Meeting hall of the district people's committee

The city of Kranj is located approximately 20 km northwest of Ljubljana and, with more than 50,000 inhabitants, is the fourth largest city in Slovenia. The preserved core of the early medieval town, which has also been shaped by several buildings designed by Jože Plečnik, is situated on a plateau above the confluence of the Kokra and Sava rivers. After World War II, the city began to develop rapidly due to a successful electronics and rubber industry. Consequently, there arose a need for a new administrative center at the junction of the northern edge of the historic core and the newly emerging urban area. In a competition held in 1954, the proposal by Plečnik's student Edvard Ravnikar won, who several years later also won the competition for a new main square in Ljubljana. While the later Ljubljana square did not hide its representation of the highest political authority in the country, the new square in Kranj retained a pleasant composition and scale suitable for everyday life.
The assembly hall, which underwent several changes compared to the winning urban planning design from 1955, dominates the northern side of the square, further lined on the east by a three-story administration building and on the west by a six-story apartment building, designed by Ravnikar's student Stanko Kristl in Ravnikar's office. The newly created road bypass subsequently improved traffic and the overall urban situation of the place. The assembly hall consists of three volumes and functions: a representative hall, meeting rooms, and offices for senior officials. Additionally, the hall is connected by a corridor to another two-story building that houses a café.
The assembly hall in Kranj can be considered a key modernist building in post-war Slovenia, which also heralds the arrival of brutalism. Ravnikar managed to suggest inspiration from local folk architecture with very economical means. The block of the assembly hall rests on circular columns with mushroom-shaped capitals, which transform into a fully glazed façade that subsequently emphasizes wide concrete strips before disappearing into nearly invisible V-shaped supports that carry the light concrete shell.
In the following decades, Ravnikar added to the new center of Kranj the Creina Hotel, the Globus supermarket, and the SRS national bank. While his buildings in Ljubljana lack grandeur and are constantly compared to Plečnik's interventions, in Kranj, Ravnikar was finally able to relax and fully reveal his poetic soul with a focus on detail.