Synectics & Jože Plečnik
Synectics
Synectics is an approach to problem-solving that focuses on cultivating creative thinking, often among small groups of individuals with diverse experience and skills.Tthe approach can help group members explore problems; retain new, often abstract, information; and develop creative solutions by breaking from existing mindsets. The term "synectics" is derived from the Greek word "synectikos," which means to bring different things into unified connection.
The idea in this mobility will to work on breaking existing mindset providing a very disrupting approach of our play starting from a very classic legend.
This disruptive concept will come naturally after learn about the famous Slovenian architect:
Jože Plečnik was a Slovene architect who had a major impact on the modern architecture of Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia, most notably by designing the iconic Triple Bridge for example.
More about Jože Plečnik and LJUBLJANA
Datum: 27. 3. 2023
L J U B L J A N A
Come and join us! This year we will be on highly confidentally (not really though) mission knowledge. Adventure where we will encourage discovering new things, creativity, teamwork and critical thinking. Are you in? Let’s go!
Architect with a capital A, master
JOŽE PLEČNIK
A MAN IN BLACK THAT LOVED TO BUILD AND WALK
Do you know that this year we are celebrating 150. Anniversary of birth of Jože Plečnik. You may know that he liked to dress in black and that his style was copied by his students too?
What if we say: Tromostovje, Tržnica, National and universal library NUK, Križanke or Žale? At least one name is mutual right? Last summer “Pečnikova Ljubljana” made it to the UNESCO list of cultural heritage. Get to know the famous architect who shaped our image so successfully.
What does the architect even do?
Architecture
We all live somewhere. Penthouses, houses and flats have differences between each other. Some of them we like more than others. The person that is the plan how the building will look and work is the architect.
Architecture is the profession and art of designing buildings and other buildings. Architects express their artistic vision through the size, shape, color and style of the building's elements: that is, what they design. These can be houses, skyscrapers, business premises, even bridges and distilleries, as well as cemeteries and sometimes whole cities.
People really like to determine, who is the biggest the most important, and the best at their work.
And who is the biggest architect?
Architect is the one who make living at home, in a city and on the countryside better.
1872: born in Ljubljana as the fourth child in the Plečnik family of capentens.
1878-1888: School years in Ljubljana.
1888-1892: craft school in Graz, also drawings.
1892-1894: draftsman of cancellations in Vienna.
1894-1898: under the tutelage of the mentor, architect Otto Wagner, in School for architecture at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts.
1898-1911: graduates, travels, works.
1911 -1921: teacher at the artificial salt farm in Thresholds.
1921: he settles in a ground floor thorn house on. Karunovi 4 in Ljubljana, where he lived until his death.
1821-1956: professor in the department of architecture at the newly founded university of Jubljana; he arranges Ljubljana, in the meantime he also rearranges the Prague Castle and its surroundings.
1957: dies at his home in Ljubljana.
As a Time Capsule
You are welcome to visit our Plečnikova hiša in Ljubljana.
It is the same as it was, when Plečniki lived in it. This was when they were drawing with pencils that were so sharp, and you couldn’t even hold them anymore. The bed and the table were only few steps apart, because he was very industrious and creative person. I love to sit beside the oven and draw.
He wore glasses, he had 21 of them. He had a chewed tennis ball that was a toy for his pet dog named Sivka. And he had a famous black robe that was one of his black clothes. So you can get to know this important but humble architect at least a little through his home - because our homes say more about us than we think. Well, you have your way. what luck: at the time when Plecnik was alive, you couldn’t come in the house just like that.
His guests had access only to the glass reception room; further into the house he allowed only family members friends and closest friends. Even in the small reception room he invited only his closest friends, one od them was a writer and neighbour Fran Saleški Finžgar, he wrote the most popular Slovenian novel in history that is called Pod svobodnim soncem.
Plečnik was short sighted and because his diopter was changing, it wasnt unusual that he left many glasses. Glasses and tweezers (ones that they attach to your nose) were for him never missing.
Plečnik always dressed in black and he wore a hat. His students were copying him with that.
Love to the plants
Plečnik used to plant trees in front of the houses he didn’t like. He loved plants and he had his own garden.
Thats what Plečnik wrote in his letter to his friend about a look on his garden. For paving his winter garden he used remains from construction sites. In his winter garden, there was an oven so the plants could survive winter. And the exit on the unfenced garden. He said that fences between neighbours, that understand each other, arent necesarry. Between Plečnik's and parish garden there was growing a hedge.
He loved to recycle. Not only at home, he also liked to use old materials from other buildings. For example: in the most important libary in the country, National and universal libary (NUK) he used rocks from a cave from 14. Century.
There lived a king who had a small kingdom.
But his greatest achievement is not his largest building, his largest bell tower, his most picturesque facade, or his last work. His advantage was that he had an excellent sense of how to connect different buildings, public spaces and greenery so that they would work harmoniously, connected, human-friendly and beautiful.
From Ljubljana to Vienna
At first, young Plečnik's schooling went quite smoothly. When he didn't do well at the lower gymnasium, he became an apprentice in his father's carpentry workshop, then he trained as an artistic carpenter and furniture designer in Graz, Austria. Despite his lack of basic education, he continued to study architecture in Vienna. Professor Otto Wagner noticed his talent and Plečnik graduated in 1898 as one of his best students. With this, he earned a Rome scholarship, which enabled him to study for several months in Italy from Venice to Rome, and to visit Paris for a short time.
Plečnik designed the Zachnerl House in Vienna in 1905.
Traveling greatly contributed to his knowledge and influenced his thinking. After his return, he opened his architectural studio in Vienna. He designed furniture and designed some villas.
In Vienna they wanted Plečnik to be the next profesor Otta Wagnerja, but it didn’t work out. That’s why in year 1911 he recived an lnvitation to be a professor on a craft school in Prague in Czech, where he lived during world war 1. After world war 1. Country Czechoslovakia was made and the president hired him for makeover of Prague castle.
Country Czechoslovakia was formed in October
1918, when it declared independence from
of Austria-Hungary. Between 1939 and 1945, the name ceased to exist due to the Second World War, when Slovakia lost its independence, some territories in the east became part of Hungary, and the remaining small lands had to accept a nemili protectorate. After the Second World War, it was rebuilt
Czechoslovakia from before 1938, which existed until 1992, when it merged into the independent state of the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Capital city Czechoslovakia was Prague.
A City and The River
Plečnik brought the river-life back to Ljubljana. In the past they built cities next to and around big rivers, because rivers were the only way of transportation before the railway was invented. With the invention of the railway, rivers became less important and crucial and cities simply ‘’turned their backs on them’, they were forgotten. They quite literally became garbage dumps, rubbish bins for people to empty their nasty garbage in. The risk of them overflowing started getting bigger. In the past all the rooms that people did not want others to see were hidden, usually facing the rivers, and all the nice rooms (the drawing/living rooms, saloons, and such) faced the street, hiding behind a prominent façade.
Plečnik turned this logic around. He started treating the river as the leading urban motif. He started thinking about how he could best connect it with the city. He turned Gerber’s stairway toward the water along with many other cultural/tourist attractions of the city. His main idea was that you could see that everything is happening around the river.
Gerber’s stairway
Ljubljana’s Central Market
The central market in Ljubljana or Plečnik’s market, where you will quite certainly always find a lot of people; Slovenians and tourists, was built during the second World War. The market was built next to the river, where once stood an old medieval/town wall. There are quite a lot of things that remind us of a medieval setting, like the special stairway that leads to the fish market. The fish market is at the river altitude level. We can watch the river through the windows at the fishmongers. There are also other things, for example; the arcade rooms (arcade – an arch above two columns), and so on. These are beautiful examples of Plečnik’s architecture, that was built for people. Here you can watch how people converse, meet up, chat. You can smell all sorts of things... Delicious, freshly baked bread, freshly caught fish and so much more. This market is truly the heart of Ljubljana. It gives the capital a special charm and certainly attracts a lot of people.
Plečnik’s market
Plečnik & UNESCO
The fact that (Plečnik’s) Ljubljana is on the UNESCO world heritage list is one of the greatest and most prestigious awards/nominations the city has ever gotten. Ljubljana, a city transformed and remodeled to respect the old architectural achievements but brightened up with new elements that serve its inhabitants and are pleasing to the eye.
Tromostovje (‘’The Triple Bridge’)
The Tromostovje is a bridge complex, made up of 3 bridges. On the 28th of July 2021 it was also added under the UNESCO world heritage list. All three bridges have a built-in stone balustrade (a stone fence, made up of many smaller columns) topped off with lights. The stairways of the 2 side-bridges lead to a terrace by the river Ljubljanica, where Plečnik also planted poplar trees.
People liked that Plečnik respected and strived towards preserving past architectural achievements. When there was a need to build a new, bigger bridge in Ljubljana, Plečnik wanted to preserve the old Špitalski bridge, while adding two new ones for pedestrians.
Meanwhile a lot of other architects wanted to tear down the old bridge, because they thought it had no value. Plečnik strongly disagreed with this idea.
Tromostovje (The Triple Bridge)
Did you know?
Plečnik proposed in 1932 that Ljubljana should be the new Athens. He wanted to bring the main characteristics of antique Athens to Ljubljana. The Ljubljana castle was supposed to be the Acropolis, the Žale cemetery the necropolis, the Bežigrad stadium the antique Olympic stadium, and many others...
National University Library (NUK): The Treasury of Knowledge
Plečnik understood the NUK as a temple of wisdom. For him it was very symbolic, a treasury of knowledge. The NUK is his greatest architectural achievement in Slovenia. It has a very recognizable façade made from brick and stone. It was built between the years 1936 and 1941. It was finished right before Ljubljana was invaded and occupied during the second World War in former Yugoslavia.
The front doors of the NUK are decorated with 2 statues of horses which represent the Pegasus, the mythological winged horse. They are meant to symbolically welcome visitors to the world of knowledge. When we enter inside, we are met with a magical black stairway, surrounded by marble pillars. On the 1st floor there is a large reading area with more than 200 reading spots. It is 4 stories high, and it is well lit up with the help of natural sunlight coming in through the glass walls.
Čevljarski/ Šuštarski bridge
Instead of Plečnik’sČevljarski bridge, there used to be an old wooden bridge, that connected the Town square and the old square. At first there used to be butchers working there, selling meat, but in the 17th century they were moved lower down the river, closer to the Central market. In the 19th century the bridge burned down and a new one was commissioned. A stone/metal one. Because shoemakers used to work there, selling, and repairing shoes it was also named the Čevljarski bridge as well as Šuštarski bridge (čevljar - is Slovenian for shoemaker).
Čevljarski/Šuštarski bridge
The Barje Church
One of Plečnik’s most creative and innovative buildings is the Barje church of St. Michael in Črna village. Because the terrain is very ‘’swampy’’ it needs to be supported by columns. Because they did not have money to build lavish and extravagant buildings, cheaper materials were used. They got creative... The support pillars were made of cement sewage pipes. The interior was made mostly out of wood and decorated with local stone.
This was the project of the whole Plečnik family. The construction was paid by the local priest, Plečnik’s nephew K. Matjkovič.
The Žale Cemetary
The Central city cemetery was created because they wanted to move the main cemetery to a larger location, because of the ongoing expansion of the city. Plečnik designed a creative, new version of the cemetery. The updated version of the cemetery had different elements from antique Roman cemeteries, different elements from antique temples and so on...
The Žale Cemetary
(This grand entrance represents the entrance to world of dead)
Datum: 27. 3. 2023
L J U B L J A N A
Come and join us! This year we will be on highly confidentally (not really though) mission knowledge. Adventure where we will encourage discovering new things, creativity, teamwork and critical thinking. Are you in? Let’s go!
Architect with a capital A, master
JOŽE PLEČNIK
A MAN IN BLACK THAT LOVED TO BUILD AND WALK
Do you know that this year we are celebrating 150. Anniversary of birth of Jože Plečnik. You may know that he liked to dress in black and that his style was copied by his students too?
What if we say: Tromostovje, Tržnica, National and universal library NUK, Križanke or Žale? At least one name is mutual right? Last summer “Pečnikova Ljubljana” made it to the UNESCO list of cultural heritage. Get to know the famous architect who shaped our image so successfully.
What does the architect even do?
Architecture
We all live somewhere. Penthouses, houses and flats have differences between each other. Some of them we like more than others. The person that is the plan how the building will look and work is the architect.
Architecture is the profession and art of designing buildings and other buildings. Architects express their artistic vision through the size, shape, color and style of the building's elements: that is, what they design. These can be houses, skyscrapers, business premises, even bridges and distilleries, as well as cemeteries and sometimes whole cities.
People really like to determine, who is the biggest the most important, and the best at their work.
And who is the biggest architect?
Architect is the one who make living at home, in a city and on the countryside better.
1872: born in Ljubljana as the fourth child in the Plečnik family of capentens.
1878-1888: School years in Ljubljana.
1888-1892: craft school in Graz, also drawings.
1892-1894: draftsman of cancellations in Vienna.
1894-1898: under the tutelage of the mentor, architect Otto Wagner, in School for architecture at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts.
1898-1911: graduates, travels, works.
1911 -1921: teacher at the artificial salt farm in Thresholds.
1921: he settles in a ground floor thorn house on. Karunovi 4 in Ljubljana, where he lived until his death.
1821-1956: professor in the department of architecture at the newly founded university of Jubljana; he arranges Ljubljana, in the meantime he also rearranges the Prague Castle and its surroundings.
1957: dies at his home in Ljubljana.
As a Time Capsule
You are welcome to visit our Plečnikova hiša in Ljubljana.
It is the same as it was, when Plečniki lived in it. This was when they were drawing with pencils that were so sharp, and you couldn’t even hold them anymore. The bed and the table were only few steps apart, because he was very industrious and creative person. I love to sit beside the oven and draw.
He wore glasses, he had 21 of them. He had a chewed tennis ball that was a toy for his pet dog named Sivka. And he had a famous black robe that was one of his black clothes. So you can get to know this important but humble architect at least a little through his home - because our homes say more about us than we think. Well, you have your way. what luck: at the time when Plecnik was alive, you couldn’t come in the house just like that.
His guests had access only to the glass reception room; further into the house he allowed only family members friends and closest friends. Even in the small reception room he invited only his closest friends, one od them was a writer and neighbour Fran Saleški Finžgar, he wrote the most popular Slovenian novel in history that is called Pod svobodnim soncem.
Plečnik was short sighted and because his diopter was changing, it wasnt unusual that he left many glasses. Glasses and tweezers (ones that they attach to your nose) were for him never missing.
Plečnik always dressed in black and he wore a hat. His students were copying him with that.
Love to the plants
Plečnik used to plant trees in front of the houses he didn’t like. He loved plants and he had his own garden.
Thats what Plečnik wrote in his letter to his friend about a look on his garden. For paving his winter garden he used remains from construction sites. In his winter garden, there was an oven so the plants could survive winter. And the exit on the unfenced garden. He said that fences between neighbours, that understand each other, arent necesarry. Between Plečnik's and parish garden there was growing a hedge.
He loved to recycle. Not only at home, he also liked to use old materials from other buildings. For example: in the most important libary in the country, National and universal libary (NUK) he used rocks from a cave from 14. Century.
There lived a king who had a small kingdom.
But his greatest achievement is not his largest building, his largest bell tower, his most picturesque facade, or his last work. His advantage was that he had an excellent sense of how to connect different buildings, public spaces and greenery so that they would work harmoniously, connected, human-friendly and beautiful.
From Ljubljana to Vienna
At first, young Plečnik's schooling went quite smoothly. When he didn't do well at the lower gymnasium, he became an apprentice in his father's carpentry workshop, then he trained as an artistic carpenter and furniture designer in Graz, Austria. Despite his lack of basic education, he continued to study architecture in Vienna. Professor Otto Wagner noticed his talent and Plečnik graduated in 1898 as one of his best students. With this, he earned a Rome scholarship, which enabled him to study for several months in Italy from Venice to Rome, and to visit Paris for a short time.
Plečnik designed the Zachnerl House in Vienna in 1905.
Traveling greatly contributed to his knowledge and influenced his thinking. After his return, he opened his architectural studio in Vienna. He designed furniture and designed some villas.
In Vienna they wanted Plečnik to be the next profesor Otta Wagnerja, but it didn’t work out. That’s why in year 1911 he recived an lnvitation to be a professor on a craft school in Prague in Czech, where he lived during world war 1. After world war 1. Country Czechoslovakia was made and the president hired him for makeover of Prague castle.
Country Czechoslovakia was formed in October
1918, when it declared independence from
of Austria-Hungary. Between 1939 and 1945, the name ceased to exist due to the Second World War, when Slovakia lost its independence, some territories in the east became part of Hungary, and the remaining small lands had to accept a nemili protectorate. After the Second World War, it was rebuilt
Czechoslovakia from before 1938, which existed until 1992, when it merged into the independent state of the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Capital city Czechoslovakia was Prague.
A City and The River
Plečnik brought the river-life back to Ljubljana. In the past they built cities next to and around big rivers, because rivers were the only way of transportation before the railway was invented. With the invention of the railway, rivers became less important and crucial and cities simply ‘’turned their backs on them’, they were forgotten. They quite literally became garbage dumps, rubbish bins for people to empty their nasty garbage in. The risk of them overflowing started getting bigger. In the past all the rooms that people did not want others to see were hidden, usually facing the rivers, and all the nice rooms (the drawing/living rooms, saloons, and such) faced the street, hiding behind a prominent façade.
Plečnik turned this logic around. He started treating the river as the leading urban motif. He started thinking about how he could best connect it with the city. He turned Gerber’s stairway toward the water along with many other cultural/tourist attractions of the city. His main idea was that you could see that everything is happening around the river.
Gerber’s stairway
Ljubljana’s Central Market
The central market in Ljubljana or Plečnik’s market, where you will quite certainly always find a lot of people; Slovenians and tourists, was built during the second World War. The market was built next to the river, where once stood an old medieval/town wall. There are quite a lot of things that remind us of a medieval setting, like the special stairway that leads to the fish market. The fish market is at the river altitude level. We can watch the river through the windows at the fishmongers. There are also other things, for example; the arcade rooms (arcade – an arch above two columns), and so on. These are beautiful examples of Plečnik’s architecture, that was built for people. Here you can watch how people converse, meet up, chat. You can smell all sorts of things... Delicious, freshly baked bread, freshly caught fish and so much more. This market is truly the heart of Ljubljana. It gives the capital a special charm and certainly attracts a lot of people.
Plečnik’s market
Plečnik & UNESCO
The fact that (Plečnik’s) Ljubljana is on the UNESCO world heritage list is one of the greatest and most prestigious awards/nominations the city has ever gotten. Ljubljana, a city transformed and remodeled to respect the old architectural achievements but brightened up with new elements that serve its inhabitants and are pleasing to the eye.
Tromostovje (‘’The Triple Bridge’)
The Tromostovje is a bridge complex, made up of 3 bridges. On the 28th of July 2021 it was also added under the UNESCO world heritage list. All three bridges have a built-in stone balustrade (a stone fence, made up of many smaller columns) topped off with lights. The stairways of the 2 side-bridges lead to a terrace by the river Ljubljanica, where Plečnik also planted poplar trees.
People liked that Plečnik respected and strived towards preserving past architectural achievements. When there was a need to build a new, bigger bridge in Ljubljana, Plečnik wanted to preserve the old Špitalski bridge, while adding two new ones for pedestrians.
Meanwhile a lot of other architects wanted to tear down the old bridge, because they thought it had no value. Plečnik strongly disagreed with this idea.
Tromostovje (The Triple Bridge)
Did you know?
Plečnik proposed in 1932 that Ljubljana should be the new Athens. He wanted to bring the main characteristics of antique Athens to Ljubljana. The Ljubljana castle was supposed to be the Acropolis, the Žale cemetery the necropolis, the Bežigrad stadium the antique Olympic stadium, and many others...
National University Library (NUK): The Treasury of Knowledge
Plečnik understood the NUK as a temple of wisdom. For him it was very symbolic, a treasury of knowledge. The NUK is his greatest architectural achievement in Slovenia. It has a very recognizable façade made from brick and stone. It was built between the years 1936 and 1941. It was finished right before Ljubljana was invaded and occupied during the second World War in former Yugoslavia.
The front doors of the NUK are decorated with 2 statues of horses which represent the Pegasus, the mythological winged horse. They are meant to symbolically welcome visitors to the world of knowledge. When we enter inside, we are met with a magical black stairway, surrounded by marble pillars. On the 1st floor there is a large reading area with more than 200 reading spots. It is 4 stories high, and it is well lit up with the help of natural sunlight coming in through the glass walls.
Čevljarski/ Šuštarski bridge
Instead of Plečnik’sČevljarski bridge, there used to be an old wooden bridge, that connected the Town square and the old square. At first there used to be butchers working there, selling meat, but in the 17th century they were moved lower down the river, closer to the Central market. In the 19th century the bridge burned down and a new one was commissioned. A stone/metal one. Because shoemakers used to work there, selling, and repairing shoes it was also named the Čevljarski bridge as well as Šuštarski bridge (čevljar - is Slovenian for shoemaker).
Čevljarski/Šuštarski bridge
The Barje Church
One of Plečnik’s most creative and innovative buildings is the Barje church of St. Michael in Črna village. Because the terrain is very ‘’swampy’’ it needs to be supported by columns. Because they did not have money to build lavish and extravagant buildings, cheaper materials were used. They got creative... The support pillars were made of cement sewage pipes. The interior was made mostly out of wood and decorated with local stone.
This was the project of the whole Plečnik family. The construction was paid by the local priest, Plečnik’s nephew K. Matjkovič.
The Žale Cemetary
The Central city cemetery was created because they wanted to move the main cemetery to a larger location, because of the ongoing expansion of the city. Plečnik designed a creative, new version of the cemetery. The updated version of the cemetery had different elements from antique Roman cemeteries, different elements from antique temples and so on...
The Žale Cemetary
(This grand entrance represents the entrance to world of dead)
