Metelkova

After the dissolution of Yugoslavia in that year, the Yugoslavian Army left Metelkova, which shortly became a military brownfield with its leftover barracks.

In 1991 the Network for Metelkova, composed of more than 200 alternative and youth organizations, asked the municipality of Ljubljana for permission to use those barracks for peaceful and creative purposes.

In 1993 the cultural centre became a squat when a commissioner mandated the demolition of some barracks that were promised to the Network, with the aim of illegally reconverting the area into a commercial site.

In fact, the construction was followed by the request of its demolition, right after another municipal office reported it to the State Inspectorate for the Environment and Spatial Planning.

Although it did not help Metelkova to receive proper legal status, the area was recognized as a national cultural heritage back in 2005.

From 1993 onwards, the site has been occupied, in a declared illegal way, mainly by artists, activists and young students, organising a rich agenda of cultural activities.

[5] Over the last few years Metelkova, like Christiania in Copenhagen, has been the subject of several studies and reflections on the phenomenon of squatting and on living with different laws and institutions that surround it.

[6] Metelkova's differentiation into three possible sub-entities can be seen through the arrival of different institutional actors in the neighbourhood, such as the Museum of Contemporary Art, different NGOs and different commercial activities, such as the Hotel Celica, which reuses some of the areas of the old barracks.

[2] A possible explanation for this situation is to be found in the nature of the squatting in Metelkova: in fact the old buildings of the Yugoslav army are not occupied for the sole purpose of living there, but also for the aim of producing culture.

Nowadays the situation has slightly changed: the city of Ljubljana is now linked to the Metelkova’s site, for example thanks to the presence of different institutional actors.

[6] In 2005, Metelkova was declared a national cultural heritage site,[8] prevented from being part of an alternative economic development and from attempts for densification and rehabilitation of the sector through urban planning.