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The Cvjetni complex in Zagreb is an architectural and urban statement. Designed to cater for many uses, the programme’s innovative features weave into elements that echo the city’s build history – a very pertinent trait in an urban fabric like Zagreb’s where the regular 19th century grid can be clearly distinguished between older and more recent developments. The Cvjetni architectural programme reinvents the many urban layers of the Croatian capital in a modern key, pivoting everything around a central passage or arcade.
The objectives are several: revitalizing an urban area and enhancing its value as a liveable space whose concrete and symbolic attractions provide a vibrant addition to the contemporary city. The Centre itself takes its name from the square in front of it, famous for its flower market. Fitting into and reinterpreting this adjacent open space, the new architecture is a dense concentrate of an urban nucleus. The “passage” is reminiscent of 19th century arcades, the hallmark of modernity at that time. It also harks back to the layers of history and the intricate web of passageways that have always linked the different parts of the city.
A pivotal place, a hub of contemporary socialization, the complex, like the city around it, is an overlay of many architectures. Four underground levels provide parking space for around 400 cars. A range of retail outlets and offices occupy the ground and first two aboveground levels around the arcade. The residential sections are on the upper storeys above the mall: a series of generous apartments on the third to fifth floor, and five, 2-level luxury “urban villas” on the sixth and seventh storeys.
Square-side, the Cvjetni Centre stands between a building with Jugendstil overtones and a 1930’s construction designed by a pupil of Loos. The huge portal leading into the arcade is both a functional and highly symbolic urban feature. The façade...
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