ZAGREB, November 17, 2018 – A new, modern building of the American International School of Zagreb was officially inaugurated in Zagreb’s Bundek neighbourhood on Friday.
This state-of-the-art school is attended by 250 students of 36 different nationalities, who acquire competencies based on modern learning methods. One-fifth of the students attending the American International School of Zagreb (AISZ) are Croatians.
The American International School was established in 1966 and 52 years after its establishment it has moved to a befitting campus – the most beautiful school building in Zagreb, in the city’s most beautiful park, Bundek, Mayor Milan Bandić said at the opening ceremony.
Opening the new school, US Ambassador William Robert Kohorst thanked generations of American International School employees who over the past 52 years had worked with enthusiasm to help realise the project.
He commended the school’s location and thanked the mayor of Zagreb as well as the companies that built the new school building – Teh-gradnja and Projektgradnja – for their professionalism, recalling that the building was built in a record 13 months and cost 14.7 million euro.
The ambassador said that the AISZ was the best school in the country, offering many possibilities to help children develop competencies for jobs of the future.
School director Paul Buckley said that the school offered an innovative international curriculum based on the newest education research and practice. He thanked everyone involved in the new school project – current and former members of the school board – as well as the project authors – Boston architects David Croteau and Jenni Katajamäki of FLANSBURGH Architects and Zagreb architects Vedran Pedišić and Erick Velasco Farrera of SANGRAD+AVP.
He noted that the school had been furnished by Croatian companies. The school director also said that the school could admit 500 students.
The school has three atria, halls that also serve as areas for learning, a running track, a theatre with a music classroom, an art studio, a dance studio, two open libraries, chemistry, physics and biology laboratories with modern equipment, a workshop and many other amenities, he said.
The school provides the best possible education for its students as well as encouraging them to accept differences and love their life and the life of others, said the director.
Mayor Bandić said that Zagreb was a multiethnic and multicultural city, open and safe for all. He said the AISZ was proof of Zagreb’s multiculturalism and thanked everyone, including the current US ambassador, as well as his predecessors, for everything they had done to help accomplish the new school project.
Bandić also said that the new school was evidence that “the United States is seriously counting on Croatia”, and expressed his gratitude to the USA “for everything it did for Croatia in the critical moments of its history.”
Representatives of the parliament, government and the president’s office also attended the opening ceremony.
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