Although the entire complex underwent numerous plans, investor changes, variants, and adaptations between 1963 and the 1990s, only a small portion of the design was realized. At the far western edge, the Petrol filling station with a bold reinforced-concrete structure was built in 1968; it was later converted into a rental space for various activities, and today, empty and deteriorated, it awaits better times.
After the construction of the Eurocenter building (2002) next to the petrol station, a competition was announced in 2007 for the redevelopment of the area under the name Northern City Gate, but without reference to Mihelič’s original concept. The site then gradually filled with contemporary investment projects. The Intercontinental Hotel (Ofis arhitekti) was built in 2017, followed in 2022 by the Grand Plaza Hotel (Podrecca Architects), which definitively reshaped the area and visually obscured the once permeable vista of the northern entrance to Ljubljana’s city centre.
Today, the “Northern City Gate” exists primarily as an idea, a visionary urban concept that significantly marked the city’s architectural development, even though it was only partially realized in physical space. Mihelič’s proposed arrangement of the area remains a valuable document of its time, as well as a reminder of architectural ambitions that exceeded their historical moment.
Excerpt from the documentary portrait Milan Mihelič, Architect, directed by Amir Muratović.
The full documentary film is available on the RTV 365 platform.
After Mihelič once again won the public competition for the development of the C01/10 block with his project Porta, the area under consideration expanded across Slovenska Street to Liberation Front Square. Thus, between 1972 and 1978, construction took place on the east side of the technologically advanced building of the International Automatic Telephone Exchange (MATC), which soon became established as an international architectural icon due to its design and articulated glass façade. The people of Ljubljana nicknamed it “the Piano.”
MATC interior, photo: Janez Kališnik. Courtesy of the Museum of Architecture and Design.
MATC interior, photo: Janez Kališnik. Courtesy of the Museum of Architecture and Design.
Various archival footage of Bavarski dvor. Archive of RTV Slovenia.
»The design and partial realization of Bavarski dvor marked a definitive break into a new era of industrial construction. Mihelič, similarly to Ravnikar on Republic Square, raised his development slightly above the street grid, something we too often overlook. With this, the professor and his most successful student echoed the ancient foundations of temples elevated above a small staircase. Mihelič’s design imaginatively formed a ground level meant for the citizen, the pedestrian, who was to walk freely beneath the towers or into the network of streets behind Liberation Front Square.«
Gojko Zupan
Northern City Gate
Comprehensive plan for the redevelopment of Bavarski dvor in Ljubljana
Milan Mihelič (1925–2021) was one of the most important Slovenian architects of the second half of the 20th century. He was a universal designer who understood architecture as an inseparable interconnectedness of urban planning, construction, and detail. He was distinguished by an exceptional knowledge of contemporary building technologies, innovative materials, and construction systems, which he combined with a distinctly authorial and often visionary spatial language. His creativity was in constant dialogue with the international architectural scene, while through continuous reflection, research, and development he maintained a recognizable architectural idiom.
Architecture: Milan Mihelič and associates
Year of construction: 1963 - 1991
Architecture: Milan Mihelič and associatesYear of construction: 1963–1991
After the construction of the Eurocenter building (2002) next to the petrol station, a competition was announced in 2007 for the redevelopment of the area under the name Northern City Gate, but without reference to Mihelič’s original concept. The site then gradually filled with contemporary investment projects. The Intercontinental Hotel (Ofis arhitekti) was built in 2017, followed in 2022 by the Grand Plaza Hotel (Podrecca Architects), which definitively reshaped the area and visually obscured the once permeable vista of the northern entrance to Ljubljana’s city centre.
Today, the “Northern City Gate” exists primarily as an idea, a visionary urban concept that significantly marked the city’s architectural development, even though it was only partially realized in physical space. Mihelič’s proposed arrangement of the area remains a valuable document of its time, as well as a reminder of architectural ambitions that exceeded their historical moment.
View of the Bavarski dvor today, Grand Plaza Hotel on the left, InterContinental Hotel on the right
Among Mihelič’s largest and most ambitious projects is the urban and architectural design of the Bavarski dvor area, which began with his victory in a 1963 competition. The area encompassed the space between Slovenska Street, Dvoržak Street, and Tivolska Street. Mihelič conceived the area as a compact yet permeable and complex urban structure, whose central motif was the “northern city gate”: a series of slender towers interconnected by skybridges, descending from the crossroads parallel to Tivolska Street down to the last building in the sequence, a petrol station. The concept was based on a dynamic composition of different heights, on the contrast between heavy concrete cores and light, cantilevered glass volumes, and covered almost 60,000 square meters. The key idea of the design was an active ground-level urban space, created through the varied placement of buildings, basement atriums, underpasses, and the lifting of building volumes onto slender columns. His thoughtful idea of a “gate” thus defined both the physical entry into the city and a metaphor for a modern, forward-looking Ljubljana.
Variant study from 1965, model. Archive of the heirs of Milan Mihelič.
Construction site of Tower S2 at Bavarski dvor, March 1971. Photo: Svetozar Busić. Courtesy of the National Museum of Contemporary History of Slovenia (MNSZS).
Construction site of Tower S2 at Bavarski dvor, March 1971. Photo: Svetozar Busić. Courtesy of the National Museum of Contemporary History of Slovenia (MNSZS).
Tower S2, April 1978. Photo: Svetozar Busić. Courtesy of the National Museum of Contemporary History of Slovenia (MNSZS).
Mihelič je območje zasnoval kot strnjeno, a prehodno, kompleksno urbano strukturo, katere osrednji motiv so predstavljala »severna mestna vrata«, niz vitkih, z mostovži medsebojno povezanih stolpnic, ki so se od križišča vzporedno s Tivolsko cesto spuščale do zadnje stavbe v nizu, bencinskega servisa. Koncept je temeljil na dinamični kompoziciji različnih višin, na kontrastu med težkimi betonskimi jedri ter lahkotnimi konzolno obešenimi steklenimi volumni in je obsegal skoraj 60.000 kvadratnih metrov
Ključna ideja zasnove je bil dejavni mestni prostor pritličja, ki ga je ustvaril z razgibano razmestitvijo stavb, kletnimi atriji, podhodi in dvigom stavbnih volumnov na vitke stebre. Njegova premišljena ideja “vrat” je tako opredeljevala fizični prehod v mesto kot tudi prispodobo sodobne, (v prihodnost) odprte Ljubljane.
Author of the text: Eva Eržen
Text sources:
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Bernik, S. Milan Mihelič: Architecture Between Reality and Vision. Ljubljana: SAZU, 2011.
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Various minutes, reports, and other construction-related documentation held by the Historical Archives of Ljubljana.
Sources and notes:
Image 1: Model of the Northern City Gate design, view from the north, 1972. Archive of the heirs of Milan Mihelič.
Image 2: Variant study from 1965, model. Archive of the heirs of Milan Mihelič.
Image 3: Construction site of Tower S2 at Bavarski dvor, March 1971. Photo: Svetozar Busić. Courtesy of the National Museum of Contemporary History of Slovenia (MNSZS).
Image 4: Construction site of Tower S2 at Bavarski dvor, March 1971. Photo: Svetozar Busić. Courtesy of the National Museum of Contemporary History of Slovenia (MNSZS).
Image 5: Tower S2, April 1978. Photo: Svetozar Busić. Courtesy of the National Museum of Contemporary History of Slovenia (MNSZS).
Image 6: Characteristic view of the Northern City Gate design, 1972. Archive of the heirs of Milan Mihelič.
Image 7: Model of the Northern City Gate design, view from the northwest, 1972. Archive of the heirs of Milan Mihelič.
Image 8: Variant zoning plan, before 1989, model. Archive of the heirs of Milan Mihelič.
Image 9: Model of the Northern City Gate design, view from the south, 1972. Archive of the heirs of Milan Mihelič.
Image 10: Model of the Northern City Gate design, view from the south, 1972. Archive of the heirs of Milan Mihelič.
Image 11: Roof plan of the Petrol gas station on the former Prešeren Street, author: Milan Mihelič, February 1967. Archive of the heirs of Milan Mihelič; held by the Museum of Architecture and Design.
Video 1: Various archival footage of Bavarski dvor. Archive of RTV Slovenia.
Image 12: MATC interior, photo: Janez Kališnik. Courtesy of the Museum of Architecture and Design.
Image 13: MATC interior, photo: Janez Kališnik. Courtesy of the Museum of Architecture and Design.
Image 14: International Automatic Telephone Exchange (MATC, also known as “The Piano”), photo: Janez Kališnik. Courtesy of the Museum of Architecture and Design.
Image 15: Section through the basement levels and side view of the planned towers S1 and S2. Archive of the heirs of Milan Mihelič.
Image 16: Model of towers S1 and S2 – only S2 was built, 1969. Archive of the heirs of Milan Mihelič.
Image 17: Hotel Plaza.
Image 18: Hotel InterContinental.
Image 19: Workers on the scaffolding of Tower S2, 1977. Photo: Svetozar Busić. Courtesy of the National Museum of Contemporary History of Slovenia (MNSZS).
Video 2: Excerpt from the documentary portrait Milan Mihelič, Architect, directed by Amir Muratović.
The full documentary film is available on the RTV 365 platform.
Image 20: Bavarski dvor around 1980. Source: Old photographs and postcards of Ljubljana.
The presentation was created in collaboration with the National Museum of Contemporary History of Slovenia.
Model of towers S1 and S2 – only S2 was built, 1969. Archive of the heirs of Milan Mihelič.
Section through the basement levels and side view of the planned towers S1 and S2. Archive of the heirs of Milan Mihelič.
The S2 office tower, planned together with the S1 tower (1969), was not actually built until the 1970s. Tower S1 was never realized. Construction began in 1974, but stopped the following year due to deformations in the main steel beams, which required structural remediation. Work then continued slowly, and the entire building was not completed until 1980. Because the S1 tower was abandoned, S2 remained a solitary torso, a fragment of the original vision which, with its distinctive structure and elegant glass vertical, set the height benchmark for the northern edge of the city centre.
In the 1980s and 1990s, political, investment, and urban-planning priorities shifted repeatedly, gradually dismantling the possibility of a unified realization of the Northern City Gate project. Nevertheless, in 1991 Mihelič produced an alternative development plan in an effort to preserve the fundamental idea and achieve the full design.
Among Mihelič’s largest and most ambitious projects is the urban and architectural design of the Bavarski dvor area, which began with his victory in a 1963 competition. The area encompassed the space between Slovenska Street, Dvoržak Street, and Tivolska Street.
Variant study from 1965, model. Archive of the heirs of Milan Mihelič.
Construction site of Tower S2 at Bavarski dvor, March 1971. Photo: Svetozar Busić. Courtesy of the National Museum of Contemporary History of Slovenia (MNSZS).
Construction site of Tower S2 at Bavarski dvor, March 1971. Photo: Svetozar Busić. Courtesy of the National Museum of Contemporary History of Slovenia (MNSZS).