4 The scale model that was commissioned in 1948 is today part of the permanent exhibition in Plečnik House Museum. Only the front façade and assembly hall with the crowning cone are presented, suggesting that at this stage Plečnik viewed the main spatial idea of the project as still not finalised and fully integrated with the more utilitarian demands of the programme. 5 Sources on the materials Plečnik had in mind are unreliable and largely a matter of speculation. But the spatial design of the assembly hall with a public spiral access to the viewing platform directly above it precedes Sir Norman Foster’s Reichstag glass dome with its ramp and viewing platform for some 50 years. See: Zupančič, p. 80. 6 Undated letter of Ferdo Kozak to Plečnik at the end of the competition, MGML, 534: LJU; PZ-0014312. Cited in: Zupančič, p. 82. 7 Ibid. 8 Nika Grabar suggests the political turmoil following the Informbiro Crisis, the material scarcity and the tensions between state and federal authorities as possible reasons for discarding the project. Nika Grabar and others, Parlament - Tri Zgodbe (Ljubljana: Muzej novejše zgodovine Slovenije, 2012), pp. 19-23. 9 France Stelè and Jože Plečnik, Napori (Ljubljana: Slovenska Akademija Znanosti in Umetnosti, 1955), plates II, III, V-IX. 10 It is interesting to note that Glanz’s parliament building, albeit being more modernist in character of the facade than Plečnik building, follows the spatial arrangement of the ceremonial halls and the main assembly hall of the Plečnik plan relatively closely. Despite the obvious absence of the cone above the hall the realised building professes a level of acquaintance and perhaps even certain loyalty to the 1947 version. 11 Alexei Monroe, Interrogation machine (Cambridge. Mass.: MIT Press, 2005), pp. 251-253. 12 Jela Krečič, ‘Dan mladosti 1987’, in Plakatna afera 1987, ed. by Lilijana Stepančič and others (Ljubljana: Muzej novejše zgodovine Slovenije, 2009), pp. 21-29. 13 The proposed ceremony was to start with the helicopter delivering a naked youth carrying a baton from the top of the Triglav mountain to the Cathedral on the lake. At the same time the members of the League of Socialist Youth would be transported to the Cathedral reconstruction with boats. After the handing over of the baton the carrier would be again transported by helicopter to the shore of lake Bohinj where the relay race across Yugoslavia was to commence. See: Krečič, p. 28. 14 Slovene Acropolis was Plečnik’s name for a slightly earlier proposal for the new Slovene parliament building that was planned on the hill above the city, replacing the medieval Ljubljana castle. 15 1st NSK State Congress in Berlin in 2001, for example. 16 According to established Laibach practice this is the cover version or reinterpretation of the 1980s band Europe song of the same name. 17 Laibach video Final Countdown (1994). 18 Andrew Herscher, ‘Plečnik avec Laibach’, Assemblage, 33 (1997), p. 74. 19 Initiative for realisation of Plečnik’s Parliament launched by the Slovenian World Congress: ‘Pobuda Za Postavitev Plečnikovega Parlamenta - Doma Slovenske Državnosti’, Slokongres.com, 2007 <http://www.slokongres. com/?option=com_content&view=article&id=74:pobuda-za-postavitevplenikovega-parlamenta-doma-slovenske-dravnosti&catid=46:2006&Itemid=31&fontstyle=f-larger> [accessed 12 January 2018]. 20 Online petition to the Governemnt of Slovenia: ‘Predlagam.Vladi.Si: Katedrala Svobode’, Predlagam.vladi.si, 2009 <http://predlagam.vladi.si/webroot/idea/view/138> [accessed 12 January 2018]. Miloš Kosec The Cathedral of Freedom
21 Initiative by Gallus Batholomeus Society which held the presentation of the idea in the rooms of the State Council of all places. 22 Committee for the Erection of Plečnik Parliament. 23 https://sl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slovenska_lipa 24 Monroe, p. 71. 25 It is not insignificant that the initiative to declare Plečnik a saint of the Catholic church dates to this period. 26 Theodor W. Adorno, ‘Functionalism Today’, in Rethinking Architecture, ed. by Neil Leach (London/New York: Routledge, 1997), p. 19.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
Adorno, Theodor W., ‘Functionalism Today’, in Rethinking Architecture, ed. by Neil Leach (London/New York: Routledge, 1997), 5-19 Grabar, Nika, Kaja Širok, Martina Vovk, Miran Kambič, Edi Šelhaus, and Miloš Švabič and others, Parlament - Tri Zgodbe (Ljubljana: Muzej novejše zgodovine Slovenije, 2012) Herscher, Andrew, ‘Plečnik avec Laibach’, Assemblage, 33 (1997), 58-75 Krečič, Jela, ‘Dan mladosti 1987’, in Plakatna afera 1987, ed. by Lilijana Stepančič, Jela Krečič, Nataša Strlič, Blaž Vurnik, Žandi Dežman, and Sarah Bervar (Ljubljana: Muzej novejše zgodovine Slovenije, 2009), 21-31 Monroe, Alexei, Interrogation machine, (Cambridge. Mass.: MIT Press, 2005) Stelè, France, and Jože Plečnik, Napori (Ljubljana: Slovenska Akademija Znanosti in Umetnosti, 1955) Plečnikov slovenski parlament, leaflet (Ljubljana: Društvo Gallus Bartholomaeus, 2014) ‘Pobuda Za Postavitev Plečnikovega Parlamenta - Doma Slovenske Državnosti’, Slokongres.com, 2007 <http://www.slokongres.com/?option=com_content&view=article&id=74:pobuda-za-postavitev-plenikovega-parlamenta-doma-slovenske-dravnosti&catid=46:2006&Itemid=31&fontstyle=f-larger> [accessed 12 January 2018] ‘Predlagam.Vladi.Si: Katedrala Svobode’, Predlagam.vladi.si, 2009 <http:// predlagam.vladi.si/webroot/idea/view/138> [accessed 12 January 2018] Prelovšek, Damjan, Joze Plecnik 1872 – 1957 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997) Zupančič, Bogo, ‘Zbor LRS Ljubljana’, in: Pod skupno streho, ed. by Matevž Čelik, Maja Vardjan and Bogo Zupančič (Ljubljana: Muzej za arhitekturo in oblikovanje, 2013)
BIOGRAPHY Miloš Kosec is an architect, editor and publicist living and working in London, UK and in Ljubljana, Slovenia. At the moment he is researching for his PhD project at Birkbeck, University of London, focused on manifestations of reluctance and passivity in contemporary critical architecture. In 2013 he published the book »Ruin as an Architectural Object«. His research work is focused on architecture, architectural history, political and social aspects of architectural design. Miloš is also a practicing architect and landscape designer as well as a member of the editorial boards of Praznine and Outsider magazines.
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