Search

Architect Vladimir Turina (Banja Luka, 1913 - Zagreb, 1968) left an indelible mark in the 20th century Croatian architecture. He was both an innovative architect and a distinctive professor in the Department of Architecture at the Technical Faculty in Zagreb where he worked from 1946 to 1966. After World War II, he entirely devoted himself to sports architecture, in particular the design of stadia and swimming pools that were widely regarded as the most successful segment of his entire architectural production. He was the author of a truly visionary design for the Water Sports Centre (Swimming pool complex Rijeka-Sušak) made in 1949 in collaboration with the students of architecture at the time from the Technical Faculty in Zagreb: Zvonimir Radiæ, Ninoslav Kuèan and Ivan Seifert. Between the two world wars, the city of Rijeka was part of the Kingdom of Italy, while the neighboring Sušak was part of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia with the Rjeèina river canyon as a borderline between them. After World War II, the two urban areas were united and the Delta area - the wide confluence of the Rjeèina watercourse with the Adriatic Sea - became a place that connected and separated them at the same time. The port of Sušak and all railway facilities were planned to be relocated to another location while the free Delta area was redeveloped as a new representative urban center. Turina's design for the Swimming pool complex Rijeka-Sušak from 1949 envisaged a parking lot with numerous sports and recreation facilities and green areas. Its multipurpose design is characterized both by urban and architectural qualities. It acts as a linking area between two similar yet completely different entities of the new city of Rijeka at the time. Traffic was planned to be removed from the Delta area and new areas were reserved for sports parks and playgrounds. This newly-created free area was planned as the site for the Water Sports Centre that would encompass: an outdoor swimming pool for summer events near the seaside, an indoor swimming pool and an athletic stadium. With minor changes, the swimming pool hall could be converted into a hangar for smaller airplanes, exhibition gallery or a movie theater as well as a multi-purpose sports hall for boxing, fencing, wrestling, basketball, volleyball. The east side of the outdoor swimming pool was planned as grandstands (standing area) while along its west side might accommodate a sliding movable stand if necessary. The central compositional axis is made by a formally superior swimming pool hall roofed with circular ribs. The swimming pool hall measuring 100'50 m with its circular structure in the shape of a tunnel is perpendicular to the seashore. Its volume, however, does not obstruct the seaside view and serves as a convenient location for a park extending along the entire Delta area. Along the west side of the swimming pool hall is a building with a rectangular plan that accommodates a lobby, a hall and administrative spaces while along its east side there is a slightly rotated two-storey restaurant with a square-shaped plan. The area by the sea is reserved for a hotel designed as a tower, intended for sports visitors. The key feature of the design is actually the concept of a possible transformation of space by means of a movable stand that allows simultaneous watching of sports events on three sports fields and a sliding prefabricated floor structure by means of which it is possible to convert the hall to new uses. A movable one-sided two-storey stand consists of three independent steel structural parts that allow separate usage. It is possible to move along the slides in a rectilinear way from the seaside to approximately 300 meters deep into the hinterland in the direction northsouth connecting three sports fields - the indoor swimming pool hall, the outdoor swimming pool and the athletic field - thus creating the mobile architecture - a machine. The construction of the hall and the movable floor structure above the swimming pool pits are originally contained in the conceptual design of the author. Transformability of space is an essential feature of the project. Turina was probably aware that the Swimming pool complex would never be built. Therefore, he used this design to illustrate his search for a new form that would accommodate new functions. The architectural composition is simple, based only on three basic geometrical shapes: square (restaurant), circle (cross-section of the swimming pool hall) and a rectangle (access building, the hotel high-rise). This design shows Turina's mastery in capturing the genius loci as well as his capability to devise a visionary concept that would become a prototype for new sports architecture worldwide. The design for the swimming pool complex in the Delta area is especially important for the city because it solves the problem of how to connect the two separate city areas (Rijeka and Sušak) into a new urban entity and apply the CIAM-based urban planning principles of the period. Turina's revolutionary project was significant in the world context as well. The form and construction of a multi-purpose hall were ingenious. Yet, putting the sliding wheeled stand on the railroad that would lead to a chosen sports field was a truly revolutionary idea that had never been thought of before in the world architecture. Turina exhibited his design on a number of occasions and won numerous international awards: the Olympic exhibition of sports architecture in London (1948) and in Helsinki (1952, Diploma of the XV Olympic games for sports architecture), the international exhibition of sports architecture in Stockholm (1949), the world architectural exhibition in Sao Paolo (1957) and Milan (1964). This visionary design for the Water Sports Centre with a wide range of functional, technological, design and structural innovative solutions was the first one of its kind in the realm of sports architecture. It was published several times in home and foreign professional magazines, independent publications and in the Olympic exhibition catalogues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]