IN-PERSON London Heritages. Section A

Abstract

The aim of the research is the urban transformation of the historical center of Zagreb at the end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st century, due to the closing of factories and the consequent deterioration of industrial architecture. In the dense urban fabric of the Lower Town, on its then edges, from the end of the 19th and during the first half of the 20th century, factories are being built. The industrialization conditioned the urbanization of the city: the construction of city palaces and rental buildings for the increasing middle class, and factories that attracted workers from the surrounding areas. Socio-political, economic and technological changes a hundred years later led to a new transformation, when yesterday’s flagships of economic development became ruins, but their once peripheral location became an attractive city center. On the example of the former textile factory Nada Dimić and its transformation into a residential and business complex in 2022, the relationship to industrial cultural heritage and housing policy will be examined. The former Nada Dimić factory had an industrial policlinic, a resort, sports and cultural clubs, a singles’ dormitory, which clearly speaks of the factory oriented towards man and his needs. Today’s residential and business complex with a quasi-public park area does not exceed the narrow limits of the needs of its own tenants. The analysis also includes artistic and social actions that tried to point out the multiplicity of needs that city life implies and the responsibility of politicians towards social values.