An Open letter for the preservation of the Memorial Complex by Bernard Bernardi in Korcula

Jul 20th 2020. - Jul 31st 2020.
In collaboration with: Arhitektonski fakultet Sveučilišta u Zagrebu, Društvo arhitekata Dubrovnik, Društvo povjesničara umjetnosti Hrvatske, HDD, Zagreb, HS AICA, Zagreb, Odsjek za povijest umjetnosti, Filozofski fakultet Sveučilišta u Splitu, Siva zona, prostor suvremene i medijske umjetnosti, Korčula, Udruženje hrvatskih arhitekata, ULUPUH Zagreb
An Open letter

With this letter, we appeal for an urgent return to the original state of the Bernard Bernardi Memorial Complex in Korčula, where a number of harmful spatial and design interventions were recently performed. The reason for our public appearance is the installation of metal pillars as a holder of a net for stopping soccer balls within the Memorial Complex, which is the marking of the city's Reconciliation Square, and several wooden benches (not fixed to the ground) in front of it, which violates its intended communication with the sea. These spatial interventions are a deformation of the entire author's work, which violates the original artistic and spatial solution. We, therefore, appeal for the return of the Memorial Complex to its original state, by the urgent procedure.

Bernardo Bernardi (Lumbarda on Korčula, 1921 - Bol on Brač, 1985) is an architect and designer to whom we owe immensely. It is his merit that we have a professional society of designers (today the Croatian Design Society) and higher education of designers for which he fought for many decades. Bernardi was also one of the founders of the EXAT 51 group, ULUPUH and Zagreb's Studios and Design Center, and he also named one of the most important architectural magazines in the region - Man and Space. The street in Korčula, the gallery in Zagreb and the annual professional award for the most successful achievement in the field of design and interior design of the Association of Croatian Architects are named after him.

In a series of significant works by Bernardi, a special place is occupied, urbanly and formally, by the solution of the Memorial Complex in Korčula dedicated to the people of Korčula who died in the Second World War - from 1981, colloquially called "Monument" among the local population. The memorial complex, designed as a public space and interactive ambience, in its design includes use for public formal and informal gatherings, as well as "intangible heritage" such as soccer. We hope that the Town of Korčula will find a suitable place for sports and other activities so that they do not disrupt daily activities in the area of ​​the Square of Reconciliation, which was allegedly the reason for placing a safety net and supports next to the body of the monument, and in its view (source: Slobodna Dalmacija, text by Dora Lozica from July 18, 2020). We appeal to the Town of Korčula that for each next planned intervention on cultural and artistic heritage, to which the monument and the monumental ambiguity unequivocally belong, professional and competent institutions are previously consulted in order to preserve the cultural property and optimal use of public space. Architecture and artistic heritage, all of which imply Bernardi's solution of the Memorial Complex, are mediators and bearers of the fundamental messages and cultural identity of the city and society.


July 20, 2020


Faculty of Architecture, University of Zagreb, Dean prof.dr.sc. Krunoslav Šmit
Society of Architects Dubrovnik, president Božo Benić, mag.ing.arh.
Croatian Society of Art Historians, president prof.dr.sc. Zvonko Maković
HDD, President Maša Milovac
HS AICA, president doc.dr.sc. Silva Kalčić
Department of Art History, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Split, Acting head doc.dr.sc. Ivana Čapeta Rakić
Gray Area, space for contemporary and media art, Korčula, president Darko Fritz
Association of Croatian Architects, President Maja Furlan Zimmermann, B.Sc.
ULUPUH Zagreb, president dr.art. Ivana Bakal