2025
Finding Eden in Grožnjan
Professors:
Takaharu + Yui Tezuka
Symposium:
STRUKTURA
Papundekl Architekti
OFIS Arhitekti
Time:
July 31st — August 6th 2025
Workshop
Legend tells of Eden—a realm untouched by death or sorrow, where humanity once dwelled in eternal harmony. But Adam and Eve, bearers of the original transgression, were exiled for tasting the forbidden fruit. The Bible mourns this as a fall from grace. Yet, paradoxically, it is also the genesis of civilization, the first glimmer of hope. Without that rupture, the world we inhabit would never have come into being.
This narrative is not presented to question morality or truth, but to serve as a lens—an allegorical departure point for reimagining the purpose of a city suspended between worlds.
Grožnjan is such a city—a fortified citadel poised between the tangible and the ephemeral, between the present and the ever-vanishing. At dawn, mists rise to become clouds, and above them floats this aerial town, drifting like a memory not yet lost. People ascend in search of that illusion. But it is not merely its perch that stirs the imagination. It is the serpentine paths that conceal direction. The loggia that appears as if conjured from stone and silence. The gate that stands not just as threshold, but as proclamation.
Your task is to conceive an entrance to Eden, embedded within Grožnjan. But this is not to be a simple door. It must be an interstitial realm—a spatial passage suspended between the known world and the unseen paradise. Eden cannot be observed with the naked eye. It may be sensed, inferred, or dreamt. You are invited to propose an architectural response that defies expectation—a revelation, not a solution.
Exhibition: Andrija Mutnjaković - a personal universe
Andrija Mutnjaković is a unique figure in the architecture of this region, with a life and career spanning nearly a century,
marked by exceptional projects and achievements. He operates outside the usual framework of architectural offices, as a free artist uninterested in trends or the limiting discourse of his surroundings. The architecture he designs is unmistakably authentic. He is the author of some of the most original architectural works, among which the library in Priština stands out as one of the most recognizable architectural accomplishments — embodying the synthesis of years of research. He obsessively constructs his own world through work across various fields. He continuously and with focus engages in theory, conceptual research, and practice, intertwining them seamlessly.
Grožnjan Summer School of Architecture
JMI CENTRE GROŽNJAN
Umberta Gorjana 2, 52429 Grožnjan, Croatia
groznjanschoolofarchitecture@gmail.com
