Project "The Common in the Community: Seventy Years of Co-operative Community Centres as Social Infrastructure", the Slovene pavilion at the 2021 International Architecture Exhibition in Venice, the accompanying book and events
Authors and curators of the pavilion, research project, exhibition, and book:
Blaž Babnik Romaniuk
Martina Malešič
Rastko Pečar
Asta Vrečko
Anja Delbello
Aljaž Vesel
Nuša Jurkovič
Samo Kralj
Vid Hajnšek
Jana Jocif
Data:
Project for the Pavilion of the Republic of Slovenia at the 17th International Architecture Exhibition La Biennale di Venezia, including the book The Common in the Community: Seventy Years of Co-operative Community Centres as Social Infrastructure
Category: Enrichment of Spatial Culture
Authors: Authors and project curators: Blaž Babnik Romaniuk, Martina Malešič, Rastko Pečar, Asta Vrečko,
pavilion design: Obrat d. o. o.
exhibition design and execution: Blaž Babnik Romaniuk, Martina Malešič, Rastko Pečar, Asta Vrečko, Anja Delbello, Aljaž Vesel, Nuša Jurkovič, Samo Kralj, Vid Hajnšek
book designed and edited by: Martina Malešič, Asta Vrečko, Anja Delbello, Aljaž Vesel, Jana Jocif
Collaborators: /
Year of realisation: 2021
Investor: Museum of Architecture and Design (MAO) with the support of Ministry of Culture, represented by Matevž Čelik (commissioner) and Nikola Pongrac (assistant to the commissioner)
Web site: venicebiennial.mao.si/slo
PLEČNIK MEDAL in the category of the enrichment of spatial culture
The Common in the Community - Jury's report
The project The Common in the Community: Seventy Years of Co-operative Community Centres as Social Infrastructure extends beyond the scope of a themed exhibition at the 17th International Architecture Exhibition in Venice. The diverse group of authors carried out comprehensive interdisciplinary research by means of which they showcased for the first time the circumstances surrounding the inception, construction, and present-day life of co-operative community centres in Slovenia. Co-operative community centres and collective development uniquely shaped the Slovene space and society in the 2nd half of the previous century, as early as from the 1950s onwards.
By performing field work, the project's authors chronicled the state of play and recorded the stories of 300 co-operative community centres which had been erected in the entire territory of Slovenia in the span of five years through mass mobilisation as well as voluntary and shock labour of the respective local communities. The authors showcased co-operative community centres as a resilient and widely distributed network of social infrastructure which continues to be operative to this day. Performing the function of local cultural centres, co-operative community centres are spread across the Slovene countryside and still play an important role in the communities' operation. The decentralisation of cultural undertaking enabled through the network of co-operative community centres was the crucial basis for numerous artistic achievements observable in Slovenia to this day.
Markedly broad in its scope, the project presented the findings of the field research with the exhibition mounted at the 17th International Architecture Exhibition in Venice, while the lasting value of the work is ensured by the extensive, didactic, and visually distinguished publication as well as a documentary film. The project authors' many activities also included the presentations and events on the locations of co-operative community centres, which raised awareness of the significance of this already established network of interior public spaces. The research and its findings leave no doubt as to the currency of this public cultural infrastructure in the contemporary times.
Owing to the authors' commitment, the project continues to resonate long after the exhibition's run by means of presentations and events. It is all the more important to draw attention to the significance of communal spaces with the power to connect as well as the fact that public space is constituted through the community being that the construction of public space in which communities are able to develop is hardly taken for granted, and grows less so. The present-day social circumstances serve as an appeal to the profession to commit itself in the endeavours to preserve the existing and constitute new public space.
