Zakladni blok, Zagreb

The Zakladni blok occupies a site next to Zagreb's main square and is one of the most interesting examples of modern urban construction in the capital. Visitors can study here how residential and commercial space in the city centre was arranged in the 1930s.

The land formerly belonged to the old Foundation Hospital of the Brothers of Mercy. A competition for the division of plots and new construction was announced in 1929 and 1930. The designs were then entrusted through invited competitions, and from 1932 to 1937 a block of uniform height grew up, with the exception of a tall building and a shopping arcade. On the ground floor are shops, on the mezzanine offices, and above them, over the apartments, extend green roof terraces. The whole is unique also because a great number of distinguished authors worked on it, among them Ehrlich, Gomboš and Kauzlarić, Freudenreich and Deutsch, Goldscheider, Löwy, Planić, Gabrić and Bahovec, and many others.

The Zakladni blok is a protected cultural good, a cultural-historical entity entered in the Register of Cultural Goods of the Republic of Croatia under the code Z-1535.

Photo: Boris Bakal, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons.
Data: Register of Cultural Goods of the Republic of Croatia (Ministry of Culture and Media), Open Licence; coordinates: Wikidata (CC0).