More than six decades ago, Velenje, the capital of the Šaleška Valley, had started creating a different, modern image, a unique modernist design, and managed to build it almost overnight. The Velenje Gallery has opened an exhibition put on by a group of local landscape architects, who decided to highlight elements of landscape architecture from the original vision for Velenje as a town in a part, emphasizing that these elements are still part of the town’s everyday life.

The exhibition, titled Elements of Landscape Architecture from Velenje’s Original Design, opened on Friday evening and had been prepared by four landscape architects from Velenje – Saša Piano, Kaja Flis, Julijana Šumić, Lucija Pečovnik and Linda Sušec. Their main motivation was to emphasize the town’s quality, aesthetics, logics, attractiveness, sanity and usability of the elements related to landscape architecture as well as the elements’ inseparable connection with the town as a whole. The aim of the exhibitions is to stress the importance of integral spatial planning, from design to realisation of a project as well as its maintenance and use. Elements of a town’s landscape architecture are not and should not be treated separately from the whole; instead, the town’s urbanism, building architecture and landscape architecture of the area surrounding the buildings is an intertwined and co-dependent entirety, which – as the authors point out – is reflected in the original design of Velenje’s image.

The modernistic design of that time was precisely that – integral and consistent, both in form and content, in terms of its urbanistic, architectural and landscape design as a whole and as separate details. Having been designed in this manner, the town could facilitate a high quality of life as well as stand out with its aesthetic perfection. By approaching the project with careful deliberation, the then local authorities succeeded in shaping a vision of development by inviting various experts – urban planners, architects, builders and landscape architects – to help create an image of a new town. This is also a key message of the exhibition – that trust and carrying out the ideas of experts are an important value from Velenje’s past.

M. K., MMC; translated by K. Z.