Eva Gusel

Independent researcher, Lubljana, Solvenia
eva.gusel@gmail.com

Plečnik and his Double: Repetition as Architectural Operation

The doubling of elements, concepts, and objects in Plečnik’s architecture occupies a distinctive place. While in the past the architect was (unjustly) accused of anachronistically borrowing elements from Classical architecture, a far bolder fact has remained overlooked: as the ultimate copycat, Plečnik went a step further and imitated himself. This essay will, through selected examples of Plečnik’s architecture in Ljubljana, highlight the architect’s method of internal doubling, through which Plečnik not only humorously and playfully redefines Classical syntax but also, in a distinctly contemporary manner, articulates space and resolves specific spatial situations. Thus, we could say that Plečnik’s doctrine presupposes an internally doubled object. Plečnik’s doubles are numerous, and their doubling operates on multiple levels. The first example is the repetition of the same element or motif within an object, such as the “temple within a temple” of the Zvonček flower pavilion or the “canopy within a canopy” of the entrance pavilion to the Faculty of Architecture. In other instances, the doubling involves a shift in scale, as seen in the circular staircase of the fish market beneath Plečnik’s market, where the dead space under the stairs is addressed by inserting a sort of miniature double of the staircase itself.
Another example of a double transposed into a different scale is Tito’s pavilion on Brioni, a wooden temple inside a stone temple, whose model was casually transformed into a chandelier in the dining room of Ljubljana’s Križanke. Plečnik’s method of duplication reaches its culmination in the case of the Triple Bridge, where the architect splits the bridge into three bridges, thus not merely doubling but tripling his own architectural
object, innovatively resolving multidirectional river crossings. The mirages in Plečnik’s architecture are thus not merely subjective, psychotic perceptions: a closer analysis of exemplary cases reveals a carefully planned and deliberate method—a unique architectural operation.

Keywords: Plečnik; Ljubljana; innate double; Classical architecture; Antiquity; Renaissance; model.