46 473LHD, Zamet Centre

A Rijeka Tale

¶ I write this review for personal reasons, as a parent having to choose a sporting activity for his child in the western part of Rijeka. Luckily, this part of town has a lot of sports facilities and activities and the choice will be anything but easy, par­ticularly when the chooser is an architect whose main criteria are not related to sport or even the child’s abilities but solely to the architectural environment as a nurturing factor of child development. After all, architecture is the only sport this tunnel­visioned writer follows closely. I can partially see the Zamet Centre from my window and am delighted with this new addition to my neighbourhood. From my window I can also see the floodlights of Rijeka’s football and athletics

fotografije photographs by

Zamet Centre, Rijeka, Croatia

Leo Modrčin

Domagoj Blažević (DB)Damir Fabijanić (DF)

Nives Krsnik Rister, Silvije Novak, Eugen Popović, Tatjana Grozdanić Begović, Marko Dabrović, Paula Kukuljica, Leon Lazaneo, Saša Begović

(DB)

Riječka priča

napisaowritten by

¶ Pišem ovaj prikaz iz osobnih razloga kao roditelj koji će mo­rati izabrati sportsku aktivnost za dijete u zapadnom dijelu Rijeke. Ovaj dio grada srećom obiluje sportskim objektima i aktivnostima i taj izbor neće biti nimalo lagan, naročito kad ga vrši arhitekt kojem glavni kriteriji nisu sport ni sklonosti dje teta, već isključivo arhitektonsko okruženje kao poti caj raz voju ličnosti, a to je jedini sport koji ovaj fah­idiot redovito prati. Centar Zamet koji djelomično vidim sa svog prozora tada je neprikosnoveni adut, savršeni dodatak kvartu u kojem živim, a vidim i rasvjetne tornjeve Kantride, nogometnog i atletskog stadiona jedinstvene geološke konfiguracije u stije­nama. Malo dalje je novi kompleks bazena na Kantridi izgra­

Centar Zamet, Rijeka, Hrvatska

arhitekti architects

48 49oris, number 60, year 2009 3LHD, Zamet Centre

stadium with its unique geological configuration under the cliffs. Further down the road is the new swimming and water­polo complex built next to the old open pool, with its mag­nificent arches designed by Ninoslav Kučan, that look almost like the McDonald’s arches. There is also the sports complex next to the 3rd of May shipyard, with its marina and sailing club. In the distance I can also see tennis courts in Marčeljeva Draga and Preluk Bay where sails glisten in the sun and the windsurfers catch the unique high winds at sunrise. It truly sounds like a sporting utopia that the town has to offer to its youth and their spectators. ¶ Rijeka on the other hand is an unusual town which always reacts with significant architec­ture to all the idiosyncrasies of its turbulent political and urban past and this tradition is now confirmed by the Zamet Centre. Rijeka has been shaped by surreal historical episodes: the notorious ‘Rijeka Patch’ which was a forgery on a docu­ment giving it a separate status within the Austro­Hungarian empire. Rijeka is the town where the lethal torpedo was in­vented, which includes it in the group of towns such as Los Alamos, New Mexico, the birthplace of the nuclear bomb. Rijeka was also the setting for the bizarre drama scripted by the Italian poet Gabriele d’Annunzio who founded his republic here as an artistic project with real consequences for people’s lives. There was also the personal architectural tragedy of the architect Josip Pičman which was later redeemed by the buil­ding of the Croatian culture hall by the architect Alfred Albini. It was followed by the devastation of its port infrastructure by the allied squadrons of the RAF, the re unification of the city and its resurrection in the time of the socialist renaissance and the metropolitan scale of its residential towers that re­mind one of Hong Kong. There was also the utopian and never built project by Vladimir Turina for the swimming pool comp­lex in Delta, the project that become the fundamental refe­rence of Croatian modern architecture, almost its next Diocle­tian palace. In that period Rijeka was also marked by the se mi nal work of architect Igor Emili with his free re inter pre ta­tion of Rijeka’s old town, as well as by the work of the archi tects Kazimir Ostrogović, Ninoslav Kučan and Boris Magaš. This continues to this day through the always thought­pro voking projects by architects Saša Randić and Idis Turato, as well as 3LHD proper. They all gave Rijeka its modern vitality despite all the rises and falls of its economy. ¶ In a town that is slow ly but surely losing all of its industrial base and is attemp ting to be come a city of the tertiary economy, the buil ding of the city seems to be the only industrial activity left to resurrect the city once more and market it as a great place to live and to work in its academic, intellectual and arts insti tutions.

(DF) (DF)oris, broj 60, godina 2009 3LHD, Centar Zamet

đen uz stari, otvoreni bazen premošćen prekrasnim, gotovo McDo nald sovim lukovima Nine Kučana. Tu je još i sportski komp leks 3. maja sa marinom i jedriličarskim klubom. U daljini se nazire teniski kompleks u Marčeljevoj Dragi, a more zrcali brza svjetlucava jedra dasaka za jedrenje u uvali Preluk, gdje u cik zore surferi hvataju jedinstveni vjetar. Jednom riječju, Centar Zamet je u središtu sportske utopije koju je grad Rijeka stvorio za svoju mladež i njihove kibice. ¶ Rijeka je čudan grad koji vrhunskom arhitekturom uvijek reagira na sve idiosinkra­zije svoje burne političke i urbane povijesti, a ta se tradicija samo potvrđuje projektom na Zametu. Rijeka je grad obliko­van nadrealnim povijesnim epizodama, od poznate ‘Riječke krpice’ kojom je njen status zapečaćen kao mađarski corpus separatum unutar Hrvatske, od svoje notornosti kao grad izu­ma ubojitog torpeda koji je svrstavaju među gradove poput Los Alamosa u Novom Meksiku, gdje je izumljena atomska bomba. To je i grad bizarne ‘dramske predstave’ Gabriela d’Annunzija i njegove riječke republike kao ‘umjetničkog pro­jekta’ sa stvarnim posljedicama po ljudske živote, arhitektons­ke tragedije Josipa Pičmana i iskupljenja Alfreda Albinija s kompleksom Hrvatskog kulturnog doma, razaranja lučke inf­rastrukture koju su izvele savezničke eskadrile RAF­a i njene resurekcije u doba socijalističke renesanse popraćene metro­politanskim mjerilom nove stambene arhitekture, utopijskog projekta sportske arhitekture Vladimira Turine za plivalište na Delti, koje je postalo temeljna referenca, gotovo Dioklecija­nova palača hrvatske suvremene arhitekture. Rijeka je obi­lježena i poticajnim radom Igora Emilija u slobodnoj re konst­rukciji Staroga grada, projektima Kazimira Ostrogovića, Ni nos lava Kučana i Borisa Magaša pa sve do danas, kada je obi lje žavaju suvremeni hrvatski arhitekti poput uvijek provo­kativnih Ran dića i Turata i arhitekata iz studija 3LHD. Svi oni svojim dje lo vanjem daju gradu vitalnost suvremenosti usprkos svih us pona i padova gospodarskih stranputica. ¶ U tom se gradu, koji se polako, ali sigurno lišava svoje industrijske baze i po kušava postati grad tercijarnih djelatnosti, građenje grada nameće kao industrijska djelatnost koja ga može preporoditi, odnosno plasirati na tržište ugodnog života i akademskog, intelektualnog i umjetničkog rada. ¶ U ovom su naporu sports­ke aktivnosti i manifestacije već prokušani recept koji daje impuls razvoju, najčešće bez brige o sljedećem jutru, no i tu Rijeka u svojim već pomalo sizifovskim pokušajima da ugosti Mediteranske igre slijedi neku svoju logiku i laganim, ali evi­dentnim koracima obogaćuje svoju infrastrukturu i urba nitet usprkos svim zaprekama objektivne i subjektivne naravi. Upra­vo u tom svjetlu treba promatrati i hibridni karakter Centra Zamet i mudru strategiju koja je uprostorena ovim projektom.

50 51oris, number 60, year 2009 3LHD, Zamet Centre

52 53oris, number 60, year 2009 3LHD, Zamet Centre

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oris, broj 60, godina 2009 3LHD, Centar Zamet

tlocrt 2. kata

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tlocrt prizemlja

uzdužni presjek

ulazni prostor entrance area 1 igralište playground 2 lokal store 3 svlačionica s praonicom dressing room 4 with laundry dvorana hall 5 cafe cafe 6 knjižnica library 7 garderoba warderobe 8 režija technical room 9 novinari + kamera press room 10 komentatori commentators 11

54 55oris, number 60, year 2009 3LHD, Zamet Centre

¶ Sports activities and events are a sure­fire recipe in this re­gard, but they are mostly oblivious to the morning­after effect. Here Rijeka also has a Sisyphean story with its three failed attempts to host the Mediterranean Games, but despite all the subjective and objective hurdles, it steadily follows its own logic and makes evident steps toward improving its sports infrastructure and urban life. We look in this light at the hybrid nature of the Zamet Centre and the wise programmatic stra­tegy that it houses. Besides the main sports hall, the complex also contains spaces for the local branch of the public library, the seat of the local council, as well as a host of other commer­cial and service facilities. ¶ Like the other neigh bourhoods of Trsat, Kozala, Kantrida, Pećine and Vežica, Zamet is one of Rijeka’s recognizable communities with its own local character, own dialect and a preserved identity that survives the spot planning that inserted a number of high­rise towers in its tissue. But unlike the other parts of Rijeka which do have their archi tectural and sacral monuments and urbanity, Za met ne­ver had that, and only now with the 3LHD project does it gain its centre, its monuments and its square. ¶ The architects of the 3LHD Studio approach the project in a distinctly different manner than the usual place­making methods: the Zamet Centre is integrated with the site topography like a chameleon and by doing so it transforms the last vestiges of the typical littoral landscape with detached houses and their gardens, front yards and dry stone walls while still maintaining the spirit of the place. The boundaries between the landscape and architecture disappear and all the elements of the landscape are transformed into their architectural surrogates. ¶ In their earlier project for the waterfront in front of Diocletian’s Palace in Split, the architects of 3LHD achieved a radical level of ta­ming nature by means of geometry. The good old grid or a screen with low resolution is used to translate the unwavering respect toward the palace and all the layers of the memory of the place with its unavoidable palm trees and landscaping into the atomized grid of digital points. The garden with its Me­diterranean vegetation is rendered like a digital picture. It is a true 2D rendition of nature without any topography. This might be the Croatian way, hinted at in the early computer­generated art of the New Tendencies movement that sprang up in the seventies in Croatia, in which computers were not used to compute as much spatial data as possible resulting in a complex biomorphous composition, but to reduce it to the minimal abstraction of a Cartesian nature. While all around us we can witness the growth of architectural landscapes that are at least as complex as some more primitive microorga­nisms. Even Zaha Hadid’s spongy membrane in the Zagreb

Airport proposal is somewhat tamed in its tectonic passion. In the Zamet project 3LHD remain with the planar reduction of the complex space that uses minimal means to reconstruct the landscape. ¶ At Zamet the main sports hall and its volume dictate the solution to reducing the impact of the large spatial mass so that it does not become a free­standing mammoth in the centre of it all. 3LHD employ a surveyor’s technique by slicing the geometry of the terrain as a common denominator and the spatial unit, a band of space in which the programma­tic requirements are infilled. As opposed to the expected con­tour lines parallel with the slope of the terrain, their method is architecturally rigid with perpendicular stripes of space that slice the earth almost like a tomography of the human body. The 3D space is built by sequencing section planes and not by

(DF)

(DF)

oris, broj 60, godina 2009 3LHD, Centar Zamet

Osim sportske dvorane kompleks udomljuje i ogranak gradske knjižnice, sjedište Mjesnog odbora Zamet, komercijalne i ser­visne sadržaje i veliku garažu. ¶ Zamet je poput Trsata, Kozale, Kantride, Pećina i Vežice jedan od samosvojnih kvar tova Rijeke, lokalnih zajednica definiranih lokalnom bojom, svojim ča za razliku od što i che koji su zadržali svoj identitet usprkos toč­kastih interpolacija stambenih nebodera hongkonškog mjerila. No za razliku od Trsata, Kozale, Kantride, itd., koji svojom povijesnom i sakralnom arhitekturom žive poput mikro urba­nih cjelina, Zamet tek projektom arhitekata 3LHD dobiva svoj urbanitet, svoje središte, svoje monumentalne zgrade i svoj trg. ¶ U pristupu arhitekata 3LHD postoji temeljna razlika od uobičajenih gradotvornih modela, pa se kompleks Zamet ka­me leonski uklapa u postojeću topografiju i transformira pos­ljednje ostatke tipičnog primorskog ambijenta kuća i ze lenih okućnica, vrtova i ‘privrata’, vrtača i gromača sa vrto vima us­red grada u arhitekturu potpuno urbanog karaktera koja čuva duh mjesta. U tom modelu razlika između krajobraza i arhi­tekture nestaje, a krajobrazni elementi su transformirani u svoje arhitektonske surogate. ¶ Već na projektu uređenja plo­he splitske rive 3LHD su ostvarili radikalno ukroćivanje prirode geometrijom. Doduše, tu se stari dobri raster, ili pak zaslon niske rezolucije, koristi da se strahopoštovanje prema Palači i svim slojevima memorije rive sa neizostavnim palmama i parkićima svedu na najmanji zajednički nazivnik digitalne toč­ke, pa je tako i vrt s mediteranskim biljem iscrtan gra fiz mom digitalne slike. 2D prikaz prirode bez topografije. Možda je to hrvatski odgovor, anticipiran još u doba Novih tendencija,

gdje računala ne služe da se obradi što veći broj prostornih zamisli i ukomponira u složenu biomorfnu tvorevinu, već se svodi na minimum, a kompleksnosti pretvara u apstraktni kar­tezijanski svijet. I dok se oko nas grade arhitektonski krajobra­zi u najmanju ruku složenosti nekih primitivnih mikroorga­niza ma, poput spužvaste membrane Zahe Hadid koja je za zag re bački aerodrom čak i reducirana u svojoj tektonskoj stras ti, 3LHD na Zametu ostaju na razini ravninske redukcije koja minimumom sredstava rekonstruira novi reljef. ¶ Na Za­metu sam volumen sportske dvorane diktira pristup problemu, odnosno stav prema smještaju jedne takve prostorne mase a da ne postane slobodnostojeći mamut oko kojeg se sve do­gađa. Strategija 3LHD­a je geodetska, tj. koristi geometriju terena kao zajednički nazivnik, jedinicu raščlanjenja terena

56 57oris, number 60, year 2009 3LHD, Zamet Centre

layering floor plans. The sliced main volume of the hall is softened by the free­flowing stripes at the Božo Vidas Street frontage where they form an entry to the complex from the side of the city and has the scale of the adjoining high­rise towers across the street. The relief stripes are then recessed to form an urban plane for gathering with the entrances to all the functional components. It reads as a meadow at the bottom of a hill formed by the bands of public buildings. At the end of the sequence, the topography fully blends in with the existing terrain and opens toward the slopes of Učka Moun tain and the Bay of Opatija. ¶ The weft of vertical tec­tonic plates is articulated in an original way. Following the recent transformation of Croatian building techniques, the building clearly reveals the relationship of its skeleton and the skin. The perpendicular contour lines are directly translated into a web of steel girders which filter the daylight through their setbacks. The solid planes of the building envelope are wrapped in a ventilated façade of custom­made ceramic tiles. They appear as a narrative link with the local landscape made of stone retaining walls that define the hilly landscape. The pattern is easily compared to the pattern of a ball, the scales of a lizard, perhaps a chameleon, or with any stone coursework. The pattern is reduced to the least number of combinations that can achieve a sense of the randomness found in nature. The small number of geometrical parameters reduced the mimicry to a minimal level. ¶ As opposed to the constructive clarity demonstrated by 3LHD, spatial complexity is achieved with the unpredictable orbits and swirls of handball, the tra­jectories of bodies in motion in the interiors and the exterior spaces of the centre. The sport of handball is perhaps a random choreography for a universal urban space, made sophisticated and even elegant with its solid oak floors, the interiors lined with pressed wood acoustical panels and its opalescent glass channel façades that change with sunlight. ¶ A while ago, the local handball club was at the peak of its game but without a home, and that was the start of Rijeka’s tale that now ends without a top­quality team but a first­class urban forum for multiple uses and all kinds of users. This seems to be the case in all great architecture when the good intentions of the clients and the architects produce added value they could not even contemplate when they started the job.

(DF)

oris, broj 60, godina 2009 3LHD, Centar Zamet

autori authorsarhitektonski ured architectural office

projektni tim project team

investitor clientpovršina parcele site area

izgrađena površina built up areaneto površina net area

projekt projectrealizacija completed

cijena costs

Centar Zamet, Rijeka, HrvatskaZamet Centre, Rijeka, Croatia

3LHD3LHD architects3LHD ­ Saša Begović, Tanja Grozdanić Begović, Marko Dabrović, Silvije Novak, Paula Kukuljica, Zvonimir Marčić, Leon Lazaneo, Eugen Popović, Nives Krsnik Rister, Andrea VukojićGrad Rijeka, Rijeka Sport d.o.o. / City of Rijeka, Rijeka Sport d.o.o.12289 m²4724 m²16830 m²2004–20082007–200920 000 000 €

kojom se kodiraju zadani sadržaji. Za razliku od očekivanih izohipsi paralelnih s terenom, njihov je pristup arhitektonski tvrd sa trakama koje se suprotstavljaju padini terena verti kal­no i seciraju ga na način tomografije ljudskog tijela. 3D prostor se gradi nizanjem presjeka, a ne dispozicijom tlocrta. Sas­jeckani volumen dvorane, iako omekšan oslobađanjem lamela prema Ulici Bože Vidasa, uspostavlja urbano mjerilo i pročelje ulice na ulazu u kompleks sa strane grada, sukladan svojim mjerilom sa stambenim neboderima ispred sebe. No reljefne trake tada uzmiču i formiraju gradsku plohu okupljanja, ulaska u kompleks, ravnicu u podnožju brda formiranog od vertikalnih slojnica javnih sadržaja. Na kraju se topografija sasvim stapa sa terenom i otvara prema padinama Učke i Opatijskoj rivijeri u daljini. ¶ Osnovna potka vertikalnih tektonskih ravnina koje variraju prema zadanim sadržajima arhitektonski je artikuli­rana na jedinstven način. Potpuno je u skladu sa suvremenom transformacijom hrvatskog građevinskog prosedea u kojem je odnos kostura zgrade i omotača jasno naznačen. Prostorne izvodnice su direktno translatirane u mrežu čeličnih nosača koje u svojim procijepima filtriraju svjetlo u interijer, pune plohe omotača su obložene ventiliranom fasadom od spe­cijal nih keramičkih ploča. Njihov je pojavni karakter narativna spojnica s lokalnim pejzažom kamenih podzida koji definiraju strmu topografiju grada na brežuljcima uz more. Sam uzorak je pak moguće usporediti i sa uzorkom kožne lopte, ljuskama gmizavca, možda kameleona, ili pak s pažljivim vezom ka­mena. Pritom je uzorak oblikom i tonski sveden na naj manji broj kombinacija, čime se postiže dojam slučajnosti, pri­rodnosti. Mimikrija je geometrijom najmanjeg broja para­metara svedena na strogi minimum. ¶ Nasuprot jednostavne građevinske čit ljivosti koju demonstriraju arhitekti studija 3LHD, kompleks nost prostora daje nepredvidive putanje i vrtloge rukometne lopte te trajektorije tijela sportaša i gra­đana u kretanju unut raš njim i vanjskim prostorima komp­leksa. Rukomet je možda slučajna koreografija za jedan uni­verzalni urbani prostor, pro finjen i elegantan sa svojim kva litetnim materijalima debelih hrastovih podova, inte ri­jerske draperije akustičkih ploča od prešanog drveta, sede­fastih staklenih kanala koji daju živost u skladu s dobi dana. ¶ Kada je prije dosta godina lokalni ruko metni klub bio u zenitu svoje igre, a bez adekvatnog doma, počela je još jedna riječka priča koja sada završava bez vrhunske momčadi, ali s pr voklasnim gradskim forumom za sve namjene i sve vrste ko risnika. Nije li to uvijek slučaj u dobroj arhitekturi kada dobre namjere i naručitelja i arhitekata proizvedu kva litetu, dodanu vrijednost koju ni sami nisu mogli zamisliti kada su krenuli u posao.