architects Sonja Miculinić, Bojan Leva
project Family House, Novo Mesto, Slovenia
written by Ante Nikša Bilić

 

Post-socialist cities are divided into two categories: those that have voids between the old city centres and the new alienated settlements of sound city planning and tattered architecture, and those in which the suburban structure impinges on the historical tissue. It is this latter style that characterises Novo Mesto.The settlements planned according to the cadastral plans irrefutably underline the agrarian character. The building plots are long and narrow. For this reason I believe that the theory of urban land consolidation will serve as a base for future zoning plans relieved of the weight of the heavy red tape left over from that “leaden town planning”. This introduction is just a stage direction for the reading of a house in Novo Mesto by the architects Miculinić and Leva.