Did you know that the Island of Cres is home to the only remaning floating dock from Austria-Hungary in the world?
An exhibition called Dock Culture, about a project and initiative by architect Bojana Vuksanović, opened at Croatian Designers Association (HDD) Gallery on July 12, dizajn.hr reports.
The project is part of the initiative to preserve the floating Dock 9 (originally Dock F), the only remaining object of this kind dating from the Austro-Hungarian era in the world, currently located in Cres. The design project proposes the preservation of the building as a historic industrial artefact, and its integration through a series of aspects, into the cultural, social and urban scene, as well as transformation into a new cultural platform. The author of the exhibition will give a short lecture as an introduction to the exhibition.
The dock was built for the Austro-Hungarian Navy in 193 and it is still in operation 104 years later. Throughout that period, it was used by the armies of Austro-Hungary, Italy, Yugoslavia and, since its independence, Croatia. Its location has changed several times, from Pula, where it was built, to Tivat, and finally Cres, where it has been located since 1983.
The aim of the project is to preserve and reanimate this facility as a subject of Croatian industrial and cultural heritage and prevent it from going to the scrap yard when it ceases to function within Cres Shipyard. The project states that it could be used in the future as a summer stage for multimedia art interventions, an exhibition space for naval and maritime photographs, library and archives, a space for art studios and residences, lectures, concerts, theater performances, and as a cinema, as well as a berth for two hundred smaller boats.
The object, which in itself is a “shipbuilding museum”, would represent a new layer of the city, an artefact that tells the authentic story of a cultural history, while creating new values. All these different forms and functions could coexist in the future with the “main street” – the dock’s deck, until reaching the end point, overlooking the sea. The dock’s upper deck walls, 100 m long, would have become promenades with views of the inner “street” of the dock and the entire city.
The author, Bojana Vuksanović, graduated Architecture from Edinburgh College of Art in 2003 and did a postgraduate study at Escola Tècnica Superior d’Arquitectura de Barcelona in 2005.
You can visit the exhibition until July 22 at HDD Gallery, Boškovićeva ulica 18.
All photos from dizajn.hr.
