The Alley of Sculptures – Discover the Strangest Sculptures in Zagreb
One sunny day in August, my boyfriend and I decided to take a nice walk along the path that follows Sava embankment. Even though I've seen parts of Sava embankment, and made several blog posts about it, I never actually went for a walk all the way between the Zeljeznicki most and Most mladosti. And that was a huge mistake! My boyfriend was perfectly aware of the sculptures I'm going to write about, as he goes past them when riding his bicycle to work, but he never said to me anything about them! He surprised me with wanting to take a walk there. Clueless, I agreed, and we began our walk from our apartment. As we reached Zeljeznicki most and continued the walk, in the distance, I saw some strange stuff lying on the grass by the path. As soon as we reached it, I was blown away! A bunch of sculptures, all located at a fair distance from another, just waiting to be seen and enjoyed during the nice walk by the Sava river. My boyfriend started to make fun of me as I'd never seen the sculptures before, and I yelled at him for not telling me. He laughed even harder!
So, there you have it - that's the story of my very first visit to the Alley of Sculptures in Zagreb. As you would expect, after seeing that strange yet fascinating bunch of sculptures, I did my homework to find out more about them. Let's begin!
Image Credit: Tajana Pran
Not so long time ago, the Sava river was a centre of many events and fun activities during the summer. The river itself was clean enough for bathing and enjoying the sun. In 1926, the first public bathing place in Zagreb was opened there, next to the old Sava Bridge, at the site of today's "Stara Sava" restaurant. Zagrebians really liked this resort as it had become a popular place to have fun, hang out with friends or family, meet new people and to find refreshment in the Sava river. But, the mighty river had different plans. After a lot of destructive floods which represented a great danger not only to the resort but the city and Zagrebians as well, the city authorities finally decided to build an embankment all along the river, and the resort became just a memory of the past. But, as the embankment was built, it didn't look particularly attractive. Over time, some of the paths were built. That wasn't enough for Ratko Petric, Croatian academic sculptor and professor, the author of the Alley of Sculptures project, who wanted to revive the neglected space along the Sava river. Originally, the project he designed contained much more ideas, but only the sculptures were realized. The idea of the Alley of Sculptures itself was to bring contemporary Croatian art closer to Zagrebians and visitors and to symbolically connect Zagreb with Novi Zagreb, as the Sava river separates them. If you ask me, Ratko Petric did an enormous step towards making Sava embankment an attractive location in the city of Zagreb.
The Alley of Sculptures
As I mentioned earlier, I searched for more information about the sculptures. But, surprisingly, there are none about the sculptures themselves. After some time, I found out why. These sculptures are designed and created by renowned Croatian artists and sculptors that are normally creating art and sculptures for The Museum of Contemporary Art in Zagreb. You know that contemporary art differs from traditional art by one significant thing – there is no explanation of it as it's created with the intention to be explained by the viewer himself. I find this fascinating and kind of mysterious that no one knows the true meaning of the sculptures but the sculptors themselves. The first sculpture (Kapi) was set in 1990 and the last sculpture (Medas protiv uroka i poplave) was set in 2016. For now, there are 12 sculptures in the Alley. Can't wait for the next one!
Image Credit: Tajana Pran
When you visit it, you'll see the strangest sculptures that'll surprise you with their shapes and sizes. Some of them are small, some of them really big and hard not to notice from a distance, like ''Putokaz'' (Eng. Path) that is fun to see. Those gigantic female legs that come out of the ground left me breathless and made me laugh! Every few feet a sculpture appears, each one telling its story. Some are somewhat related to their looks, but some are still a bit abstract like sculpture ''Macka'' (Eng. The Cat) that looks nowhere near the name. Other sculptures are also quite interesting, and my personal favourite are the sculptures of frogs called ''Zabnjak'' (Eng. The Frog Lake). The rest of them, that I won't write about because I really want you to discover them for yourself, are called ''Kotac vremena'' (Eng. The Wheel of Time), ''Covjek s kolutom'' (Eng. The Man with the Wheel), Kapi (Eng. Drops), ''Dvoje'' (Eng. Two), ''Tok'' (Eng. Stream), ''Kamen temeljac'' (Eng. Cornerstone), ''Trkac'' (Eng. Runner), ''Ruka'' (Eng. The Hand) and ''Medas protiv uroka i poplava'' (Eng. The Stone Against Curses and Floods).
Image Credit: Tajana Pran
The Alley of Sculptures shows that art and nature can harmoniously coexist taking into account the real needs of the citizens and preserving the natural unity at the same time. I highly recommend you to visit it and have fun while going for the walk of your life!
Header Image Credit: Tajana Pran
Author: Tajana Pran