The exhibition presents works designed in the office from 2000 to 2010. The Bloke Winter Mansion holds a special position here, for it is with this that Vojteh Ravnikar rounded off his life path and his creative oeuvre. He started designing in 1977 in the design office of Kraški Zidar in Sežana where he also founded the Kras group. At the same time, he established his own office in Ljubljana where the architect Robert Potokar joined him in 1990. Since 2000, the office has had its premises at 8 Rimska Street. In 2003, the two architects also formally established a limited liability company Ravnikar Potokar architectural office (Ravnikar Potokar arhitekturni biro d.o.o.).

As time passed by, several generations of students filed through the office in Ljubljana, along with architects and other co-workers; without them we could not have managed to complete all of those diverse and demanding projects. The majority of work was obtained via participation in public competitions, only some minor projects were a result of direct orders. The office covers a broad range of designing: from minor tasks – single-family houses and renovations, to large-scale projects – schools in Celje, Grosuplje and Bled, a sports hall in Sežana, a set of office buildings along Masarykova Street in Ljubljana, buildings featuring a cultural programme, and the residential tower in Nova Gorica completed in 2010.

Yet, quite a number of collective projects resulting from us winning competitions are still waiting to be realised. Let us mention just three of them: a new courthouse in Ljubljana, three art academies on Roška Street, and Ljubljana's new railway station.

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Luka Skansi: Professionalism, accompanying text

In various international contexts, one has recently been able to perceive growing special interest in contemporary Slovenian architectural production. This is not only due to its diversity and the talented architects working here – representing different generations – but also due to the enviable number of realised constructions and the conditions enjoyed by the architectural profession in Slovenia. What we have in mind are the circumstances and conditions of which architectural practitioners are only partly aware; in their everyday work and in trying to find solutions to practical and technical problems, in the natural criticism of their working contexts (which certainly is not perfect), architects, urban planners and artists in Slovenia only rarely get the opportunity to admit to certain professional benefits and advantages they enjoy in comparison to many European countries and, in particular, countries in the transitional period, including the opportunities they have to express themselves in their own ways.

The ideas on new urban planning interventions, the redefining of some key urban points in Slovenian towns and cities, new typologies of residential construction, renovating the “style” of contemporary private life: all of these are topics that have developed within the scope of a large number of competition consultations and are also a result of the development of a new type of commission in the last decade (from both public and private sectors); they represent the dynamics and potential with which the Slovenian economy and our society have contributed to the development of the recent architectural scene. 

The exhibition of the work of the Ravnikar Potokar architectural office in the past ten years presents the way, or rather, one of the ways in which modern architectural culture has reacted to these new circumstances. A high level of professionalism, a specific and empirical approach to each new architectural problem enabled Vojteh Ravnikar and Robert Potokar along with numerous colleagues in this period to become active protagonists and, as such, to make their contribution to the designing of a wide range of public buildings (i.e., libraries, office buildings, schools, sports facilities), and to new residential typologies (i.e., villas, houses, residential complexes, retirement homes). And, thereby, to contribute through their projects to the higher quality of the physical development of Slovenian cities and to the more rational management of an ever more chaotic and conflicting urban context. We are talking about professionalism which is only seemingly a matter-of-course in the architectural profession; it not only refers to the ability of architects to respond to specific technical or economic issues, but also extends into an ethical and aesthetic domain. In such a framework, expertise is becoming ever scarcer, even though it is fundamentally important, as it is one of the few factors which can positively influence the growth and quality of the general architectural production of a certain country.

The exhibition presents 16 major projects that have been realised; however, this is only part of a broader set of activities, in particular within the scope of the public competitions that have strongly characterised the recent architectural production of the Ravnikar Potokar architectural office. We should also expect that, hopefully, as soon as possible, the image of Vojteh Ravnikar – to whom this exhibition is dedicated – will be promoted by the
well-deserved common assessment of him not only as a designer, but also as a publicist, teacher, professor and an intellectual.