Winding through Ljubljana following a trail of Slovenian architect Jože Plečnik’s structures, like stars in a constellation, is a great way to explore the city. While Ljubljana began as an ancient Roman town called Emona, it was never of particular importance until the 20th century. In fact, Plečnik called his hometown a “cultural backwater” and made it the mission of his career to elevate it through architecture.
He lived during the Modernist era, when the idea was afloat that good architecture could improve the lives of those who live in and with it. He is beloved by architecture fans but little known in the popular imagination because he never founded nor joined a major movement. He was content doing his own thing, mostly back home.
Plečnik sought to make Ljubljana into a “new Athens” and managed to get the commissions to design all of the spaces and buildings that would feature in an ancient Greek city like Athens: a stadium, cemetery, (necropolis), market square, covered walkway (stoa) meeting square (agora), temple mount (acropolis). He redesigned Preseren Square, named after Slovenia’s most famous poet, the Romantic France Preseren, and included a giant bronze statue of him being crowned with a laurel wreath.
Beside the square is Plečnik’s Triple Bridge, or Tromostovje—three bridges at slight angles to one another that cross the Ljubljanica River. Historians believe that a bridge of one sort or another has spanned the river at this point since the 13th century, but in 1932, Plečnik’s redesign radically rethought the structure, with one bridge for pedestrians, one for cars, and one for bicyclists. Inspired by the Rialto Bridge in Venice, this also contains some of the earliest public toilets in Europe, which are still in use (and shockingly clean).