ABSTRACT
The oeuvre of the Slovenian architect Edvard Ravnikar (1907–1993) presents a unique career built on serial appropriation, a case of modernist “eclecticism of taste” suspended in a complex network of architectural, cultural, and political references. One of the most influential architects of postwar Yugoslavia, Ravnikar was formed between his experience as a student and collaborator of Jože Plečnik in Ljubljana and a brief stint at Le Corbusier’s studio in Paris in the late 1930s. In his early career, Ravnikar worked at reconciling these two seemingly incongruous influences, only to continue adding further ingredients into the blend, including Socialist Realist representation, Semperian tectonic tradition filtered through Otto Wagner, structural expressionism of brutalist provenance, and the organic undulations of Alvar Aalto. The carefully curated composition of this blend reflected the shifting internal and external politics of socialist Yugoslavia, in turn giving politics a highly original material form.
