Juraj Neidhardt’s early work: Archiepiscopal Boys´ Seminary in Zagreb (1925-1929)

Archiepiscopal Boys´ Seminary in Zagreb (1925-1929)

Abstract

The article covers the early work of Juraj Neidhardt (Zagreb, 1901-Sarajevo, 1979) and the architectural themes he introduced. Aside from the large-scale urban projects Neidhardt worked on at the time, the Archiepiscopal Boys´ Seminary–integrated into its landscape and determined by its ambience–remains his only built design in the interwar period. And that was before his departure for Europe to work in the studios of Peter Behrens in Berlin and Le Corbusier in Paris.
In 1925, the Construction Committee defined a detailed program for the metropolitan seminary; Neidhardt made sketches on his initiative under the guidance of Jože Plečnik and, in close cooperation with the Building Committee, designed and supervised the construction until 1928.
Neidhardt established himself as a significant large-scale creator very early on. As part of the seminary, he designed an ensemble that can only be experienced by gradual observation and movement. The tension of the compositional axis is achieved by the dominant tower of the observatory (the only echo of Mendelsohn in Croatian architecture) on one side and the chapel on the other. The meander composition he applied–the spatial principle of overflowing space into space–will become one of the leading principles in urban planning.
As a testimony of the ambivalence of the architecture of the 1920s–large buildings in a bold monumental stripped classical form, showing traces of expressionism–the seminary is often overlooked by urban architectural knowledge. Its survival was put to the test when the earthquake that hit Zagreb in 2020, left it with the red mark (extensive damage), making this an opportunity, through the method of cross-reading and analysis, to take another closer look to understand the dynamics of change and innovation in terms of urban development and individual architectural practice.