Infantile City

7/27/2019 Infantile City

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Infantilno mesto, od znotraj od zunaj2

Vodi, boste pomislili, bi moral biti nekdo, ki je dovoljpouen o mestu, da lahko po njem vodi tujca, mu predsta-

vi mestne kraje in ljudi, pojasni lokalne navade in obiajeter preprei, da bi koga ualil ali zael v teave. Za kaknorabo neki je vodi, ki ne pozna lokalnega jezika, igar zna-nje o mestu je v najboljem primeru le drugorazredno inrazumevanje mesta samega e zdale ne prirojeno, instink-tivno, pa pa vselej temeljee na primerjavi z drugimi kraji,ki jih zares temeljito pozna?

Sam ne bom nikdar razumel Ljubljane, kot jo lahkorazume Slovenec. Ne obvladam njenega jezika; navsezadnjeje prav jezik tisti, ki strukturira misel in boj za prevladomoi, skupaj pa sooblikujeta mesto in v njem zadobiva-ta svoj izraz. Nikoli ne bom poznal njegovih prostorskihposebnosti, pa pa si jih bom moral vselej prevajati dobe-sedno, saj si prostore in oblike lahko prevedem le v stvari,

ki jih poznam iz drugega konteksta. Zato nikakor ni mojnamen svojih videnj mesta vsiliti kot edinih pravih, saj pokakovosti bistveno odstopajo od videnj nekoga, ki je prist-ni Ljubljanan.

Akt prevajanja med mesti, med mestom, ki gapozna, in tistim, ki ga ne, me spominja na situacioniste, kiso predlagali uporabo zemljevida nekega mesta, s pomojo

LjubljanaDaniel Jewesbury


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Infantile City, Inside Outside 3

A guide to a city, youd think, should be someone suffi-ciently well-informed to lead the stranger around, to intro-

duce them to places and to people, to explain local customsand manners to them, and to help them to avoid causingunwitting offence, or getting into trouble. What use is aguide who doesnt know the language, whose knowledgeof the city is secondhand at best, and whose understand-ing of it is not innate, not instinctual, but always based ona comparison with those other places he genuinely knows?

I can never understand Ljubljana as a Slovene would. Idont know the language; language structures thought, andlanguage structures power struggles, and together, thoughtand power structure are expressed in the city. Ill neverget inside its idioms, its spatial idioms; I can only under-stand it in translation, literally I can translate spaces andforms to things I know from another context. I dont want

to try and pass my insights off as the same as those of aLjubljanan: theyre necessarily of a very different quality.

This act of translation between cities, between acity you know and one you dont, reminds me of theSituationists, who suggested using a map of one city to findyour way around another. Their point was that all cities, assites of economic production, require the same elements in


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Infantilno mesto, od znotraj od zunaj

katerega si lahko pomaga najti pot skozi drugo mesto. Stem so eleli povedati, da vsa mesta kot toke ekonomske

produkcije terjajo enake prvine, da je njihova temeljnafunkcija izpolnjena. Prvine mest v dananji dobi preno-ve, kjer je edino, kar se v urbanih prostorih proizvaja inreproducira, ideologija, se zelo razlikujejo od prvin mest, kiso jih poznali situacionisti v petdesetih in estdesetih letihminulega stoletja. Splono gledano, naj bi vsako sodob-no mesto imelo svoje zgodovinsko mestno jedro, finanno

sredie, kulturno sredie v bliini buroaznega nakupo-valnega sredia, obmoje z osvetljenimi industrijskimiobjekti razmeroma blizu mestnega sredia, stanovanjskanaselja za delavski razred nekoliko izven mesta, zapuena

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Onkraj gradbia / Beyond Construction Site, 2010


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Infantile City, Inside Outside

order to fulfil their basic function. For a city in this age ofregeneration, when it is only ideology that is produced andreproduced in urban space, these elements would be rath-er different from those in the cities that the Situationistsknew in the 1950s or 60s; if we were to generalise, wecould say that a contemporary city needs to include a his-toric city centre; a financial district; a cultural quarter,

close to a bourgeois shopping district; an area with lightindustrial units, reasonably close to the centre; working-class residential areas, somewhat further out; former indus-trial areas, waiting to be renegerated; obsolete transportinfrastructure; ring roads; suburbs sprawling into satellitetowns; and out-of-town shopping centres. In fact, a mapfrom another city may be more useful, more reliable than

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Gradbie / Construction Site, 2010


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industrijska obmoja, ki akajo na prenovo, zastarelotransportno infrastrukturo, obvoznice, predmestja, ki se

raztezajo v satelitska mesta, in navsezadnje nakupovalnasredia na obrobju. Pravzaprav je lahko zemljevid neke-ga drugega mesta bolj uporaben in zanesljiv kot zemljevidmesta, v katerem trenutno si. Zemljevid specifinega mestalahko kmalu zastara, e ga jemljemo splono, pa je lahkonatanen vodnik tudi ve desetletij, vse dokler produkcijskinain ne doivi svoje periodine preobrazbe in vse dokler

kapital ne prestrukturira novih opuenih mestnih pre-delov.

Vendar pa zgolj napaen zemljevid ne zadoa, da bizares spoznali bistvo samega mesta. Mesto 21. stoletja jenekoliko podobno njegovim renesannim predhodnikom:danes je zavoljo golega preivetja prisiljeno konkuriratitako na regionalni kot globalni ravni ter mora poleg zaled-

ja, kjer pobira davke, rekrutira vojsko in si zagotavlja oskr-bo s hrano, poskrbeti tudi za prepoznavost svoje blagovneznamke. Danes velja za najbolj cenjeno trno blago mestaprav njegova podoba, ki ima dvoje znailnosti: je niz aso-ciacij, ki se lahko prikliejo v spomin od dale z imenom ins trno kampanjo, in stvarno premoenje obenem zastare-la dediina, posebna investicijska obmoja itn. , kar vse

mesto eli ponuditi turistom in vlagateljem. Prebiti se skozimesto je lahko teavna naloga, odvisna predvsem od tega,kako uinkovito podobo ustvari o sebi. Nadvse teko se jeprebiti skozi vso njegovo banalnost, videz, uniformnost.Navsezadnje je tudi avtorska arhitektura pravzapravenaka, kot bomo videli v nadaljevanju.

Napaen zemljevid je potemtakem le izhodie. Ne

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one that says its from the city you happen to be walkingaround; individually, maps can get out of date very quick-

ly. Collectively, they remain accurate for decades, until themode of production goes through another of its periodicshifts, and capital restructures the newly-redundant zones.

But the wrong map isnt enough, on its own, to pen-etrate the shell that the city constructs around itself. The21st century city is a little like its renaissance forebears:forced to compete just to survive, not just regionally but

globally now, and not these days for hinterlands fromwhich to extract taxes and raise armies and expropriatefood, but for simple brand recognition. The citys mostprized commodity now is its image. That image is two-fold; it is both the set of associations that can be evokedremotely with a name and a marketing campaign, and thephysical assets the old-fashioned heritage sites, the special

investment zones and so on that it chooses to emphasiseto tourists and investors. Depending on how efficiently acity constructs this image, it can be very difficult to find away round or through it, through the banality, the respect-ability, the uniformity; even all that signature architectureis essentially all the same, as well discover.

The wrong map is just a starting point, then. The idea

is not simply to play a game of disorientation, anyway,or just to walk for the sake of walking, as if any of this,of itself, were a practice. The map only helps us identifyquestions that can be useful, questions that can be used tomake the city reveal itself: which is the point. Questionslike: Who owns the city? What are they building? Whereare they building it? Has there been a property boom? Has

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gre toliko za samo igro dezorientiranosti ali za hojo zavo-ljo hoje same, kot bi lo za nekakno ustaljeno navado.

Prej nas zemljevid usmerja pri odkrivanju mesta, spozna-vanju njegovega bistva. To pa se skriva v vpraanjih, kotso: Kdo si lasti mesto? Kaj se v njem gradi? Kje se gradi?Ali je doivelo lastniki razcvet? Ali je pria konfliktulastnikih interesov? Kje ivijo njegovi prebivalci? Kate-ra obmoja se poseljujejo na novo in zakaj? Kdo opravljasluabnika dela kdo isti pisarne, prazni koe za smeti,

dela v noni izmeni? Kje ti ljudje ivijo? Ali so zares vsitako sreni, kot so videti? Ali e obstaja javni prostor alije e vse denacionalizirano?1 Kje se zbirajo mladostniki?Ali pogosto zaidejo v teave s policijo ali prebivalci mesta?Kdo je nezaelen? V em je sr problema? Kako se drube-na trenja kaejo v prostorskem konfliktu?

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Med pohajkovanjem po Ljubljani me je preinila misel,da je mesto, ki ga slabo pozna, kot mesto, v katerem sineko ivel in ga potem zapustil; e ne ve, kam si name-njen, je pravzaprav podobno, kot e pozabi, kar si nekovedel. Mesto, ki ga zapusti, se pred tabo zapre. Organsko

gibanje v njem mnoice, ki zahajajo v razline kraje, bari,ki se zapirajo, nova, prenovljena obmoja , ki si ga prejkomaj zaznal, ker se je odvijalo postopoma, se zdaj doga-

1 Izraz denacionalizacija se mi je zdel posebej zanimiv: tam, odkoder sam prihajam, pravimo temu privatizacija. Domnevam, daje to odvisno od tega, kje zane; konni rezultat pa je v obehprimerih enak.


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there been a property crash? Where does everybody live?Which areas are being rezoned, and what for? Who does

the menial work who cleans the office blocks, who emp-ties the bins, who works the nightshifts? Where do theylive? Is everybody really as happy as they look? Is there anypublic space left, or has it all been denationalised?1 Wheredo the teenagers drink? Do they get into trouble with thepolice, or the residents? Who are the undesirables? Whereare the cracks in the faade? How are the social tensions

crystallised into spatial conflict?

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As I walked around Ljubljana, I was reminded that acity you dont know very well is like a city that you oncelived in, and left; not yet knowing where to go is rather

like no longer knowing. A city you have left, after livingthere, closes itself off from you. All the organic move-ments crowds choosing to frequent different spots, barsclosing down, new areas being regenerated which, whenyou lived there, you barely noticed, because they happenedso gradually, have now happened in your absence, andon your return the changes seem sudden. Bodies move in

different directions, inhabiting different quarters, spend-ing money on different things, even eating different food.Factories, warehouses, slaughterhouses close, and becomearts centres, or museums, or supermarkets.

1 I find that word denationalisation interesting: where I comefrom its called privatisation. I suppose it all depends on whereyoure starting from; the end result is the same.

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ja v tvoji odsotnosti, in ko se vrne, se zdi, da so se vsespremembe zgodile iznenada. Ljudje hitijo drugam, ivijo

v drugih predelih mesta, kupujejo in jedo drugane stvari.Tovarne, skladia, klavnice se zapirajo in spreminjajo vumetnika sredia, muzeje ali supermarkete.

Ko enkrat spozna mesto, se pojavi nova, veliko hujadezorientiranost, ki pa izhaja iz dejstva, da nikakor nemore ve priklicati v spomin svojih prvih vtisov o njem.Vogal ali ulica sta se ti nemara zdela dalja ali drugae

vmeena v prostor; videti sta bila povsem drugana. Tedajse zave, da to ni otok in pravzaprav niti tvoj najljubikotiek, saj tja zahaja bolj poredko. Ugotovi, da res nemore ve obuditi prvih vtisov, eprav po drugi strani, nalastno preseneenje, povsem nepriakovano z dna sebepriklie v spomin neki detajl, ki ti ne da miru in ki za hipobudi tisti obutek o nekem prostoru, ki je zdajpremeen

drugam.Ko sem pred desetimi leti prvi priel v Ljubljano, sem

bival v hotelu Park, od koder sem se vsak dan sprehodil poTrubarjevi cesti v Cankarjev dom. Drugih predelov mesta,odmaknjenih od te vzhodno-zahodne linije, in ulic staregamestnega jedra skorajda nisem videl. Potem pa so nekegadne v vili poleg parka Tivoli priredili slovesnost ob razsta-

vi, pri kateri sem sodeloval tudi sam. Bil je vro dan, prire-ditev pa nadvse dolgoasna: to je bil eden tistih dogodkov,kjer si navzoi drug drugemu estitajo, pripravi pa se gazgolj zavoljo lokalnih funkcionarjev in njihovih drubeni-kov. Ker so imeli kustosi, vladni ministri in sponzorji govorv slovenini, sva se s prijateljem odloila, da se sprehodivapo parku. Za vogalom sva zagledala bazen.

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And then, when you actually get to know the city, thereis another, stranger disorientation that comes from being

unable to recover your first impressions. This corner, thisblock, seemed longer, differently placed in space, it wasanother place. Now you realise that it isnt an island andmaybe, in fact, its not even the landmark you had made it:you discover that you actually rarely go there. You realisethat you are unable to recover that initial impression of aplace, unless somehow it surprises you because you unex-

pectedly recall, from out of the corner of an eye, a detailthat jars and for a moment restores that sensation of aplace that had been displaced.

The very first time I came to Ljubljana, ten years ago,I stayed at the Park Hotel and walked every day alongTrubarjeva to Cankarjev Dom. I saw very few placesbeyond this general east-west corridor and the streets of the

Old Town. One day, in connection with the exhibition inwhich I was participating, there was a reception at a villabeside the Tivoli Gardens. It was a hot day and the recep-tion was very boring: one of those mutually congratulatoryevents held solely for the benefit of the local functionariesand their corporate associates. As various curators and gov-ernment ministers and sponsors made speeches in Slovenian,

a friend and I decided to take a walk around the gardens.Turning a corner, we saw in front of us a swimming pool.

Initially we simply dipped our feet in the water, to tryand cool off; but other artists had followed us, and beforelong a group of Italians had stripped and jumped into thepool. Within a few minutes all the artists in the exhibi-tion were swimming and splashing in the pool. The vari-

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Sprva sva vanj pomoila samo noge, da bi se malceosveila. Pridruili so se nama e drugi umetniki, in kot bi

trenil, e je skupina Italijanov odvrgla oblaila in skoila vvodo. V nekaj minutah so vsi na razstavi sodelujoi ume-tniki plavali in ofotali v bazenu, medtem pa so obinskiin vladni dostojanstveniki nadaljevali s slovesnostjo, ven-dar vidno vznejevoljeni, saj smo se prav tisti, zaradi katerihso jo sploh priredili, vedli tako nedostojno, sami pa so bilipovsem nemoni, da bi to prepreili. Ne spomnim se natan-

ko, ali sem izvedel e med slovesnostjo ali po njej, da je bilata ljubljanska vila neko Titov dom. S to novico je ta prilo-nost zame dobila poseben pomen, kraj sam pa svojevrstenar. Kakor koli e, Titov bazen se mi danes ne zdi pose-bej uporabna orientacijska toka v Ljubljani, saj ko semse deset let pozneje vnovi sprehajal po isti ulici, se nisemmogel spomniti niti, katera od teh velikih stavb, ki so danes

preteno veleposlanitva, je bila njegova vila.

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V mestu, ki ga e ne pozna, vstopi v bar negotov inzaskrbljen, z obutkom, da izstopa, da preprosto ne soditja. e nisi ravno komunikativen (in ne razume lokal-

nega jezika), zlahka izpade kot svet zase.2 Nikogar od

2 Kdor ne razume slovenskega jezika, ga zlahka preslii: neki preva-jalec mi je pojasnil, da slovenino mono zaznamuje diglosijain da se pisni jezik bistveno razlikuje od govornega; tudi ljubljan-ska govorica se razlikuje od govorice drugod po Sloveniji. Ko jejezik zveden na zvoke, ki svobodno odstopajo od predvidenedenotacije, ko se pomenska veriga ne more skleniti, ko iz tokanerazumljivih fonemov ni mo razbrati niti nakljune, sicer

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ous municipal and governmental dignitaries tried to carryon with their reception, clearly annoyed that we, who had

provided the alibi for their polite celebrations, were behav-ing so outrageously, and that there was apparently noth-ing that could be done about it. I cant remember nowwhether it was during the reception or subsequently thatI was told that the villa had been Titos Ljubljana home.For me, this occasion obviously took on a special signifi-cance, and the site became bestowed with a particular reso-

nance; but Titos pool is not a very useful landmark for mein Ljubljana today, and as I walked along the same streetten years later, I wasnt even able to work out which of thelarge houses, many of which are now ambassadorial resi-dences, was his villa.

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In a city you dont yet know, you walk into a bar in thatuncertain, apprehensive way, expecting to stand out, tohave no good reason for being there. If you arent an easyconversationalist (and you dont have the language) thenyou can be your own island.2 Nobody who is known to

2 The Slovene language is very amenable to not being heard byanyone who doesnt understand it: a translator explained to methat it is a diglossic language, one whose formal, written formdiffers sharply from its spoken form; and the Slovene spoken inLjubljana differs somewhat from that spoken elsewhere in thecountry also. When language is reduced to sounds that float free-ly from their intended denotation, when the chain of significationcannot be completed, when not even the occasional recognisableword can be separated from the stream of unintelligible pho-

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prihajajoih ne pozna. Odpre svojo knjigo in pri tem tenihe ne zmoti.

e pa si taken kot jaz, zlahka spremeni svojo nava-do, zaradi katere znova in znova, dan za dnem vedno obisti uri obie iste domane kraje, kjer si poie isto svojtip prostora: ne ta kavarna, pa pa ona druga, ki je manjturistina, ali taka, ki ima zunaj izobeen cenik ali ki ponu-ja angleki menu, vendar v katero zahajajo domaini, neravno taka, pa pa manja ali veja ali z druganimi miza-

mi, prijazneja do tujcev ali nemara bolj zadrana do nere-dnih strank, skratka, taka, ki daje obutek domanosti.Tava naokoli, vse bolj utrujen in preet s tistim otonimobutkom nepripadnosti, v katerem skrivoma tako uiva:saj kdo ima e ta privilegij, da se sprehaja po ulicah in opa-zuje, ne da bi koga poznal, razumel ali sploh kaj razpoznal?

Gre za povsem drugaen nain pohajkovanja: v mestu,

ki ga ne pozna, se ne more izgubiti. Sam se prej izgu-bim v svojem rojstnem kraju, a le zato, ker ga zelo dobropoznam. V njem lahko izginem postanem neviden, pre-prosto neham slediti. Izklopim vsako misel. Obutekizgubljenosti, ki preveva turista, ki ne ve ve, kam jenamenjen ali kje je, je puhel, banalen in se v hipu razblini:sledi soncu, reki, zavije proti vzhodu, se vrne nazaj po

isti poti, po kateri si priel, gre v smeri proti cerkvi ali pre-prosto tava naokoli brez cilja.

prepoznavne besede, tedaj zvok pogovora zlahka preglasijo zvokimimoidoih avtomobilov, tihega glasbenega ozadja ali petja pticzunaj v naravi.

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you will cross the threshold and enter the room. Youllopen your book and no-one will interrupt you.

But if youre like me, you will also replace habit, thehabit which, when at home, sees you enter the same famil-iar places at the same time of day, day after day, with asearch for a type of place: not this caf, some place thatsa little less touristy; or one with the price list outside; orwith an English menu but a local clientele; not this one,somewhere smaller, or larger, or with different tables, one

less forbidding to a stranger, or one less immediately ingra-tiating toward those who arent regulars; one that lookslike somewhere you might already know. You will wanderaround, tiring yourself out and enhancing the melancholyfeeling of unbelonging that, secretly, you so enjoy: becausewho else has this privilege to wander the streets, just look-ing, knowing no-one, perhaps understanding nothing any-

one says or any sign they see?And its a different kind of wandering also: you cant

get lost in a city you dont know. I can get lost in the citywhere I was born, but only because I know all its streets sowell. I can become lost there thats to say, I can becomeinvisible, I can cease to register. I can lose my self there.Getting lost, like a tourist, in the sense of not knowing

where youre going, or where you are, is a shallow, banalsensation, and quickly remedied: follow the sun, follow theriver, walk east, walk back the way you came, walk towardthe church, or just keep going.

nemes, then the sounds of others conversations becomes as easyto ignore as those of the passing traffic, or the music playing qui-etly in the background, or the birdsong in the trees outside.

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Kljub vsemu sem se tudi v Ljubljani poskual izgubiti, dabi nael odgovore na tista vpraanja, ki pomagajo spoznatimesto. A da bi se lahko izgubil, sem moral najprej dobitiorientacijo, odpraviti sem moral obutek, da ne vem, kjesem. Tako sem se lahko aktivneje poglobil v strukturomesta in njegova notranja razmerja.

Mnogi so mi pripovedovali o velikem nakupovalnem

srediu v BTC-ju, nekoliko zunaj mesta. Spraeval sem se,zakaj neki je to tako pomembno; taka obmoja e dolgoniso ve ni posebnega, zlasti potem ko so evropska mestazaela oponaati amerike tekmece in se preoblikovala poneki nenavadni dvojnosti, ki niha med avtomobili in peci:

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Nonetheless I endeavoured to get lost in Ljubljana, andby getting lost, to discover the questions that would forcethe city to reveal itself to me. To get lost, I first had togain some sense of the city, so that I would not simply beunsure where I was but rather more productively sub-merged in the structures and relations of the city.

A number of people I spoke to had described to me the

large out-of-town retail development at BTC. I wonderedwhy this was so significant; such sites have long ago ceasedto be unusual, as European cities have mimicked theirAmerican counterparts and been remodelled according toa strange dualism between cars and pedestrians: bourgeoisshopping areas, in high-rent city centre districts, are pedestri-anised, while more everyday requirements are pushed further

out to areas only accessible by car, and laid out according tothe need to park as close as possible to ones destination.

If you take a bus towards BTC from the stop across theroad from the main railway station, there is a good chancethat you will sit in slow-moving traffic around martinskaCesta, the main arterial road to the north-east of the city;the 2 million Slovenians now own over a million cars, and

this has a direct influence on the way in which the urbanhas been shaped and re-shaped over recent years.

You are now in the middle of Ljubljanas largest everregeneration project, Partnership martinska, a develop-ment of over 200 hectares of former industrial land, runby a public-private partnership that includes the City ofLjubljana and the owners of the BTC complex as well as

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buroazna nakupovalna obmoja dragih predelov mestnihsredi, kamor avtomobili nimajo vstopa, na eni strani, in

na drugi strani z avtomobilom dostopna obmoja na obro-bju mest, kamor so potisnjena vsakdanja opravila in ki sozasnovana tako, da omogoajo im blije parkirie kraju,kamor si namenjen.

e se s postajalia nasproti glavne eleznike posta-je odpelje z avtobusom v BTC, se teko izogne zastojuna martinski cesti, glavni mestni prometnici, ki pelje v

severovzhodni del mesta; dva milijona Slovencev imata eve kot milijon avtomobilov, kar je neposredno vplivalotudi na oblikovanje in preoblikovanje urbanega prostora vzadnjih letih.

Partnerstvo martinska je najobseneji projekt prenoveLjubljane doslej. Obmoje, ki se razprostira na dvesto hek-tarjih nekdanje industrijske povrine, je v lasti javno-zaseb-

nega partnerstva med Mestno obino Ljubljana, lastni-ki BTC-ja ter drugimi lokalnimi razvojnimi partnerji inlastniki zemlji. S stalia zasebnih vlagateljev je najvejaugodnost tega partnerstva v tem, da tveganje odplaevanjazaetnih razvojnih strokov nosijo javni organi obine,vladni oddelki in drugi , ki s postavljanjem preferennihpogojev vstopanja na trge skrbijo za donosnost zasebnega

kapitala, medtem pa se dolgoroni donos (iz naslova rentin rasti vrednosti premoenja) povrne vlagateljem. elja pohitrem razvoju in izkorianju vrednosti politinega kapita-la v kratkem asovnem obdobju trajanja projekta pomeni,da se lahko obiajne ovire razvoju premostijo: predpisi selahko nekoliko sprostijo, zemljia se prerazporedijo, neza-elene prebivalce pa se z dvigom trnih obrestnih mer

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various other local developers and landowners. From theprivate investors point of view, the great boon of such part-

nerships is that the public bodies municipalities, govern-ment departments and so on carry the risk of the initialdevelopment costs, leveraging private money with their ownpreferential terms of access to the markets, whilst the long-term returns (from rents and asset appreciation) flow backto the investor. Meanwhile, the desire to develop quicklyand to extract valuable political capital within the short

timeframes of elected terms means that the usual obstruc-tions to development can be put to one side: regulations canbe eased, land can be rezoned, awkward inhabitants can bebought off at market rates and resettled elsewhere. Privatecapital requires ever faster, ever larger returns from sizea-ble investments in regeneration; hence the gigantic scale ofmany contemporary urban developments, which raze entire

neighbourhoods so that new quarters can be laid out intheir place. The mortgage and rental debts of these spectac-ular new cities-within-cities provide spectacular returns forprivate capital, returns which can be resold and reinvestedmany times over. The new streets and boulevards, the parksand supposedly public spaces, are handed over by the cityto be managed by private companies, who can decide what

behaviour is acceptable on their land, and who is deemedundesirable. Municipal authorities can retreat not just fromthe business of providing basic infrastructure, but frommanaging and maintaining it too; and the idea or meaningof publicness recedes ever further.

These days a public space is just one that is open, andto which access is more or less unrestricted. And whilst,

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odvrne od mestnega jedra in prisili, da se odselijo drugam.Zasebni kapital narekuje vse hitreje in vije donose obse-

nih nalob v prenovo; od tod tako veliki sodobni urbanirazvojni projekti, ki uniujejo celotne soseske, na mestukaterih zrastejo nove mestne etrti. Hipotekarni in rentnidolg teh spektakularnih novih mest-znotraj-mest omogoaastronomske donose zasebnega kapitala, ki se lahko vednoznova prodajo in investirajo drugam. Nove ulice in drevo-rede, parke in nemara tudi javne prostore mesto preda v

upravljanje zasebnim drubam, ki imajo pravico odloati,kakno vedenje se bo na njihovi zemlji odobravalo in kdoni zaelen. Mestne oblasti se tako izognejo ne samo zagota-vljanju osnovne infrastrukture, pa pa tudi njenemu upra-vljanju in vzdrevanju; s tem pa se ideja o javnem ali nje-gov pomen e bolj razblinjata.

Danes velja za javni prostor tisti prostor, ki je odprt

in bolj ali manj dostopen vsakomur. Z zasebnim last-nitvom in upravljanjem tako imenovanega javnega pro-stora se njegova dostopnost manja, s tem pa tudi obutekskupnosti, ki ga je neko vseboval pojem bivanja v jav-nosti. Taka skupnost, ki je bila izbojevana ele po tem,ko je bilo upravljanje naih mest iztrgano iz rok zasebne-ga (obiajno aristokratskega) lastnitva, je danes povsem

izgubila na vrednosti. Seveda je imelo javno, kakrno se jerazvilo v buroaznih evropskih prestolnicah v osemnajstemin devetnajstem stoletju, prav tako svoja neomajna moral-na naela vladanja; njegove zapovedi o primernem vedenjuso ustvarile poseben vzorec bivanja v javnosti, ki ga jedobro socializirani prebivalec zlahka privzel za svojega.Ne gre za to, da je javno lastnitvo nad mestom ali javno

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with the private ownership and management of so-calledpublic space, the degree of that restriction increases, at

the same time, the sense of commonality that once residedin the notion of being in public, a commonality that wasonly achieved when control of our cities was wrested awayfrom private (usually aristocratic) ownership, is no longerheld to have value. Of course, publicness, as developed inthe bourgeois capitals of Europe in the eighteenth and nine-teenth centuries, has its rigorous policing morality as well;

its injunctions to behave appropriately constructed, in turn,a proper sense of being in public that could be internalisedby the well-socialised citizen. It isnt that public ownershipor planning of city space is somehow inherently better; butprivatised space makes us subject to an unaccountable dis-cipline, a power that originates not in the democratic statebut in the strength of capital. This private power is like that

of the absolute monarch (in whose name and image, ironi-cally, the idea of the the public first appears: Ltat, cestmoi, famously appropriated by the man who led Irelandin various capacities for four decades, Eamon de Valera:When I want to know what the people of Ireland think, Ihave only to look into my own heart.). Only a truly dem-ocratic, which is to say, commonly controlled, space can

have the potential to be any different. This is not a ques-tion of dreaming of a return to an unregulated, Rabelaisiansocial space of continuous excess and personal indulgence;that freedom is not one Im particularly interested in. Thepoint of the city, the thing that makes it a categorically dif-ferent social space, is that the limits of sociability thatwhich we may or may not do can be defined actively and

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nartovanje mesta samo po sebi bolje; prej gre za to, danas zasebni prostor sili v nekakno nenavadno disciplini-

ranost, mo, ki ne izvira iz demokratinosti, pa pa izsilovitosti kapitala. Zasebna oblast je enaka oblasti abso-lutnega monarha (v imenu in podobi katerega se, ironino,tudi prvi pojavi ideja o javnem; kot je znano, si je fra-zo Ltat, cest moi prilastil Eamon de Valera, mo,ki je v razlinih funkcijah cela tiri desetletja vodil Irsko:Kadar elim vedeti, kaj misli irsko ljudstvo, zadostuje, da

se zazrem v svoje srce.). Samo zares demokratien pro-stor, tak torej, ki ga upravlja skupnost, nosi v sebi poten-cial druganosti. Ne gre toliko za eljo po vrnitvi v dere-guliran, Rabelaisov drubeni prostor nenehnih ekscesov inosebne privilegiranosti; to ni tista svoboda, ki je predmetmojega zanimanja. Smisel mesta, tisto, kar iz njega naredikategorino drugaen drubeni prostor, je to, da meje soci-

abilnosti ki jo lahko izkoristimo ali ne lahko doloimoaktivno in skupaj, ne pa, da jih doloa oblast s takimi pri-stojnostmi, ki so pravzaprav mogoe le v teoriji, pa tuditaka ne, ki tako kot sodoben kapital ne terja nobene legi-timnosti. Mesto, kot bomo videli, ni le zbir arbitrarnih inzanimivih arhitekturnih slogov in tipologij, ki jih naselju-jejo zgolj abstraktne 3D podobe zadnjega prenovitvenega

projekta, pa pa je skupaj z vsemi svojimi zgradbami vselej in samo skupek drubenih odnosov, interakcij inpogajanj, ki dnevno potekajo v njem.

Partnerstvo martinska, takno je namre mnenjeobine, predstavlja model urbanosti, ki ga lahko razu-memo kot vpeljevanje dnevnih asovno-prostorskih ritmovin ivahnega, ulinega utripa ob doloenih trenutkih dneva.

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in common, not by a power whose authority is so abstract-ed from the commons that it only exists in theory, nor by

one which, as with modern capital, makes no claim to legit-imacy whatsoever. The city, as we shall see, is not simplya collection of arbitrary and interesting architectural stylesand typologies, inhabited only by the abstracted figures inthose 3D visualisations of the latest regeneration project;the city is always, and only, the totality of all the social rela-tions and interactions and negotiations that take place in it

against the backdrop of all those buildings on a dailybasis.

Partnership martinska, according to the municipality,is driven by a model of urbanity interpreted as in-fill-ing of daily time-spatial rhythms and the establishment oflively, street pulse in particular periods of the day. In thisway the scheme of activities and programmes in particular

sites is defined and connected to pertaining characteristicsof the built structure.3 This definition of urbanity is con-veniently empty empty of any actual inhabitants, thatis: rhythm and pulse suggest a kind of frenetic socialitybut nowhere is this further substantiated. It is the builtstructure, as always, which will be left to define life here.The use of buzzwords that strive to elide work and play

invoking a nebulous creativity in everything we do underlines an infantilisation evident in the contemporary,post-industrial city that well return to elsewhere.

3 City of Ljubljana (2009) Partnership martinska District Rede-velopment(Ljubljana: City of Ljubljana), p. 9.

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Na ta nain se shema dejavnosti in programov v doloenihmestih definira in povezuje s pripadajoim znaajem gra-

jenega objekta.3

Taka definicija urbanosti je narav-nost puhla, saj ne upoteva prebivalcev mesta. Povedanodrugae, ritem in utrip mesta zahtevata sproenodruabnost, ki pa je ni nikjer zaznati. Navsezadnje bo, kotvedno, grajeni objekt tisti, ki bo narekoval ivljenje okolisebe. Uporaba strokovnih terminov s katerimi se poskuazaobiti delo in igro ter s prstom pokazati na nekakno

nejasno kreativnost v vsem, kar ponemo kae nainfantilizacijo, ki je oitna v sodobnem, postindustrijskemmestu, h kateremu se bomo e vrnili.

*

Izstopil sem na enem od postajali v BTC-ju. Pravzaprav

kaj takega nisem priakoval, eprav sem nekaj podobne-ga e videl. Obiajno parki zunaj mesta z maloprodajnimitrgovinami zrastejo na degradiranih obmojih, potem koso bile tamkajnje zgradbe poruene. Do zgodnjih devet-desetih let minulega stoletja je bil BTC eden najvejihprevoznih in logistinih sredi v jugovzhodni Evropi. Koje to obmoje po neodvisnosti prilo v roke zasebnikov,

so obstojea skladia preprosto preuredili v velike malo-prodajne trgovine, cestno mreo in parkiria za tovor-njake pa ohranili. Druba je kmalu prodrla na london-sko borzo in se pozneje preoblikovala v zasebno drubo;

3 City of Ljubljana, Partnership martinska District Redevelop-ment, City of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, 2009, str. 9.

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*

After a short time I got off the bus at one of the stops inBTC. This was not exactly what I had been expecting,even if I had seen its kind elsewhere. Usually, these out-of-town retail parks spring up on brownfield sites once thepre-existing structures have been cleared away. Until theearly 1990s, BTC was the site of one of the largest haulageand logistics depots in south-eastern Europe; when the site

was privatised after independence, the existing warehouseswere simply converted to huge retail sheds, and the grid ofstreets and lorry parks retained. The company was brieflyfloated on the London Stock Exchange, but was then con-verted to a private company; there is no public space inBTC that is to say, nothing that is publicly-owned. Here,capital can service the needs and wants of the consumer

with the minimum interference; functionalism acquiresform at BTC, and this form feeds back into the expectationof what the city itself should be: there is no non-productivespace here; or rather, no non-consumptive space. There isno shared sociality except the shared, blissful experience ofspectacularised consumption.

BTC describe their development as an urban whole:

more recent phases have seen it grow to include a multi-plex cinema, various fast food outlets and restaurants, aswimming pool with waterslides, and most bizarrely Ieven found a dodgem ride, conveniently situated in the carpark outside McDonalds and the Kolosej cinema. Why notdrive in the bumper-to-bumper traffic to BTC, navigate itsendless mini-roundabouts and find your parking space, and

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v BTC-ju namre ni javnega prostora tam ni niesar,kar bi bilo v javni lasti. Tukaj kapital servisira potrebe

in elje potronikov z minimalnim vmeavanjem drugih;funkcionalnost dobi v BTC-ju svoj izraz, ki se odraa vpriakovanjih ljudi o tem, kakno mora biti mesto: tukajni prostora, ki ne bi bil produktiven oziroma potroniki.Tukaj ne obstaja skupno druenje, pa pa le skupna, blae-na in spektakularizirana potronika izkunja.Nosilci projekta vidijo BTC kot urbano celoto: zadnje

pridobitve so kinematografski kompleks z ve dvorana-mi, razline postojanke s hitro hrano, restavracije, bazen stobogani in kar je e najbolj nenavadno od vsega naelsem celo avtodrom, ki je prikladno nameen na parkiriupred McDonaldsom in Kolosejem. Zakaj se ne bi odpe-ljali v dolgi koloni v BTC, prevozili neskonna majcenakrona kriia, poiskali svoje parkirno mesto in se nato

prepustili vonji z avtomobilkom? To bi lahko bilo navse-zadnje skrbno premiljeno drubeno nartovanje: nemaraobstaja kakna statistika, ki prikazuje zmanjanje tevilanesre z motornimi vozili v severovzhodnem delu mesta,zahvaljujo temu inovativnemu vedenjskemu preizkusu.Tistega dne se ni nihe vozil z avtomobilki.

BTC je bolj urejen kot marsikateri drug podoben

maloprodajni center, saj so njegovo zasnovo zaznamo-vala skladia, ki so tam stala e prej: vsaka ulica s svetloprevleenimi proelji skladi ima zadaj svoj parkirniprostor z nakladalno ploadjo in ogromno povrinoza obraanje tovornjakov, ki e kar naprej oskrbujejoskladia in vso junovzhodno Evropo z blagom. Navse-zadnje v BTC ne zahajajo po nakupih samo Ljubljanani,

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then let off steam on the dodgems? This might almost be acarefully researched piece of social planning at BTC; per-

haps somewhere there are statistics showing a reduction inthe number of motoring accidents in the north-east of thecity as a result of this innovative behavioural experiment.On the day I visited, the dodgems sat unridden.

BTC is more ordered than many similar retail develop-ments, simply because its layout was predetermined by thehaulage depots that were here before: each street of bright-

ly-clad warehouse faades is accompanied by its back lot,with loading bays and wide turning areas for the lorriesthat still service this holding centre for the commodities ofsouth-eastern Europe: for it is not just Ljubljanans, nor evenSlovenians only, but Austrians, Italians and Croats who cometo shop at BTC. Although the more recent phases have bro-ken somewhat with the shape and form of the earlier parts,

and though it can feel a little like one is walking around thevarious lots of a large film studio, and even given BTCs hugesize, the development still maintains a kind of formal senseand is instinctively less disorientating than many such centres.

BTC is emblematic for being the earliest and still mostcomprehensive privatisation of urban space in Ljubljana.The municipal authority sees the shoppers flowing there

on the regional motorway system from Maribor, Trieste,Zagreb and Udine, but these shoppers flow out again with-out setting foot in the city itself; why would they? It takesthem too long to get there on the congested streets aroundmartinska, and what is there for them when they come?The shops are all in BTC, which has displaced so many ofthe functions of the city itself.

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tudi samo Slovenci ne, pa pa tudi Avstrijci, Italijani inHrvati. Kljub temu da novi objekti po velikosti in obliki

nekoliko odstopajo od prejnjih, tako da se lovek pouti,kot bi se sprehajal med razlinimi oddelki ogromnega film-skega studia, in kljub velikosti BTC-ja, razvoj e vednoohranja nekaken formalni pridih in je bolj urejen od mno-gih podobnih sredi.

BTC velja za eno prvih in najobsenejih privatizacijurbanega prostora v Ljubljani. Nakupovalci se zgrinja-

jo z regionalne avtoceste iz Maribora, Trsta, Zagreba inVidma, in odhajajo, ne da bi prestopili prag mesta. Zakajbi le? Saj porabijo preve asa, da bi se prebili vanj skoziprometne zastoje okoli martinske ceste! In kaj jim mestosploh lahko ponudi? Vse trgovine so v BTC-ju, ki je mestuodvzel njegove tevilne funkcije.

S tega stalia ni teko uvideti pomena Partnerstva

martinska za Ljubljano: brez njega bi se mestno jedropostopoma razkropilo ter se lokalno in regionalno odce-pilo od okolice. Temeljni nart je nastal leta 2008, vendarse od takrat ni skoraj ni premaknilo; razvoj se nadaljujev BTC-ju z gradnjo 20-nadstropne, 89-metrske Kristalnepalae, ki bo trenutno najvija stavba v Sloveniji. Njenagradnja naj bi se konala v asu, ko bo izla ta publikaci-

ja (Imenovali smo jo Kristalna palaa. Le izbrani jo bodoimenovali tudi dom.). Vendar pa je treba tako ali drugaeto vizijo ele uresniiti; omejene zmogljivosti, zastarelamrea in inventar javnega transportnega sistema pomenijo,da bodo avtomobili e naprej zaznamovali urbani prostorv Ljubljani. Trenje med javnim in zasebnim, ki poteka naravni najosnovnejih vpraanj, nenehno ovira delo mestnih


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Seen this way, its easy to see why the Partnershipmartinska development should be so crucial to the citys

plans: without it, the core of the city is gradually becom-ing fragmented, detached from its surroundings locally andregionally. Since the masterplan was drawn up in 2008,however, not very much has happened; development con-tinues at BTC, with the 20 floor, 89-metre Crystal Palace,now the tallest building in Slovenia, on schedule for com-pletion around the time that this booklet is published (We

called it Crystal Palace, only the chosen few will call ithome). But in the space between, the vision has yet to berealised; and the limited capacity, rudimentary network andageing stock of the public transport system means that thecar will continue to define urban space in Ljubljana. Thistension between public and private at the most elemen-tary level continually creates new problems for the citys

administrators: the martinska regeneration seems to bedependent for its success, both in terms of its idealistically(and vaguely) stated aims, and of its prospect of being ableto generate sufficient returns for the private partners, on amassive investment in public transport infrastructure. Thereis no incentive for a private operator to make this invest-ment, since the network is very unlikely to be profitable in

the short or medium term. Meanwhile, the pedestrianisa-tion of large parts of the central core necessitates new provi-sion for car parking for the citys residents, but the mayorsplans for an underground car park beneath the historicmarkets on the banks of the Ljubljanica have been particu-larly unpopular. As they used to say, the contradictions areinherent in the system: even at this most basic level.

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upraviteljev: kot se zdi, je uspenost prenove martin-ske, njenih idealistino (in nejasno) zastavljenih ciljev ter

monosti generiranja zadostnih donosov zasebnim partner-jem, odvisna od obsenega vlaganja v javno transportnoinfrastrukturo. Noben zasebnik ni pripravljen prevzeti tenalobe, ker je ta na srednji ali dolgi rok prejkone nedono-sna. Poleg urejanja plonikov za pece je v srediu mestapotrebna tudi oskrba stanovalcev s parkirii, vendar je bilupanov predlog gradnje podzemnega parkiria pod zgo-

dovinsko trnico na nabreju Ljubljanice zavrnjen. Govo-rili so, da so protislovja e v sistemu samem, tudi ko gre zatako osnovne zadeve.

Naprej lahko ubere pot kar ez tranice tovornegaprometa, ki so neko oskrbovale mlin, e danes stoje vseverozahodnem delu BTC City-ja, od tam pa krene poBratislavski cesti, kjer se pred teboj dvigajo dimniki elek-

trarne pri Toplarni (ta je kar 22 metrov vija od Kristalnepalae), dokler konno ne zavije na desno mimo stavbeEmporium in sede na avtobus, ki te popelje nazaj v mesto.Ta pokrajina zdruuje vse, kar je bilo izgnano iz mestnegasredia: na eni strani velikansko industrijsko infrastruktu-ro z vso svojo umazanijo in veliino, ki tradicionalno veljaza negativni pol istemu, urejenemu, buroaznemu mestu z

nepoteljivim hlastanjem po naravnih in lovekih virih na stotine delavcev dnevno porabi na tisoe ton premoga,da bi oskrbeli regijo s toploto in energijo , na drugi stra-ni pa posturbano potroniko mesto s svojim Festivalomnakupov in zabave, ki vsako leto pritegne 300.000 obisko-valcev. Ta sopostavitev jasno kae, kako je mesto postaloprostor, izpraznjen svojih prvotnih funkcij.


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You may choose to do as I did, and cross the tracks forthe freight line that once serviced the flour mill still stand-

ing at the north-eastern corner of BTC City. From hereyou can wander down Bratislavska Cesta with the chim-neys of the power station at Toplarna ahead of you (still22 metres taller than the Crystal Palace) until you even-tually turn right near the Emporium building and take abus back into town. The combination in this landscape ofeverything that has been banished from the centre of the

city on one hand, the enormous industrial infrastructure,with its dirt and its sublime scale, traditionally the negativepole of the clean, ordered, bourgeois city, insatiably greedyfor resources, natural and human thousands of tons ofcoal are burned every day by hundreds of workers to pro-duce the regions heat and power; and on the other hand,the post-urban consumer city, with its annual Festival of

Shopping and Fun to which 300,000 visitors are drawneach year this juxtaposition accentuates the ways inwhich the city itself has become a space evacuated of somany of its former functions.

*

somehow we know by instinct that outsize build-ings cast the shadow of their own destruction beforethem, and are designed from the first with an eye totheir later existence as ruins.W. G. Sebald, Austerlitz, pp. 2324

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*

kajti nekje v sebi vemo, da dela arhitekture, kizdrsnejo v predimenzioniranost, e meejo sencosvojega unienja in imajo od vsega zaetka v sebizasnovo svoje pozneje biti kot ruevine.W. G. Sebald, Austerlitz, str. 19

Goethejev roman Izbirne sorodnosti (Wahlverwandtschaf-

ten) vsebuje odstavek, v katerem liki razpravljajo o poko-paliki arhitekturi. Mladi arhitekt pravi, da je zbral primereve tiso tipov in slogov nagrobnih spomenikov, njegovapokroviteljica Charlotte pa se sprauje, zakaj se potemta-kem vsi posluujejo le nekaj istih arhetipov: obelisk, obkle-san steber, ara ... Zakaj je arhitektura smrti tako skromna?

Navje / Navje, 2010


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Goethes novel Elective Affinities [Wahlverwandtschaften]contains a section where the characters discuss funeraryarchitecture. A young architect says that he has collectedexamples of thousands of types and styles of such monu-ments; his patroness, Charlotte, asks why, then, are thesame few archetypes are always employed: the obelisk, thebroken column, the urn... Why is the architecture of death

so impoverished?The little Navje cemetery, just to the north of the rail-

way lines in Beigrad, was originally the main city ceme-tery, occupying a much larger site. It was regenerated byLjubljanas most beloved architectural son, Joe Plenik,in the 1930s, when the new municipal cemetery at ale,further out of town, was laid out (even the dead have to

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Pogled z Navja / View from Navje, 2010


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Manje pokopalie na Navju, severno od eleznikeproge za Beigradom, je bilo neko glavno mestno poko-

palie, ki se je razprostiralo po veliko veji povrini. Vtridesetih letih minulega stoletja ga je prenovil tedajnajugledneji ljubljanski arhitekt Joe Plenik, potem koje bilo nekoliko izven mesta zasnovano novo obinskopokopalie ale (tudi pokojni morajo trpeti ponianjeprisilnega izgona na obrobje mest, ko njihova parcela vsrediu mesta pridobi na vrednosti). Predvidoma naj bi se

grobovi raznih narodnih herojev prenesli na Navje, a je taprojekt prepreila druga svetovna vojna in posledino ni bilnikoli uresnien. Plenikovi stari so kljub temu ostali naNavju in se izognili premestitvi na ale.

Pokopalie je posejano z drobnimi obeliski in obkle-sanimi stebri, ki se Goethejevim likom ne zdijo prav niposeben vir navdiha. e pa se ozre proti vzhodu, vidi

nenavadno podrto piramido, ki lei tik pod nizkim poko-palikim zidom: pravzaprav je to pred kratkim zgrajeni sta-novanjski objekt. Kot je znano, je Le Corbusier deponijorudnih odpadkov, ki je bila vidna z vlaka v Flandriji, zame-njal za veliko piramido; nemara pa le ni tako nenavadno,e ob pogledu z Navja namesto nagrobnega obeliska vidi-mo vpadljiv nov stanovanjski objekt, ki potrjuje globoko

resnico o arhitekturi.4 Arhitektura rpa, ali e bolje, arhi-tektura je nagrobna umetnost; Adolf Loos je menil, da searhitektura zane pri grobu, kupu zemlje, e preden je nanjpostavljen kakren koli spomenik. Po njegovem mnenju je

4 Povzeto po Jeremy Till, Architecture Depends, MIT Press,Cambridge (MA), 2009, str. 48.


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suffer the indignity of being forcibly removed to the sub-urbs when the their plots become too valuable). The graves

of various national heroes were supposed to be movedto Navje, but the project was interrupted by the SecondWorld War and never subsequently completed; Pleniksown parents, however, managed to stay in Navje and avoidrelocation to ale.

The cemetery is dotted with the miniature obelisksand truncated columns that Goethes characters find so

uninspiring. But if one looks toward the east, one sees astrange fallen pyramid squatting just beyond the low cem-etery wall: in fact, a recently built apartment complex. LeCorbusier, famously, mistook a slagheap, viewed from atrain in Flanders, for a great pyramid; perhaps it is not sostrange, as we look out now from Navje, to see this trans-lation of the funerary obelisk into a striking new apart-

ment complex as confirmation of a deep truth about archi-tecture.4 Architecture steals from no, architecture is afunerary art; Adolf Loos thought that architecture beginswith a grave, a mound of earth, even before there are anymonuments; according to Loos, the tomb is the first build-ing truly to exceed its function.5 And while Roland Barthesthought that photographys insistence on the perpetuation

of a frozen moment only served to emphasise the inexora-ble passing forever of that moment, the coming extinction

4 Quoted in Jeremy Till (2009) Architecture Depends (Cambridge,MA: MIT Press), p. 48.

5 See Denis Hollier (1992) Against Architecture (Cambridge, MA:MIT Press), p. xxi.

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gomila prvi objekt, ki zares presega svojo funkcijo.5 Med-tem ko je Roland Barthes trdil, da fotografija vztraja pri

ovekoveenju zamrznjenega trenutka le zato, da bi pouda-rila neizprosno minljivost trenutka, neizogibno izginevanjeasa, je arhitektura zares prava mrtvaka umetnost.6Arhitektura je nagrobni kamen, spomenik vsemu, kar eivi, ali bolje, kar e ni umrlo.

Javna umetnost, ki zapolnjuje vmesni prostor mednenavadno odsekanim stanovanjskim blokom in vho-

dom v pokopalie Navje s severa, me spominja na mnogemoderne ideje o mestu kot ludistinem prostoru, igriuza odrasle. V nenehno prenavljajoem se mestu javna ume-tnost svetlih barv pootroi delavca (ki ima dovolj asa zaigro). A prostor kljub temu izumira; nihe ne zahaja tja,kakor je bilo predvideno. Prvine skulpture so kot zane-marjeni grobovi. Ljudje se jih ogibajo, naglo hitijo mimo s

pogledom, uprtim v tla. Tja ob mraku zahajajo samo mla-dostniki, ki jim izostren ut govori, da je mesto netopirjevmesto ivljenja. Arhitektura in javna umetnost postanetatukaj ne le propaganda prenove in urbanega oienja, papa tudi nesmrtnosti.

Pravzaprav ne gre toliko za zavraanje posameznegadela javne umetnosti v tem prostoru ali za nekaken argu-

ment proti arhitekturi sami. Vsaka nova generacija moraodstraniti nagrobnike pozabljenih in jih na novo postavitina obrobje pokopalia, tako kot se krje pred zaetkom

5 Glej Denis Hollier, Against Architecture, MIT Press, Cambridge(MA), 1992, str. xxi.

6 Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida: Zapiski o fotografiji, StudiaHumanitatis, 1992, Ljubljana.Jonathan Cape, London, 1982.


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of all time, it is architecture that is the true deathly art.6All architecture is a headstone, a memorial to everything

thats still alive; or rather, not yet dead.The public art filling the space between that oddly trun-cated apartment block and the northern entrance to theNavje cemetery brings to my mind many of the fashionableideas of the city as a ludic space, an adult playground. Inthe perpetually-regenerating city, brightly-coloured publicart infantilises the worker (who now has so much play-

time). But the space is oddly moribund; nobody wants tooccupy it in the way that was presumably imagined. Theelements of the sculpture are like untended graves. Peopleskirt round them, walk through hastily with heads down,and only the teenagers congregate there after dark, becausetheir keen eye for vampires tells them that this is a spotwhere undeath lingers. Architecture and public art here

become propaganda not simply of regeneration and urbancleansing, but of deathlessness.

This isnt about the individual piece of public art in thisspace, nor is it an anti-architectural argument as such every new generation needs to clear away the headstonesof the forgotten ones and re-arrange them around the edgeof the cemetery, much as rubble will be cleared from the

building site before new work begins, to be dumped at theedge of the city. We must make way for new sepulchresand tombs, new grave arrangements. The city of the dead ispopulated by all of us.

6 Roland Barthes (1982) Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photo-graphy (London: Jonathan Cape)

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nove gradnje odloi na obrobje mesta. Treba je naredi-ti prostor za nove grobove in novo pokopaliko ureditev.

Mesto mrtvih pravzaprav naseljujemo vsi.Severno od Navja lei Dunajska cesta, ki po vzhodnistrani pelje mimo beigrajskega stadiona, ki ga je Plenikzgradil v dvajsetih letih minulega stoletja in je od leta 2008zaprt. Gradnja stadiona je sovpadla z gradnjo novih hi vnjegovi bliini, namenjenih druinam delavcev, zaposlenihpri jugoslovanskih dravnih eleznicah; ta drubena sta-

novanja so vkljuevala obmoja v skupni rabi pralnice,vrtove in drugo. Ko so po neodvisnosti Slovenije veinomestnih javnih objektov denacionalizirali, so obmojaokoli njih prela iz dravne znova v obinsko last. Vlagatelj,ki je pred nekaj leti odkupil beigrajski stadion, da bi gaspremenil v kompleks, opremljen z nakupovalnim centrom,luksuznim hotelom, pisarnikimi prostori, bari in restavra-

cijami ter novim, vejim stadionom, je v svoj nart vkljuiltudi nekdanja obmoja v skupni rabi in s tem izzval nego-dovanje lokalnih stanovalcev, ki so se poutili izkljueni zobmoja, do katerega so e pred kratkim imeli dostop inpravico do souporabe. Kot se pogosto rado zgodi, mestoskupaj z nosilcem projekta uporabi mehanizem mednaro-dnega arhitekturnega nateaja, da bi upraviilo nadaljnji

razvoj, a so prebivalci Beigrada s tobo zahtevali, da sejim nekdanje obmoje v skupni rabi povrne v obliki par-ka kot neodtujljive lastnine mesta. Kljub takemu uspehuvidimo, da je neko skupni prostor mesta danes le e raz-valina, ki ostane od razvoja, praznina med pomembnimiarhitekturnimi stvaritvami ali napana vknjiba v zemljikoknjigo. Vse do danes se razvoj beigrajskega stadiona ni


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Navigating north from Navje, one can find ones wayto Dunajska Cesta and pass, on the western side of thestreet, the old Beigrad stadium, built by Plenik in the1920s and closed since 2008. The construction of the sta-dium coincided with construction nearby of new houses

for the families of workers in the Yugoslav State Railways;this company housing included common areas laundries,gardens and so on. When the majority of public buildingsin the city were denationalised following independence,the associated common areas around the buildings revert-ed from the state to the municipality. The developer whobought the Beigrad stadium itself from the city just a few

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Gospodarska zbornica / Chamber of Commerce and Industry, 2010


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premaknil niti za las, z nastankom portnega parka Stoi-ce, ki ga je otvoril upan ter je prav tako vsepotroniki inspektakularen prostor nekoliko severneje od nekdanjegastadiona, pa je bolj malo verjetno, da se bo projekt kmalupremaknil (zlasti e upotevamo teave z njegovim financi-ranjem in uresniitvijo, s imer se je sreal tudi sam sedanji

upan kljub svoji izredno dobro razviti mrei poznanstev invisoki stopnji priljubljenosti).

Obiajno sprehajalci po Dunajski cesti, ki si radi ogle-dujejo mestno arhitekturo, stopijo na severno stran, odkoder je videti ljubljanski World Trade Center, ki je bildo nastanka Kristalne palae najvija stavba v mestu.Sicer pa so v tamkajnji bliini e druge, zanimiveje novo-

Modernistini blok, Dimieva ul. / Modernist Block, Dimieva St., 2010


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years ago, and who plans to turn it into a complex includ-ing shopping precincts, a luxury hotel, office suites, bars

and restaurants in addition to a new, larger stadium, alsoincluded these former common areas in his plans, prompt-ing objections from local residents, who felt that they werebeing excluded from an area to which they had enjoyed atraditional right of access until recently. As so often, thecity, together with the developer, used the mechanism of aninternational architectural competition to lend credibility

to the redevelopment, but the Beigrad residents were suc-cessful in their court challenge to have their former com-mon areas designated as a park, in the inalienable owner-ship of the city. Again and again, even after a result suchas this, we see that the former common space of the cityis now just that which is left over after redevelopment, thevoids between the landmark architecture; a mistranscrip-

tion in the register of lands. To date, nothing has happenedwith the Beigrad stadium development, and with theopening of Stoice stadium, a similarly multi-consumptiveand spectacular space, just a little further north, it seemsunlikely that the project will proceed very soon.

Typically walkers on Dunajska keen to see the citysarchitecture go to the northern end of the street and look

at the Ljubljana World Trade Center, which was the tall-est building in the city until the Crystal Palace surpassedit. However there are other more recent and more inter-esting additions closer by. Barely 200 metres beyond theold stadium, one comes to Dimieva Ulica, running eastfrom Dunajska. The same distance again down this streetis the office of the Slovenian Chamber of Commerce and

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sti novejega datuma. Komaj dvesto metrov pod starimstadionom pelje pot na Dimievo ulico, ki lei vzhodno

od Dunajske ceste. Na isti razdalji po tej ulici je poslo-pje Gospodarske zbornice Slovenije, ki so ga odprli leta1999, zasnoval pa ga je arhitekturni biro Sadar + Vuga (kije tudi avtor projekta Stoice). Na vsak nain je ta objektprelomnega pomena, eprav ni ravno na oeh nakljunegasprehajalca po mestu. Opremljen je s prostornim in odpr-tim prednjim dvoriem, ki razpira pogled na nizko gra-

dnjo z asimetrino razporejenimi nadstropji kot kup prav-kar premeanih kart. Navpini in vodoravni poudarki seizmenino prepletajo po celotni stavbi, barvne ploe inrazsvetljava ter zloene in odprte ploskve pa tvorijo igriveoblike: e zlasti barviti stavbni bloki, ki v dobi odraanjapredstavljajo na prvi nagib k oblikovanju in posnema-nju zunanjega sveta. Angleki pisatelj Owen Hatherley je

takno igrivo arhitekturo poimenoval psevdomoderni-zem: modernizem prikrivanja, stilni okrasek, ki ostane,ko iz njega izlui vse izvirne drubene in moralne ideje.7

Soseska je kljub vsemu razgibana, zlasti arhitekturno.Nasproti gospodarske zbornice stoji e ena stavba, sedeNacionalnega preiskovalnega urada, ki je odprl vrata eleleta 2010. Ta je nekoliko bolj toga in mrana. Kombinacija

kamna in stekla na tej e ne povsem zasedeni stavbi ustvar-

7 Navedek je iz Hatherleyjevega lanka, objavljenega v asopisuGuardian v soboto, 16. oktobra 2010, A Guide To The NewRuins of Great Britain, dostopen je na http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/oct/16/owen-hatherley-ruins-great-britain; lanekje iz Hatherleyjeve istoimenske knjige, ki je izla leta 2010 prizalobi Verso Books (London & New York).


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Industry, opened in 1999 and designed by the Slovenianpractice Sadar + Vuga (also responsible for the stadium

at Stoice). This is a landmark block by any definition,albeit one rather concealed from the casual observer in thecity. The building integrates a large, open forecourt into alow-rise design with irregularly stacked floors, as if thebuilding were a deck of cards that had just been shuffled.Vertical and horizontal emphases play off one anotherthroughout the structure and coloured panels and lighting,

and glazed and open planes, produce a form that is imme-diately reminiscent of play: most especially the colouredbuilding blocks that, in the nursery, are our first impulsetowards the modelling and copying of the outside world.The English writer Owen Hatherley refers to this kind ofplayful architecture as pseudomodernism: a modern-ism of concealment, a stylistic shell left after all the original

social and moral ideas have been stripped out.7The neighbourhood is clearly a lively one however, at

least architecturally, as immediately across the street fromthe Chamber of Commerce building is another new block,the headquarters of the National Bureau of Investigation,opened only in 2010. This is a starker and more sombreaffair, with the alternating stonework and glazing creating

a strong, albeit rather bland, vertical emphasis in this still

7 The quote is from Hatherleys article in the Guardian newspaperon Saturday 16th October 2010, A Guide To The New Ruins ofGreat Britain, available at http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/oct/16/owen-hatherley-ruins-great-britain; this article is inturn derived from Hatherleys book of the same name, publishedin 2010 by Verso Books (London & New York).

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ja moan, a nemote navpini poudarek. Zahodno odgospodarske zbornice pa je manja, pet- ali estnadstropna

zgradba, katere datum nastanka ni znan, gre pa nedvomnoza zapuino modernizma. To je preprost betonski objekts progasto povrino, ki je na prazni steni stopnine ograjepreluknjana. Opremljen je s petimi manjimi, kvadratnimiokni, nameenimi navpino po sredinski liniji ter z zaob-ljenimi robovi in okvirji, ki zaradi drugane barvne podlagerahlo izstopajo. Stavba ne pritegne posebne pozornosti in je

zlasti zaradi bliine drugih pretirano poudarjenih objektovpovsem neopazna. Njena elegantnost in stilna izienosttvorita prijeten kontrast z okolikim vizualnim truem, toje s pravo propagando globalnega poslovanja tik ob njej ters strogim in veliastnim policijskim objektom na nasprotnistrani ceste.

*

Neobarone stavbe ljubljanskega avstro-ogrskega obdobjaso veinoma neverjetno naklonjene ruenju in ustvarja-nju prostora za novo mesto; kot due, ki so bile preneenena ale, da bi uklonljivo naredile prostor novim grobo-vom. Ko sem se zopet vrnil v center mesta (eprav, kakor

velja tudi za Pariz, center dejansko oznauje zelo ozkoobmoje zahodnega brega pod starim mestnim jedrom;kraj, ki ga bom v nadaljevanju opisal, pa ne spada vanj),sem se sprehodil ob robu zapuenega Kolizeja, impozant-nih nekdanjih avstrijskih vojanic s srede devetnajstega sto-letja, ki je komaj viden z Gosposvetske ceste, eprav njego-vo proelje v prvem nadstropju prekrivajo reklamni oglasi


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rather squat building. On the western side of the Chamberof Commerce, however, is a small, five- or six-storey build-ing of uncertain date and much more clearly Modernistheritage, a simple concrete structure, the striated surface ofwhich is punched through, in the otherwise blank wall ofthe stairwell, with five small, square windows, centred inthe building in a single column, their corners rounded and

their surrounds subtly outlined in a contrasting surface.The building is unremarkable, and certainly understated,when viewed beside its bombastic neighbours, but its ele-gance and clarity are a pleasant contrast to the surroundingvisual noise: the propaganda-in-form of global business,just next-door, and the austere omniscience of the police,across the road.

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Nacionalni preiskovalni urad / National Bureau of Investigation, 2010


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in je celotna stavba bolje vidna z druge strani, od hotelaLev.

e se sprehodi po upanievi ulici in pokuka sko-zi nizke grmovnice na bencinsko rpalko ali za stavbo,kjer je blinji servis ivalnih strojev (od koder so zdajnjiskvoterji stavbe zartali novo, ojo pot), v hipu ugoto-vi, da je to ogromna stavba, v dolini povprene bloko-vske soseske tega predela mesta. V drugih mestih se nihene bi udil, e bi bila stavba, kakrna je ta, zaitena kot

kulturna dediina in nemara preoblikovana v galerijoali muzej; vendar pa in tega se zavedajo tudi ljubljanskinosilci projektov na doloeni toki dediina predsta-vlja oviro kapitalu. Obenem pa se z zaito starih stavbsamo zato, ker so stare, pozablja tudi na potrebe iveih(tistih torej, ki e niso umrli), in v Ljubljani e kar obse-en del starega mestnega jedra in okolikih predelov spada

v obmoje dediine. Temeljni argument proti zaiti Koli-zeja nedvomno povsem funkcionalnega in tudi dekora-tivno zanimivega objekta znotraj tega obmoja je bil, daje zaitene dediine za potrebe turizma dovolj in da brezgradnje novih stavb, ne glede na njihov tip ali namemb-nost, kapitalski donos ni mogo. (Ni treba posebej poudar-jati, da trenutno nedovoljeno skvoterstvo stavbe ni nikoli

predstavljeno kot potencialno pozitivna uporaba prostora,ki je prepuen propadanju zaradi nesoglasja med javnimiin zasebnimi interesi. Skvoterje zlahka povezujemo z dru-gimi nizkotnimi oblikami prestopnitva in jih zato krivi-mo za stanje, v katerem se je znala stavba, namesto da bikrivili njene lastnike ali projektante.) Primitivna akumu-lacija stavb, ki so bile neko v javni ali dravni lasti, se


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*

The neo-baroque buildings of Ljubljanas Austro-Hungarian period are, for the most part, surprisinglycompliant in falling down and clearing space for a newcity; like those souls transported to ale, they dutifullymake way for new graves. Back again in the centre of thecity (although, somewhat as with Paris, the word cen-tre actually applies to only a very small area on the west

bank beyond the Old Town, and apparently, the placeI am about to describe is not in it) I found myself walk-ing around the edge of the derelict Kolizej building, animposing Austrian barracks building from the middle ofthe nineteenth century. This is still just about visible fromGosposvetska Cesta, although its frontage is now coveredwith advertising hoardings at the ground floor and it is eas-

ier to get an overall sense of the faade from the other sideof the road, beside the Hotel Lev.

As you can discover if you walk down upanievaUlica, and peer through the bushes behind the petrol sta-tion there, or behind the building housing the sewingmachine servicing centre next-door (from where a pathseems to have been made by those now squatting the build-

ing), this is a very large building, about the length of anaverage block in this district. In other cities, it would beunremarkable if such a building were protected as part ofthe cultural heritage and perhaps turned into a gallery, ora museum; but, as Ljubljanas developers know, at a cer-tain point heritage stands in the way of capital. Certainly,at times, the conservation of the old simply because its old

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tako nadaljuje, spremlja pa jo vekrat sliani argument, danjihova prenova ne prinaa le neznatnih finannih donosovnosilcem projektov, pa pa koristi vsem, saj ustvarja boljkonkurenen in ustrezno preurejen urbani prostor.

Ker je ta argument prejkone voda na mlin Ljub-ljananom, ki se jim pretirano kopienje kulturne dediinezdi preve konservativno, bi moral lastnik stavbe brez

zapletov pridobiti dovoljenje za njeno ruenje. Nekajpobud za zaito stavbe na nacionalni ravni je e bilo vlo-enih, vendar Jankoviev dinamizem pomeni, da e on pod-pre nart, ga bo tudi izpeljal.

Podli poskusi, da se ustvari dinamina, sodobna podo-ba mesta z novo arhitekturo, so pravzaprav prisotni povsej Evropi, v vejih mestih pa so to nalogo prevzele nase

Kolizej / Kolizej, 2010


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seems rather to forget the needs of those still alive (not yetdead), and Ljubljana has already designated large parts

of its central core as heritage areas, even beyond the OldTown. But the main objection to Kolizej which, by allaccounts, was a perfectly functional and even decorativelyinteresting building inside is that there is already quiteenough protected heritage to keep the tourists happy, andthat without new buildings, of whatever type, for whatev-er purpose, there can be no generation of capital returns.

(Needless to say, the current informal occupation of thebuilding by squatters is never represented as a potentiallypositive use of a space that has been left to decay by publicand private interests; and it is easy to associate squattingwith other forms of nefarious illegality and thus condemnthe squatters, rather than the owners or the planners, forthe state of the building.) The primitive accumulation of

formerly public or state-owned buildings continues, there-fore, accompanied by the often-heard argument that theirrebirth as something new brings, alongside immense finan-cial returns for their developers, benefits for all, from amore competitive and more suitably adapted urban frame-work.

Since this argument seems to go well with Ljubljanans,

who similarly see the excessive hoarding of cultural herit-age as too conservative, it should be easy for the owner ofthe building to get the permission that he seeks to demol-ish the building. There were some moves to protect thebuilding at a national level, but the dynamism of the cur-rent mayor means that it if a plan finds his favour it will bedriven through.

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celo obine. Nenavadno pa je, da se v Ljubljani taknapodoba obiajno ne uporabi za predstavitev mesta poten-

cialnim turistom, ki jim ne preostane drugega kot Plenikin Ljubljanski grad. Kljub vstopu Slovenije v engenskoobmoje ostaja ta s stalia trgovanja e vedno dokaj zapr-ta: v slovensko gospodarstvo e vedno v glavnem vlagajoslovenska podjetja, katerih dotok iz okolikih regij je v pri-merjavi z drugimi dravami neznaten. Enako velja tudi zapodobo drave, ki je, kot se zdi, preteno usmerjena v slo-

venske poslovne interese in je zato ujeta v slepo ulico: to jeznailen odraz postsocialistinih, javno-zasebnih odnosov,kjer se je veina javnih organov brez zadrkov sprijaznila zdejstvom, da je njihova glavna naloga zdaj le e prepriatizasebnike, da vse poteka v pravi smeri. Vendar pa je uspehtega prizadevanja navsezadnje odvisen prav od podobe, kijo ustvarjajo kapitalski dobiki.

*

Moja pustolovina zunaj mestnega sredia je bila precejkratka, omejena na razdaljo, ki sem jo lahko prehodil alidosegel z javnim prevozom, ne vedo, kam sem namenjen.Najdalja pot me je zanesla v Fuine, ki sem jih poznal kot

kraj, v katerega je postavljeno dogajanje v knjigi efurjiraus Gorana Vojnovia. To je zgodba o diskriminaciji inbrutalnosti, ki jo policisti izvajajo proti dravljanom nek-danjih jugoslovanskih republik, iveih v Sloveniji. Slialsem tudi druge zgodbe o izkljuevanju in izkorianju grad-benih delavcev iz Bosne in Hercegovine ter Hrvake, kiivijo v kontejnerjih in jih po konanem delu brez plaila


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The slavish focus on creating a dynamic, contempo-rary image for the city, through new architecture, is one

thats ubiquitous across Europe, and in the capital cities itsbecome a municipal duty. Whats peculiar about Ljubljanais that this image is generally not recycled for presentationto potential tourists, who still make do on the diet of Plenikand Ljubljanski Grad. Even after entry into the Schengenarea, Slovenia remains quite closed in terms of commerce:most of the investment in the Slovenian economy comes from

Slovenian companies, with very little, comparatively, flow-ing in from the surrounding region. And so with the image,which seems directed mainly toward Slovenian businessinterests, and so is strangely circular: a particular expressionof a post-socialist, public-private relationship in which thepublic authorities willingly accept that their main role is nowto persuade private capital that everything is going well, a

feat manageable only with reference to the image constructedfrom capitals own beneficent achievements.

*

My forays out from the centre of the town were necessar-ily quite short, based on a distance I could cover on foot

and on public transport without really knowing where Iwas going. My longest trip took me first to Fuine, whichI knew of as the setting of Goran Vojnovis book efurjiRaus, a story of discrimination and police brutality againstnationals of the former Yugoslav republics now living inSlovenia. I heard stories of other exclusions and exploita-tions: of construction workers from Bosnia and Croatia

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deportirajo nazaj domov ter jim s tem onemogoijo, da bitako ali drugae iztrili zaslueni denar. Gradbeni razcvet

je bil vedno odvisen prav od gradbenih delavcev: veleme-sta na Kitajskem gradijo preteno ilegalni priseljenci; tudina Irskem so mnogi delavci iz drav pristopnic v EU, e tikpred spektakularnim zdrsom drave v skorajnji bankrot,trpeli izkorianje (kmalu zatem so irski emigranti poroali,da so na gradbiih na Poljskem videli table, ki so jihodvraale od dela tam; nenavadne table z nekaknim evrop-

skih pridihom, ki spominjajo na tiste, izobeene v nizkoce-novnih prenoiih v Angliji: Noemo rncev in Ircev!).

Delavci, nameeni v bivalnihkontejnerjih, ne ivijo v Fuinah,obmoju, kjer se e od nekdajrazprostirajo visoke stolpnice vsocialistinem slogu (ki jim danes

nemara celo raste vrednost na ljub-ljanskem nepremininskem trgu).Gradbeni standardi so bili tukaj vsplonem viji kot v drugih nekda-njih socialistinih dravah, kriteri-ji za doloanje velikosti prostora,ki naj bi ga druina potrebovala,

pa nedvomno bolj velikoduni odtistih, ki veljajo pri gradnji novihluksuznih stanovanj. Vendar pav Fuine nisem odel zaradi stolp-nic, pa pa, da bi se prikljuildelu Poti spominov in tovaritva,obrou okoli mesta, ki je bil na

Pot spominov in tovaritva /Path of Remembrance andComradeship, 2010


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living in containers, going unpaid for their work and thenbeing deported once their jobs were completed, with no

means of pursuing the money owed to them. Constructionbooms have always depended on this kind of labour: thebuilding of the megacities of China is almost exclusivelycarried out by illegal internal migrants; and in Ireland,before its spectacular tailspin into near-bankruptcy, manyworkers from EU accession states were similarly exploited(and consequently, Irish emigrants have reported seeing

signs on construction sites in Poland informing them thatthey need not apply, a strange, EU-era echo, with a differ-ent inflection, of the signs once displayed in cheap accom-modation in England: No Blacks, No Irish).

But the container-dwellers do not live in Fuine, a long-established area of socialist-era tower blocks (and appar-ently now starting to gain value in Ljubljanas property

market). The standards of construction in these blocks weregenerally higher than in some other former socialist coun-tries, and certainly the criteria they employed for calculatingthe amount of space that a family needed are more generousthan those used in constructing new luxury apartments.And I travelled to Fuine not to see the tower blocks, butto join part of the Pot spominov in tovaritva (Path of

Remembrance and Comradeship), a ring around the citythat somehow prefigures the centrifugal pull of todaysorbital motorway. The path marks the route of the barbedwire fence that the Italians rolled out around the city aftertheir invasion in 1941, to cut the partisans in Ljubljana offfrom their supply sources and to prevent their participationin acts of sabotage elsewhere in the country.

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neki nain predhodnica dananji kroni obvoznici. Pot teepo liniji, kjer je bila neko bodiasta ica, ki so jo Italijani

speljali okoli mesta po invaziji leta 1941, da bi partizanomv Ljubljani onemogoili oskrbo z viri in sodelovanje prisabotai drugod v dravi.

To je triintrideset kilometrov dolga krona pot, ki preizelene povrine, jugovzhodno od mesta pa se strmo dvi-ga ez Golovec. S postajalia na koncu avtobusne linije20 pelje mimo psihiatrine bolninice nasproti Fuinskega

gradu; tudi duevni bolniki so oitno potisnjeni na obrobjemesta.8 Nato preka Ljubljanico in ez kaken kilometerprei koruzna polja in pasove obdelovalnih zemlji, kmaluza Litijsko cesto pa se zane vzpenjati na Golovec. Za raz-liko od drugih vzponov, ki se dvigajo postopoma in krivijoin so za pohodnika nekoliko laji, ta pot, ki se strogo okle-pa smeri bodiaste ice, ni bila nikdar predvidena za popol-

danski sprostitveni sprehod.Jeseni lahko med vzpenjanjem med drevesi tu in tam

zagleda nakljune mimoidoe, ki kakih trideset metrovnije od glavne poti stikajo po podrastju. Sprva, ko se dvi-gnejo nad grmijem, so videti rahlo zmedeni, vendar kma-lu ugotovi, da je v Sloveniji iskanje gob ali kostanja zelopriljubljeno razvedrilo in da domala vsak ve, kje in kdaj

iskati. Ne mine dolgo, e se spotakne ob neuitno gobo,

8 Spomnil sem se kar sicer glede na moje poetje ni ni ne-obiajnega na anglekega romantinega pesnika in loveka, ki jeprehodil ogromne razdalje, Johna Clareja. Ta je veji del zadnjihdvajsetih let svojega ivljenja preivel v esseki sirotinici, iz kate-re je bil izpuen leta 1841 in od koder je prehodil 128 kilomet-rov dolgo pot domov v Northamptonshire.


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The path is a 33 km ring that for the most part runsthrough green spaces, but in the south-east of the city the

hills of Golovec make for steep walking. From the bus stopat the end of route 20, the path passes the psychiatric hos-pital opposite Fuine castle; the mad are also exported tothe outskirts of the city.8 It then crosses the Ljubljanicaand for about a kilometre it makes an easy route throughcornfields and strips of other arable land. Once it crossesLitijska Cesta, however, it begins its climb up Golovec.

Unlike other walks, which ease the traveller up the slopeson gentle, zig-zagging gradients, the path sticks to the routeof the barbed wire a route that was never intended as aneasy afternoon jaunt.

In the autumn, as one climbs through the trees, oneoccasionally catches sight of someone trampling throughthe undergrowth 30 or so metres from the path. At first,

these figures emerging from the bushes appear somewhatdisconcerting but one quickly realises that foraging, formushrooms or chestnuts, is a popular pastime in Slovenia,and that almost everyone has some knowledge of whereand when to look, and what for. Before long, youll stum-ble upon the inedible fungi that the foragers leave be: largeplate fungi and colourful toadstools, as well as other more

exotic forms.From the wooded heights of Golovec one rarely catches

8 I thought, perhaps inevitably, given what I was occupied indoing, of the English Romantic poet and walker of great distanc-es, John Clare, who spent most of the last 20 years of his life inan asylum. In 1841 Clare left his asylum in Essex and walked the80 miles back to his home in Northamptonshire.

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ki jo gobarji pustijo pri miru: tukaj rastejo gobe s iroki-mi klobuki, barvne munice pa tudi druge, nekoliko bolj

eksotinih oblik.Goste kronje kostanjev na gozdnatih vzpetinah Go-lovca zastirajo pogled na mesto; polja, ki jih prehodipred vzponom, so od tu podobna ostalim obdelovalnimpovrinam osrednjega pasu Slovenije. Zdi se, kot bi bil kilo-metre stran od kaknega velemesta. Tu in tam na poti nale-ti na odklesan steber ali klop, ki nakazuje, da je tam neko

stal razgledni stolp ali kakna druga utrdba.Pot ez Golovec je vijugasta in razgibana, preden se

dokonno zane spuati. Na vrhu sem zael razmiljati oopuenem projektu pristnega javnega urbanizma, kimu meani tako strogo nasprotujejo, in o novem urba-nizmu v BTC-ju, ki je njegovo isto nasprotje in ki si gamesto tako mono prizadeva spet spraviti na noge in vsr-

kati vase; razmiljal sem o sledeh ruralnega, ki v rednihpresledkih prekinja mesto. V mislih nimam le mnogihnenadnih parcel v Trnovem, kjer sem bival, pa pa tudipostopno depopulacijo mestnega jedra, beg na obrobje inv satelitska mesta ter suburbanizacijo mesta, ki iz tegaizhaja. David Harvey govori o postopni, korporativnisuburbanizaciji, ki se dogaja v srediih veliko vejih mest,

kot je New York. Gre za proces, katerega cilj je izniiti vserazlike in odstopanja v prostoru, ga poenotiti, narediti pov-sod uporabnega za iste namene in prilagoditi potronji.9

9 Glej Harveyjev pred kratkim objavljen pripevek k dogodkuExperimental geography (Poskusna geografija), ki se je odvijalv New Yorku. Prispevek je dostopen na http://davidharvey.org/2010/07/fast-company-magazine-david-harveys-urban-


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a glimpse of the city through the chestnut trees; and indeedthe fields that one passed through before starting the

climb were like those anywhere in the arable central beltof Slovenia. One could easily imagine oneself to be manymiles from a town of any significant size. Every so oftenthe walk is punctuated by a carved column, or a bench,perhaps marking a clearing where an observation tower orother fortification stood.

The route over Golovec is convoluted, climbing and

dipping several times before it finally starts to descend. Atthe top of the hill I started to think about the forsakenproject of genuinely public urbanism whose renunciationI felt so keenly in the city, and the new urbanism of BTC,that stood so directly opposed to it, and which the citytried so hard to recuperate or absorb; and also about thetraces of the rural that seemed so regularly to interrupt the

city, not just in terms of the many unexpected allotments inthe Trnovo district where I was staying, but also in termsof the gradual depopulation of the inner city, the flight tothe suburbs and satellite towns, and the resulting subur-banisation of the city itself. David Harvey has spokenabout the creeping, corporate suburbanisation taking placein the centre of even great cities like New York, a proc-

ess designed to flatten the differences and irregularities ofspace and make it all even, all equally consumable, and fitfor the task of consuming.9 While in Ljubljana I spoke with

9 See Harveys recent contribution to an Experimental Geographyevent in New York, available at http://davidharvey.org/2010/07/fast-company-magazine-david-harveys-urban-manifesto/; and seehis article The Right to the City (2008), New Left Review 53,

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Med bivanjem v Ljubljani sem se pogovarjal z akademikomin urbanistom Matjaem Uriem, ki je veliko pisal o pro-

tiurbanih vrednotah, ki so trenutno v porastu v Ljubljaniin ki odraajo nasprotovanje krajem alternativne kulture,kot sta Metelkova ali nekdanja tovarna Rog na Trubarjevicesti, vse bolj pa tudi nestrpnost do razlik ali druganosti.10Ljubljanani so na splono zadovoljni z gentrifikacijo pre-delov, ki so nosilci teh razlik, saj kot gre sklepati oitnone elijo iveti v mestu. Veina Slovencev, ki jih je anke-

tiral Uri med svojo raziskavo ve kot 75 odstotkov ,je priznala, da bi najraje ivela na podeelju; samo trijeodstotki vpraanih so zadovoljni z ivljenjem v Ljubljani.

Zamislil sem si nastanek novega urbanega gibanja, kibo postavilo nove temelje urbanosti zunaj mesta, morda naGolovcu. e urbanost predpostavlja skupni prostor, sku-pno odloanje in soobstoj razlik ter e gre pri tem primar-

no za mree odnoso

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