Slovenia 2021

Title: The Common in Community. Seventy Years of Cooperative Centres as a Social Infrastructure
Commissioner: Matevž Čelik Vidmar
Curators: Blaž Babnik Romaniuk, Martina Malešič, Rastko Pečar, Asta Vrečko

The project focuses on the Cooperative Centre – a multipurpose public building most often set in a rural context. In villages, small towns and suburban areas they serve as venues for various administrative, economic, social and cultural activities. The cooperative centre has a specific architectural typology, whose purpose is to create an indoor public space that usually serves as a central space in the community, a place of social interaction and a hub that serves a range of local community needs.

The exhibition highlights the various dimensions of this project of constructing cooperative centres in the given historical, spatial and organisational circumstances, both at the time of their emergence and today. Employing distinctive architectural elements it shapes the character and functioning of indoor public space, whose significance is underlined by the presentation of the project itself.