Kapitelj

Area: 23,833 m2
Year of construction: 2000
Capital investment value: €22 million
Architects: Andrej Černigoj and Jadranka Grmek

This hybrid complex with an underground garage (261 parking spaces) consists of a 2,000 m2 shopping arcade, 6,000 m2 of office space and 42 luxury apartments. Located on the bank of the Ljubljanica, the complex set new standards for quality city-centre accommodation. Preservation of significant lines and historical dimensions, diverse contents and architectural revitalisation have ensured that the reconstructed Kapitelj complex is an organic presence in a formerly degraded area of the city that has blended with the existing urban fabric on the edge of Ljubljana's central district and injected new life.

The original design by architects Andrej Černigoj and Jadranka Grmek won first prize at the invited competition in 1997 and the Golden Pencil Award of the Chamber of Architecture of Slovenia in 2006. The project also appears in the book An Architectural Guide to Ljubljana – 100 Selected Buildings (A. Hrausky, J. Koželj, Rokus 2002).

An office building and apartment complex

The Kapitelj complex consists of an office building and a residential complex. They are connected by a two-level shopping arcade that bridges the height difference between the embankment and higher-lying Poljanska Cesta in an unobtrusive manner. The office building on Poljanski Nasip – the embankment itself – is a pendant to the Art Nouveau building of the former printing house, which today houses the University of Ljubljana law faculty. The two buildings give definitive shape to the city block, while in architectural terms the new structure spans the gap between the smaller houses along Poljanska Cesta, a surviving remnant of a medieval suburb, and the row of imposing buildings along the river, something which is also clearly reflected in the design and colouring of the new architecture. The pattern of the glass facade is a modern interpretation of the contrasting lace-like structure of the Art Nouveau (Sezessionstil) building next door.

Reliefs by sculptor Irena Brunec-Tébi

Click for zoomThe entrance to the Kapitelj office building is decorated by reliefs – bronze sculptures on a marble intarsia background – by the sculptor Irena Brunec-Tébi, who has created an iconographic depiction of the virtues for the Kapitelj building, artistically complementing them with her own vision. She chose as her subject the three theological virtues (faith, hope and love) and the four cardinal virtues (courage, justice, prudence, temperance) that prevail in everyday life and mark us in various ways.