Maribor 2012: River, Architecture, Culture

written by Matevž Čelik

 

At the end of March this year, two international juries chose three projects to present basic interventions on the banks of the Drava River  in the centre of Maribor: a new building for Maribor Art Gallery (UGM), a new foot bridge for pedestrians and bicycles and the refurbishment of the former raft landing place in Lent. Maribor, formerly one of the most powerful industrial centres in Yugoslavia, has succeeded in getting out of the vortex of deindustrialization and transition, which swallowed most socialist industrial giants at the beginning of the 1990s and sent desperate workers out in the street with  pictures of  president Tito in their hands.