ALUArtForum
Location: Zagreb, Croatia
Type: Competition
Author: Radionica arhitekture
Design team: Fani Frković, Dora Krušelj, Ana Rako, Goran Rako, Josip Sabolić
Designed: 2014
Area: 2.000 m2


South of the Ilica Street, on the North facade of one of the Lower Town blocks, there is an empty space for the ALUArtForum building. The emptiness has two contradictory characteristics. Like a hole in a denture it speaks about incompleteness of the block ring. As a niche in space, however, it draws us through today stunted park to classrooms and ateliers of the Academy of Fine Arts building. We respect both characteristics. Instead of a “win-lose” dilemma we suggest a “win-win” solution. We are closing the ring while protecting the pedestrian walkway by which students and professors flow to the Academy. We suggest a house which overarches the place on which it should have been built a long time ago, and we are lifting it up to preserve the park as a part of the city and city as a part of the park. Its facade is a part of the snakelike surface of the Ilica Street facades, while its cornice is lifted above the surrounding ones, to show that ALUArtForum is not just another building in the city.
The building's location and program suggest vertical zoning. We propose s “square” on the street level, an area for the ALUArtForum visitors above it, and a service area below it. If we go upstairs, the first level is the entrance hall. The next floor is the first exhibition space of the gallery, the one for temporary exhibition. On top of the house, below the shed roof which catches the northern light, is the second exhibition space, divided into permanent and temporary exhibition.