Page 126 - Studia Universitatis Hereditati, vol 11(2) (2023)

tory and the Port of Koper, led to the construc-
tion of several schools in the following decades.
The new estates were built in concentric circles
from the old town centre southwards. In the
centre of Semedela, the new modernist, terraced
neighbourhood, a new school was built in 1972
and named after the national hero Dušan Bor-
don (Čebron Lipovec 2018, 228–229). Only sev-
en years later, in 1979, a school named after An-
ton Ukmar, another national hero, was built on
Markovec, a hilly suburban area, west of Seme-
dela. The latter complex is characterised by a dis-
126 Figure 8: Pinko Tomažič Primary School in the 1980s. tinctly organic approach in its subdivided wings
(source: Personal Archive of Zdenko Bombek)
and its location on a ridge overlooking Koper
studia universitatis hereditati, letnik 11 (2023), številka 2 / volume 11 (2023), number 2
All the designs provided for lush green- Bay. The colour scheme of white walls, blue roofs ti
ery. The pavilion design provided a solution for and red details is reminiscent of the Yugoslav
building on the unstable ground of the former and Slovenian flags, although there is no docu-
salt pans. The building was in fact the first to be ment that explicitly mentions such symbolism
built in the poor load-bearing area (Kresal 2016, being intentional. The school was intended for ta
96–97). The school was mainly attended by pu- children from the newly built blocks of flats be-
pils from the suburban estates. All the plans tween Semedela and Žusterna, which were built
that were drawn up testify to the commitment due to the intensive population growth, main-
of the already established Slovenian authorities ly of workers from other Yugoslav republics, af- di
who shifted the focus from not just solving the ter the intensive expansion of the Port of Koper
spatial problem and asserting Slovenian identi- and the extremely rapid economic development
ty, but also to expressing a special concern for in the late 1960s and 1970s. The new and mod-
the most modern trends in school architecture ern school, located on one of the most beautiful
and also in education. In 2000, professional crit- vantage points overlooking the Gulf of Trieste,
ics described the Pinko Tomažič Primary School reflected the peak of ‘Yugoslav’ Koper’s econom-
as ‘the only example of a pavilion-like transpar- ic development. here
ent building in the Bonifika area between the
old centre of Koper and Semedela, and it could Concluding Discussion
become the standard form of construction in A dual – historical and architectural-histori-
this area’. (Ravnikar et al. 2000) They proposed cal – analysis of schools in post-war Koper illus-
it should be protected as a cultural heritage site. trates the dramatic changes that took place in
However, structural problems meant the build- the north Istrian region after the war, and also
ing was demolished in 2005, despite its architec- before it. The motives and mechanisms behind
tural qualities. the establishment of Slovene education clearly
The Pinko Tomažič Primary School was the reflect a desire to redress the injustices of fascism
embodiment of the grand plan to expand post- and earlier historical periods. This is manifested
war Koper beyond the former salt pans, i.e. the above all in the primary concern for the Slovene
reclaimed Bonifika, towards the neighbouring language, for the ‘restoration’ of Slovene identi-
hills. The town’s expansion and the construc- ty in children who had supposedly ‘forgotten’ studiauniversitatis
tion of new residential estates, which became their mother tongue or renounced it under pres-
necessary with the economic development that sure from the forces that wanted to assimilate
followed the construction of the TOMOS fac- and erase the Slovene character of this ethnically