written by Adrijan Cingerle
Nova Gorica is an example of a modern architectural and urban planning experiment which was not realized in its entirety. In this article I analyze the fragmented spatial deve-lopment of the city to date with an emphasis on the city center, evaluate the urban plan-ning tradition, and indicate a possible direction for future development, also in view of con¬necting two sister cities iat the edgei into a new center for a wider European region.
Key words: Gorizia, Nova Gorica, main street, garden city
SUMMARY
The territory of Gorica has changed hands many times in the past. The location of the new border after the Second World War caused a fateful division of the territory, and overnight left it without a city center, while the city of Gorizia was cut off from its environs and hin¬terland. As a replacement for what was lost, a new artificial city was created on the plain of Solkan. Professor Edvard Ravnikar followed the model of Le Corbusier's sunny city and designed Nova Gorica as a garden city which would develop along main roads–central city avenues where the most important city buildings would he located. Despite the initial enthusiasm the construction of the new city soon slowed down due to the loss of state funding. The development of Nova Gorica became hostage to a weak local economy, the primary reason for abandoning Ravnikar's original plan, which today has been realized only fragmentarily. It was replaced by numerous plans and construction designs fromvari¬ous planning agencies and architects, all of which remained unfinished and led the city into increasingly greater chaos.
The modest heritage of the modern–Ravnikar's original plan–is a valuable tradition on the basis of which the city could continue its development in an integrated way. Critical cor-rections and adjustments to intermediate urban plans could transform the city into a clear and recognizable architectural and urban whole, and the natural growing together of two sister cities. Gorizia and Nova Gorica, could form the basis for a new center of a broader European region.