and finally under the Habsburgs. The former Dominican monastery with a gothic cloister from the first half of the 15th century, was established in 1230, and is located in the very center of the city. The Ptuj Castle originally dates back to the Middle Ages, but has had numerous reconstructions since. The arcade hallway in the courtyard features a built-in tombstone of count Frederick of Ptuj (died in 1438), one of the finest of its kind carved out of the red Salzburg marble. The ethnological traditions represent the main element of attraction and diversity of our urban and rural centers in the wider European space. It is precisely in this area of the Lower Podravje Region that a great number of local cultures connected to the way of life and work of the local people has been kept. Various traditions (such as Mardi Gras) share common European origins and as such witness our mutual historical connection and codependence. Among all the traditions, the diverse folklore of Mardi Gras costumes and customs definitely stands out, as well as other celebrations connected to the working, calendar customs and habits. The Slavs worshipped trees, natural forces and phenomena. A lot of the Old Slavic religious traditions have been kept to this day in different forms under the influence of Christianity: the Kurentovanje carnival in Ptuj and CerThe Ptuj Castle, photo: Dino Schreilechner

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knica, the Zeleni Jurij in Bela Krajina, and Kresovanje (Midsummer Eve celebration with bonfires).

Bonfire, photo archive: KIBLA 152

References Programske vsebine kandidature Evropske prestolnice kulture Maribor in partnerska mesta – 2012 for the Maribor City Council, conceived and edited by ACE KIBLA, Maribor, 2006 Maribor, text by Branko Rudolf, Maribor City Council, Maribor Tourist Association, 1965 Nemci in Maribor, Stoletje preobratov, 1846 – 1946, editor Dr Jerneja Ferlež, published by Umetniški kabinet Primož Premzl, Maribor, 2012 Maribor 2012, Evropska prestolnica kulture, Vodnik po mestu, published by Umetniški kabinet Primož Premzl, Maribor, 2012 Forma viva, skriti kulturni zaklad Maribora, a research assignment from the field of natural and cultural heritage, Franc Rozman Stane Elementary School, Nika Kositer (class 8a), mentor Mihaela Dorner Forma viva I. – V., catalog, City Cultural Community of Maribor, 1983 Modeli revitalizacije objektov industrijske kulturne dediščine, outline study, editor Aleš Črnič, published by the Municipality of Velenje, 2006 France Kresal – Mariborska tekstilna industrija 1922-1992 – vzpon in zaton Jerneja Ferlež – Josip Hutter in bivalna kultura Maribora Tadej Horvat and Tadej Roškar - Industrija v Mariboru od južne železnice do danes, Mladi za napredek Maribora 2010, a research assignment, mentor Marija Bitenc, SERŠ – High School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences Maribor Industrijske pešpoti, Maribor Regional Archives Architectural guide Formal presentation websites of institutions and organizations Wikipedia Branko Jurišič Zgodovina in razvoj strojne industrije v Metalni in TAM-u, Mladi za napredek Maribora 2013, a research assignment 153

Promotional poster for bike Styria from 1900 154

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Maribor with Eyes Wide Shut â&#x20AC;&#x201C; A Romantic City Tour Guide

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