11 Rijeka’s Rope Factory Potok from 1764 until the end of the 20 century Emilio Ambrosini (1901), Mate Glavan th
In 1764, Nicolò Crespi, a native of Rimini, opened a manufacturing plant for ropes in Rijeka. The company’s main products were ropes for ships. Sources show that the plant had sixteen employees in 1802.95 Giovanni Sirola, who gained ownership of the factory around
95 On 11 March 1802, the Rope Factory acquired the status of a fabbrica that operates in Rijeka and enjoys the greatest privileges of Rijeka’s Governorate. In 1802, the factory was owned by Teodoro Crespi. (State Archives in Rijeka, PR-1, box 246, folder VIII, 1824)
1860, greatly contributed to the modernization of the factory. Sirola gave the idea of moving the manufacturing production to a new, larger building and, in 1901, he put Emilio Ambrosini in charge of the project.96 It is a simple rectangular building with a prominent central area where the rope spinning section was located. The integrity of the facility is
96 The construction work was supervised by Mate Glavan. (Jasna Rotim Malvi}, Industrija, in: Arhitektura secesije u Rijeci, MMSU, Rijeka, 2007, p. 328.; Deborah Pustišek, Emilio Ambrosini, Muzej grada Rijeke, 2011, p. 91)
split by a series of large windows with a mild semi-circular arch. The decorations used by Ambrosini indicate very modest but noticeable Art Nouveau elements. The building is now in a degraded state with no roof. It represents everything that was preserved from the former Rope Factory of Rijeka. At the beginning of the 20th century, the factory manufactured ropes for the Austro-Hungarian fleet in Pula, Rijeka’s Torpedo Factory and the Third May Shipyard. During the First World War, the factory experienced a crisis from which it struggled to come out, only to enter a new crisis immediately after World War II. The company’s owners started rotating and, in the 1880s, the entire production was moved to Škurinje. The entire plant was destroyed during the construction of shopping centres.
Tvornica konopa (detalj) Rope Factory (detail) (fotografija/photo: Stanislav Beli~ka)
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