Review: Edvard Ravnikar: Architect and Teacher, by Ales Vodopivec and Rok Znidarsic

Abstract

Ales Vodopivec and Rok Znidarsic , editors Edvard Ravnikar: Architect and Teacher ; Vienna and New York: Springer-Verlag, 2010, 348 pp., 442 b/w and 33 color illus. $89.95 (cloth), ISBN 9783211992036 Edvard (Edo) Ravnikar (1909––1993), born in the Austro-Hungarian city of Ljubljana (Laibach), Slovenia, was Jožže Pleccnik's premiere student, proteegee, and successor. Ravnikar's architectural work developed from near perfect emulation of Pleccnik's idiosyncratic classicism to his own form-giving mastery at the mid-twentieth century. Pleccnik co-founded the Faculty of Architecture in the University of Ljubljana; Ravnikar assumed leadership of the faculty after World War II. Both men were superior teachers and architectural thinkers, and Ravnikar possessed a true cosmopolitan's interest and engagement in sophisticated world discourse. He worked in Le Corbusier's studio in 1939, and while there he drafted one of Le Corbusier's most noted renderings, Algiers Skyscraper ——so finely executed that Le Corbusier did not sign it in deference to the brilliance of Ravnikar's rendering skills and as a compliment to him. His mature period was closely aligned with Marshal Tito's rule of Yugoslavia, especially after Tito shielded the country from the full force of the Iron Curtain to become a founding member of the Non-aligned Countries. Tito's experiment in independent socialism found a parallel for Yugoslavian architects in Nordic design. Ravnikar, born in the Hapsburg Austro-Hungarian Empire, died in the independent Republic of Slovenia, free from direct political hegemony for the first time in over 1,000 years. In Ravnikar's architecture one experiences an independently creative intellect fully engaged in the task of reconciling local site-specific culture, historical tradition, modern design concepts, and a constantly evolving and roiling middle European political and cultural Zeitgeist . In many …