Cukrarna Palace

Cukrarna Palace is a cultural-infrastructure project of the Municipality of Ljubljana, its Museum and Galleries of Ljubljana and Young Dragons Public Institute. It is named after the building in which it is accommodated, Cukrarna, the former Ljubljana sugar factory (in Slovenian, cukrarna means "sugar factory"), which is today considered a monument of cultural significance.

Background

Cukrarna has been left to ruination for decades, but under the slogan "the former Sugar Factory is becoming a modern Culture Factory", a renovation and revitalisation project took place that gave Cukrarna Palace a new life, first with the Cukrarna Gallery, and then with a Palace of Books and Youth. According to Blaž Peršin, director of the Museum and Galleries of Ljubljana, the renovated complex is "not only a significant new cultural achievement, but also a new opportunity to develop the environment in which it will operate".

History

Cukrarna was a sugar refinery in Ljubljana, operating since 1828. It was one of the most important industrial facilities in Slovenia, and in the middle of the 19th century it climbed to the first place among the sugar refineries in the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. In 1858, the factory was destroyed in a fire that ended its operations. The partially renovated building was later used as military barracks and another part of it, as housing.

Cukrarna has also a special significance for Slovenian literary history: in it, the good-hearted landlady Polonca Kalan rented rooms to the writers of the Slovenian Moderna period, Oton Župančič (1878–1949), Ivan Cankar (1876–1918), Josip Murn (1879–1901) and Dragotin Kette (1876–1899); the last two died there.

After World War II, Cukrarna was home to socially deprived people and migrant workers. In 1972, the director Jože Pogačnik made a documentary film on its history. At the beginning of the 1990s, Cukrarna was emptied and sealed due to its bad condition. In 2010, the Municipality of Ljubljana declared plans for its renovation, which took form in 2017 as the Cukrarna Palace project designed by the architectural bureau Scapelab.

Cukrarna Palace

Cukrarna Palace is a home to the Cukrarna Gallery and Ljubljana Youth Centre. Before the renovation it served as a venue for the Sonica Festival, organised by MoTA - Museum of Transitory Art. In 2017 it also hosted the Lighting Guerrilla Festival, its group exhibition Cukrarna in Colours, the installation Absence is the (present) present and video projection Sweet Colours by the students of Ljubljana's Academy of Fine Art and Design and many foreign artists.

Cukrarna Gallery

The Cukrarna Gallery, intended for contemporary visual arts, extends to more than 2,500 square meters, which enabled the production of more demanding Slovenian and foreign art exhibition projects in Ljubljana.

Ljubljana Youth Centre

The Ljubljana Youth Centre (BAZA, Center mladih Ljubljana), a space for the socialising of all generations of literary and other artists and creators, keeps the memory of the literary history of the building and complements it with related literary and cultural contents, directed especially to young people. The renovated premises include a specialised library for youth literature, workspaces for artists, and a youth centre.