Money And Architecture

written by Miran Kambič

 

The story about the first skyscraper in Ljubljana, narrated through the media of money and connected stories, has celebrated the 70th anniversary of the first Americanism in Ljubljana, the laying of the foundation stone on April 18th 1931. The central actors in the story about the birth of “Nebotičnik” (the Skyscraper) are the Pension Fund as the investor, the architect Vladimir Šubic, construction workers, sculptors, and Freemasons. It is the story about the society of the thirties, about the powerful yet small bourgeoisie in Slovenia, and about individual dreams and failures. The aim of this discourse is to present the capitalist production of space and to discuss the systematically ignored and denied quality of architecture after the Second World War that space is a commodity and architectural design a business.