With the shadow of Joze Plecnik cast out over every corner of its capital, Slovenia is with its recent separation from the Yugoslav Republic living a moment as culturally promising as that which took place when a 1920 plebiscite declared national independence from Austria. The vertiginous rate at which concerts and all other kinds of cultural manifestations follow one another applies as well to its new building production, which clearly distances itself from the archaic classicism with which the country’s most famous architect transformed the physiognomy of Ljubljana in the 1930s.

The team formed by Jurij Sadar (1963) and Bošjan Vuga (1966) exemplifies in an almost archetypal way the vigorous ambition of a young generation whose career has taken off in parallel to political change. A teaching contract for Sadar in the local architecture school and postgraduate studies for Vuga at London’s Architectural Association were the prelude to a partnership that has since October 1996 divided its energies, in equal parts, between competitions and self-promotional activities. For the latter, the firm has created a typography of its own with which to present its work to clients and the media...[+]