Robert SIMONIŠEK, Postgraduate student of Art History at the Faculty of Arts

Trije momenti v arhitekturi Cirila Metoda Kocha: sledovi konservativnega historicizma, moderne secesijske težnje in poskus uporabe nacionalne govorice
Three moments in the architecture of Ciril Metod Koch: traces of conservative, modern Secession tendencies and an attempt to create a national language The Slovenian architect and urban planner Ciril Metod Koch (1867-1925) worked in the Ljubljana town office for almost three decades. He graduated in Vienna, where he was a pupil of the architect Karl Hasenauer. After the 1895 earthquake, he designed many secular buildings in Ljubljana: at least 38 can be attributed to him on the basis ofarchival reports. At the time of Mayor Ivan Hribar, Koch was ambitiously developing his sensitive and original form of expression. Typical of him are the characteristic use of free lines, imagination in the processing of details, and the simplicity of construction masses. In iconographic terms, he used geometrical, vegetable as well as figurative decorative forms. A characteristic feature of his architectural activity is stylistic variety. In his modern works, Koch took international European streams as a model, thereby considerably moving towards the aesthetics of the Viennese Secession. In some buildings, he remained committed to the more conservative tradition of historicism. Also important is his contribution to the attempted creation of a national architectural language which, however, was never completed. Within individual constructions, the three abovementioned moments can be found interlaced in an original manner.

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