VIII, 2007/2

Editorial

It is an honour for me to introduce this issue of AR, which gives me particular joy. It is a presentation of the publishing activity of the Faculty of Architecture, of authors-architects and books about architecture.

Aided by the library of the Faculty of Architecture, we have gathered together quite a few titles. We also asked all the teachers at the Faculty to contribute their presentations. Thus we obtained a review of our published work over the past five years, from 2002 to 2007. Everything that we received from the authors is presented in a more extensive way and accompanied by data which are mandatory for scholarly monographs in order for them to be formally compared.

In my view, the most important thing is that we managed to get presentations written by the authors themselves. This is not a matter of self-praise, and you will see for yourself that a scholar is more likely to be too modest than conceited. This is why it was my suggestion as editor to publish some passages from formal reviews and some public reactions to scholarly work. Some are quite interesting, coming from surprisingly disparate environments.

The introductory position is occupied by an article from Professor Peter Fister, who claims that the fundamental advantage of Slovene territory is its relatively well-preserved architectural and landscape identity. This puts Slovenia among those European countries that in future should not only be “a garden of Europe”, but also among the most important tourist and residential destinations. Evaluations of spatial development planning methods, which should derive from established values and should at the same time preserve the specifics of the landscape’s identity, need to be based on knowledge of the specifics of Slovenia’s landscape identity. Because such a need is not even mentioned in the ‘Resolution on the national development projects 2007-2023’, we should urgently draw attention to the anticipated effects on the environment. It is these effects that the article addresses.

Had there not been an article by Professor Fister, containing a very important political message of significance for our entire profession and our divergent attitudes regarding its contents, I would have put in first place The Wooden Structures in the Late Prehistoric Period by archeologist Matija Črešnar. It deals with what I have always wanted to know about the earliest architecture, excavated remains and factual evidence of some construction solutions. All too often I have been angered by “experts” from various professions who, undisturbed, interfere in our field and draw speculations which might be true, but are unsubstantiated. Our colleague Mr Črešnar has broken ground in his treatment of the issue and presented facts that might enable certain assumptions, assumptions which can be tested only by an architect, a designer holding architectural knowledge and using any assistance available from other disciplines. And here we are, faced with the problem of interdisciplinarity, with which we are hardly at all acquainted. The trainee researcher from the Archeology Department of the Faculty of Arts reviews the most prominent architectural remains discovered from Bronze Age (ca 2400-800 B.C) and Late Iron Age (ca 800-600 B.C.) settlements in the territory of today's Slovenia. He presents in detail the materials employed in the Late Prehistoric period for building predominantly wooden structures, and shows the possibilities for the reconstruction of buildings or their individual elements. I made him unhappy by abbreviating and simplifying the article, but we architects can hardly distinguish the Bronze Age from the Iron. Nonetheless, the article is an exceptional contribution to scientific thought in our field and I hope that in the future I will be able to lay my hands on another good article from other disciplines which will complement this topic.

Stojan Skalicky discusses and assesses the architect Saša Dev, who worked primarily in Maribor, and is one of the architects who left an enduring mark on the town. Hitherto, architectural design in Maribor was equated with building trades; historical styles dominated, and architects and builders from abroad worked in the town. Dev comes from the Plečnik school of architecture and advocates the ideas of modern architecture. The title is simple: Architect Saša Dev and Maribor.

Another colleague, Sonja Ifko, presents, a little late, her 2006 research: The 20th Century Industrial Architectural Heritage in Slovenia. The report presents the results of the first part of a research conceived with the purpose of taking stock of the industrial architecture created in Slovenia during the 20th century, and determining the most important industrial complexes from the development point of view.

Let me return, to conclude, to the review of books by teachers at our Faculty: following you will find a list of all books we managed to put together. I do not think the list is complete, nor did I expect it to be. It is also worth noting that not all the authors we invited responded to our invitation. This is of no real consequence, but it reflects their attitude toward science, profession, and the Faculty.

The production of books at the Faculty of Architecture has not been unduly large in the last five years, but I think that in this issue of AR there are quite a few significant contributions which will represent key elements in architectural science for some time to come.

Editor