Soukup Jiři
Czech Republic
tutor: doc. akad. arch. Vladimir Soukenka
CHECZ TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY IN PRAGUE, FACULTY OF ARCHITECTURE
Ljubljana is a capital town of a quite reserved expanse (300 000 inhabitants) with a convenient geographical location neighbouring upon high mountains in the heart of Slovenia. A governmental and financial centre with the impression of an architecturally refined comely chamber town.
The assignment of the dissertation is a locality historically called Južni Trg [Southern Square], which in fact is a spacious inner courtyard of a downswept ground towards the river Ljubljanica closely neighbouring upon the representative Kongresni Trg [Congress Square] with the Zvezda Park from the east and the famous Triple Bridge from the north east. The curiosity is the way of spreading out the whole inner courtyard southwards towards the Zvezda Park by an extensive vacant lot lined by buildings with representative both lateral and front façades. This accessibility is actually blocked nowadays and Južni Trg is accessible to the public only marginally along the Knafljev Passage, which in fact performs as an open gateway crossing the whole inner courtyard from west to east. The urban solution of the space has been a study object for over a hundred years but without any implementation. Nowadays the site is once again facing a necessary revitalisation with the main focus on the Slovene National Theatre.
The concept places the theatre building into the southwest part of the inner courtyard and subsidises the existing Kongresni Trg development. The project pushes ahead creating a system of flat dip ramps to overcome the altitude difference of the new square and defines three main levels of the pit.
The theatre building is partly sunk below ground level and “blossoms” from there into a new concourse. This shape was chosen to minimise the mass as such with respect to the dimension of the building and to the measure, which was manifold, greater than the immediately surrounding buildings scaling factor. The idea was for the theatre to show its soul even on the outside through its own spatial form.
The structural system of the building consists of a combined reinforced concrete framework. A wall-based system is used for the functional part, a combination of a wall-based system and columnar cast-in-place reinforced concrete construction system for the representative part.
The main idea of the interior design is to evoke a high-tone atmosphere corresponding with the milieu of the foremost theatre stage of the country.
It is possible to state that the building is a synopsis of interconnected elements with the ambition to appear autonomously, but on the other hand impressively and grandiosely, as is, according to my opinion, suitable for a national theatre.