Like a good poker player, the Baroque Court Apartments in Slovenia's capital city show a public face that reveals almost nothing of what's going on inside. From Mestni Trg, the adjacent 16th-century town square, the three buildings that make up the new residential complex fit right in with their historic neighbors. Pastel-hued facades, projecting cornices over windows, rusticated bases, and terra-cotta roof tiles all speak the common architectural language of Baroque Ljubljana. But just as every poker player has a 'tell,' a subtle gesture or tic that can tip off astute rivals, the Baroque Court project lets down its centuries-old guard at one critical point: the main entry. Look closely at the opening recessed within the first of five nearly identical granite arches, and you notice the dark steel frame and minimalist hardware of a glass door that hints at a different time and a modern aesthetic. Walk through that door, ascend the elegant wood stairs to the second floor, and you discover a radically different place'one where floor-to-ceiling glass and flowing white rooms bring the Baroque into the 21st century.
Because this project stands in the heart of historic Ljubljana, across the square from the Venetian-inspired, early-18th-century Town Hall, everything visible from the street had to pass muster with the city's heritage authorities. OFIS Arhitekti, the Ljubljana-based firm in charge of fusing old and new at Baroque Court, had made its reputation in 1998 by winning a competition to renovate and expand the local City Museum, a project that involved adding a spiraling glass-and-steel wing onto a Renaissance palace that sits above medieval and ancient Roman ruins (RECORD, December 2001, page 86). Since that museum opened in 2004, though, the firm's partners, Rok Oman and 'pela Videcnik, had been mostly busy designing dramatic new buildings, such as a pair of colorful, honeycomb-like social-housing blocks in Izola, Slovenia; a swooping soccer stadium in Maribor, Slovenia; and a graphically bold housing complex of 650 apartments in Ljubljana.
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