Plečnik Cycling Route
© Iztok Medja / STO
On the trail of Plečnik’s heritage
This famous pioneer of the modern architecture of the twentieth century left a mark on Ljubljana that is comparable to that left on Barcelona by Antoni Gaudí. Plečnik is considered one of the world’s most important modern architects. His work shaped the appearance of three important central European cities: Vienna, Prague and Ljubljana. The Plečnik Cycle Route links Plečnik’s legacy in Ljubljana’s Trnovo district, the city centre, the Žale cemetery and Tivoli Park.
The chosen starting point is Plečnik’s house in Trnovo, where the architect lived and worked from 1921 until his death in 1957. Today the house contains a permanent exhibition on his life and work. Cross Trnovo Bridge and head towards the centre of Ljubljana, where you can admire the Križanke complex and Plečnik’s arrangement of French Revolution Square (Trg francoske revolucije), with its monument to Napoleon’s Illyrian Provinces, and nearby Vegova Ulica. Not far from Križanke stands the National and University Library, which Plečnik designed as a temple of knowledge and wisdom. Now follow the river Ljubljanica to the principal city centre gathering place: Prešeren Square and the famous Triple Bridge. Between 1929 and 1932, Plečnik added two lateral footbridges to the existing central stone bridge, in this way creating a unique architectural monument in Ljubljana. Continue cycling past Plečnik’s covered market and the unusual narrow “Flat Iron” building and on to the interesting sluice gate on the river by the old Cukrarna sugar refinery. Follow the river, then turn towards the north-west and keep going until you reach Plečnik’s Žale cemetery with its monumental entrance symbolically dividing the city of the dead from the city of the living. Next the route takes you towards the west and the wooded Šiška Hill. Along the way you can see Plečnik’s St Francis’s Church and, in the last section, which includes an easy stretch past Tivoli Park, the popular Jakopič Promenade, another of Plečnik’s creations.
