The Collage Building

architects Randić-Turato arhitekti
project Veli Vrh Elementary School, Pula, Croatia
written by Maroje Mrduljaš

 

A couple of years ago, in Randić-Turato’s spacious studio in the former Ivex warehouse in Delta in Rijeka, among numerous models I noticed an unfamiliar project: a relatively large complex consisting of formally and typologically very different fragments, freely arranged, making up a scattered whole. I made the terse comment that the project idea looked like a literal illustration of the Collage City.[1] However, the coexistence and merging of different spatial configurations is a phenomenon that arises with the gradual segmentation of historical urban layers. Is it possible for the complexity of city tissue, which is created through a time-consuming and organic process, to be reconstructed or imitated in a single sweep, with a single construction gesture?



[1] The notion of the Collage City was introduced by Colin Row and Fred Koetter: Collage City, Cambridge, Mass., MIT Press, 1978.