This office and mixed-use block building by Andrej Kalamar in Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia, attempts to restore a sense of urbanity to the historic city center, much of which was demolished to make way for the object buildings and grand traffic engineering of socialist modernism. Its site was formerly a meaningless and unused space in front of an office block. The Lev Office Building stands on the corner of the busiest traffic intersection in the city, a modest contribution to city life.

The visible part of the Lev Office Building houses offices and retail spaces, but it only represents third of the whole structure, while below ground there are three underground levels accommodate parking for 100 cars and additional programs for the adjacent hotel. As the impact from heavy traffic intersection and diversity of physical space, the building is oriented away from the busy roundabout. Together with adjacent buildings it forms an open atrium on the inside of its curve to a new public outdoor space which enjoys relative quiet and fume-free air, a nucleus of public activities.

The Lev Office Building’s minimal form interacts with surrounding’s movement. The street facade’s corrugated metal cladding and etched glass surface responds in its color and texture to the rhythm of the cars travelling past, while protecting the users behind the vertical openings. When the viewers moving past, the “chromosome image” shifts and changes. It attempts to redress the dreadful destruction wrought on a fine city by traffic-crazed civil engineers. And it creates a small potential urban space and generates ingenious traffic architecture against the roads. This colorful presence on the street is clearly trying, in very difficult circumstances, rescuing a formerly eroded site, and could become a model for a new Slovenian urbanism.

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