Diocletian's palace

»Ono što su izvođači rekonstrukcije Peristila učinili ima izvanredno historijsko značenje. Dioklecijanovoj palači to daje još veću vrijednost u proučavanju kasnoantičkih carskih palača, koje je u arheološkoj znanosti danas sve aktualnije. Gradu Splitu, koji s toliko razumijevanja i širine daje podršku istraživa-nju, zaštiti i uređenju Dioklecijanove palače (koja je i razlog njegova osnutka upravo na tom mjestu) treba iskreno čestitati što je omogućio da se ti važni zahvati izvode na takav naučni i stručni način. To gradu služi na veliku čast.«

ono što su izvođači rekonstrukcije Peristila učinili ima izvanredno historijsko značenje. Dioklecijanovoj palači to daje još veću vrijednost u proučavanju kasnoantičkih carskih palača, koje je u arheološkoj znanosti danas sve aktualnije. Gradu Splitu, koji s toliko razumijevanja i širine daje podršku istraživanju, zaštiti i uređenju Dioklecijanove palače (koja je i razlog njegova osnutka upravo na tom mjestu) treba iskreno čestitati što je omogućio da se ti važni zahvati izvode na takav naučni i stručni način. To gradu služi na veliku čast.« Ejnar Dyggve København, maja 1961.

Elaborat je naručio i financirao Grad Split 1999. godine, a u njemu su objedinjeni rezultati višegodišnjih istraživanja jugoistočnog dijela Dioklecijanove palače, velikim dijelom do sada neobjavljeni. Jugoistočni dio Dioklecijanove palače razvijao se drugačije od ostalih njezinih dijelova te je stoga drugačije tretiran u radovima očuvanja i obnove. /The southeast part of Diocletian's Palace developed in a different way from the other parts, and it was thus treated differently in conservation and restoration works.

The book presents the relationship between Diocletian's palace and the modern city in an original way. The author looks at the public space of the Palace and the city that grew around it through history and by analyzing the Palace as an architectural-urban model, as well as its meaning and position in the contemporary context. The book defines some key problems of the functioning of the city's public space and offers a theoretical approach for the integration of the inherited urban matrix into modern life, referring to the discipline of urban design. Thus, a historical story, observed in the context of the city's overall functioning, becomes part of the reflection of contemporary urban life. Behind the book, along with the author, stands a team of exceptional experts: Karin Šerman and Joško Belamarić as editors, and reviewers Hildegard Auf-Franić, Gorana Banić, Anči Leburić, Marijan Hržić, Tomislav Premerl and Ivan Rogić, with a foreword by Donlyn Lyndon from the UC Berkeley. The book is divided into 11 chapters: Diocletian's Palace and Split: Defining the Problem, The Role of Research Methods in the Preservation of the City, Looking Back: the Morphogenesis of Split, Developing and Conserving, Contemporary Public Space and Life in the Historical Core, Space, Place, Non-Place, Identity and Place, City and Kairos, City is not a House, City is a House, Scale 1:1 or Planning the Day.

Knjiga na originalan način prikazuje odnos Dioklecijanove palače i suvremenog grada. Javni prostor Palače i grada koji je oko nje izrastao autorica sagledava kroz povijest te analizom Palače kao arhitektonsko-urbanističkog modela, kao i njezina značenja i položaja u suvremenom kontekstu. U knjizi se definiraju neki ključni problemi funkcioniranja javnog prostora grada i nudi teorijski pristup za integraciju naslijeđene urbane matrice u suvremeni život, upućujući na disciplinu urbanističkog projektiranja, kojoj je zadatak regulirati odnose između planerskog, urbanističkog i arhitektonskog djelovanja. Tako jedna povijesna priča, promatrana u kontekstu cjelovitog funkcioniranja grada, postaje dio promišljanja suvremenog urbanog života. Iza knjige, uz autoricu, stoji tim iznimnih stručnjaka: Karin Šerman i Joško Belamarić kao urednici, te recenzenti Hildegard Auf- Franić, Gorana Banić, Anči Leburić, Marijan Hržić, Tomislav Premerl i Ivan Rogić, uz predgovor Donlyna Lyndona s američkog Sveučilišta Berkeley. Knjiga je koncipirana u 11 poglavlja: Dioklecijanova palača i Split: definiranje problema, Uloga istraživačkih metoda u očuvanju grada, Pogled unazad: morfogeneza Splita, Razvijati i konzervirati, Suvremeni javni prostor i život u povijesnoj jezgri, Prostor, mjesto, ne- mjesto, Identitet i mjesto, Grad i kairos, Grad nije kuća, Grad je kuća, Mjerilo 1:1 ili planiranje dana.

Through an analysis of the consonances between the architecture and urban design of the Late Antique Diocletian’s Palace in Split, and the architecture that drew upon it in neoclassical London (including the Adelphi Terrace of Robert Adam and Somerset House of Sir William Chambers), the Croatian urban planner Ivana Šverko developed a considered account of the role of urban space in underdeveloped and peripheral areas of contemporary Split. Šverko’s collected ideas are characteristically original, and distinct from the kind of research usually based in an analysis of architectural and urban planning typology. In this paper we follow, and endeavour to develop further, her distinctive approach. Robert Adam (1728-1792) appropriated the architectural philosophy of Diocletian’s Palace that he had explored on the ‘peripheral’ shores of the Adriatic, and transposed many of its qualities into his British designs. In this paper, we apply his interpretation of this hybrid, adaptable building to urban landscapes on the periphery of Split. By pursuing Adam’s interpretation of the Palace, an architectural reading that stemmed from his five-week stay in Split during his European Grand Tour (1754-1758) and was published in the Ruins of the Palace of the Emperor Diocletian at Spalatro in Dalmatia (London, 1764), we identify an archetype of urban design that can be used in reflections upon the urban space of contemporary Split. This archetype will be elucidated in two specific environments on the edge of town, both of which were created during the second half of the twentieth century. One of these spaces was illegally built, unplanned, and self-organised ; the other was built according to established principles of urban plan and design, but without any proper articulation of urban space in relation to its physical and functional urban contexts. In this paper we test out our experience of the marginalised urban space within contemporary Split through two methodological approaches: the historical and the empirical. Our objective is to indicate opportunities for the identification and foregrounding of the hidden qualities of urban spaces created by runaway development (that is, spaces formulated without the benefit of architects or town planners) but as a result of the immediate needs of the inhabitants.

The British archaeologist Gertrude Bell visited Dalmatia during a study trip in 1910. The art of this region was one in which Western and Eastern influences intertwined, and Bell visited Dalmatia at a time when comparative research into non-Western and Western cultures in the cultural and anthropological disciplines was rapidly developing. This essay reconstructs Bell’s week-long stay in Dalmatia through her letters and photographs. While she mostly uses her camera to record subjects of professional interest, her letters are more personal and anecdotal. Both constitute valuable documents which help us reconstruct places, people, monuments, and Bell’s impressions of the coastal cities. The letters simultaneously served as a guide in the reconstruction of the social and political circumstances of Dalmatia in the first decades of the century. Bell’s evaluation of Dalmatian heritage, through a comparison with the monuments of Anatolia and Mesopotamia, provides a platform for promoting transcultural dialogue, during which artworks can be contextualised in multiple ways. Her comparative formal analysis of monuments during historical processes of cultural exchange offers both a compelling methodology for global art histories, and reveals Dalmatia – a space of historical clash and exchange – as a particularly rewarding object of study.