6IX:PACK, Contemporary Slovenian Architecture at KAM

On Friday I went to KAM to see the last day of an exhibition entitled "6IX:PACK, Contemporary Slovenian Architecture". KAM is the Center of Mediterranean Architecture, based in the old Venetian arsenal alongside Hania's harbour.

The exhibition has already travelled to such far flung places as New York, Los Angeles, Rome, Madrid and London, and I always think Chania looks very small when added to that kind of illustrious list. However KAM is attached to the Technical University of Crete, and they obviously do have some pulling power.

The last exhibitions we saw there were Alain Ceccaroli's photography exhibition Trails of History, and Light and Architecture - Lumieres Sur La France. I can't say I enjoyed this one as much as I did the one on Light & Architecture.

The exhibition consists of six architectural firms showcasing recent work in Slovenia, and I have to say it was rather too technical for me - a lot of the displays were exploded elevations of proposed buildings that I didn't really follow.

A couple of things stood out though. One was Stanezice City, which is a new satellite development outside of Ljubljana to house 3,000 people in a mixture of housing styles. The most distinctive feature though was that as you enter the new town, all the roads disappear underground into huge parking lots, and the entire place above ground is pedestrianised with sculpted parkland. It was amazing to see a town for 3,000 people with no roads.

The other thing that really stood out, for me at least, was a development be the architectural company Ofis. This was an extension on a 19th century villa on the shores of Lake Bled. We must have walked by it when we walked around the frozen lake during our European adventure. Because it is an area of outstanding natural beauty, and the Slovenian equivalent of a listed building, the architects had to build a modern extension to it that didn't disfigure the landscape. Their solution was to only extend the lower floor, and from one side make the building simply look like it was a natural bit of hill.

I think Lake Bled was the most magical place we visited on our tour - I have this picture of it that I took set as my desktop background on my laptop.

One of the nicest things about the 6IX:PACK exhibition was the music, avant-garde burbling electronica, which I could have stayed and listened to all day. The next exhibition at KAM is apparently about comics, which I am looking forward to a lot.