Fly, Swallow, Fly

architects Barbara Selinšek, Barbara Glavič, Igor Recer
project Residental Block with Non-profit Flats, Maribor, Slovenia
written by Uroš Lobnik

 

An effective policy for organised non-profit residential building has not been in sight in Slovenia for almost twenty years. It has been crushed by the numerous »newly composed« forms of quasi Post-Modernistic apartment buildings, which have uncompromisingly robbed of its value the motif of socially engaged architecture that, up until recently, was seen to by the government apparatus. Alongside negative and disqualifying features, social housing was also influenced by social changes in the early 1990s. Since then, and up to the present, Slovenian towns have been able to build only one non-profit block every couple of years. The lack of flats, and even social ones, has become so great that the housing policy has been forced to obligatory and rapid change. Therefore, one of the most topical questions is: How does one come by a good example of contemporary residential architecture?