Zadar reinvented

Nikola Bashich’s work on places of new urban memory.

text by Ivana Katuric

When several years ago the reconstruction of the Zadar peninsula’s tip began, one of the first to be constructed was the jetty for cruisers. It was followed by two urban installations that went beyond the redevelopment of seaside promenade (Riva) and truly altered the identity of Zadar. The main problem of Zadar seaside promenade was that it was boring in its monotonous linearity and its south-west part was a dead space, close to the historic centre but simply forgotten and not frequented because of the lack of programs and articulation.
Instead of reconstructing the lost urban structures and the usually expected amenities located in reconstructed waterfronts, such as shops, restaurants and cafes, architect Nikola Bashich used the interaction-with-nature scenario as a base for shaping new urban loci.
The articulation of the line between land and sea, which is the permanent subject of the Mediterranean city, got a truly new answer in the case of Zadar: the sea organ pipes moved by the kinetic energy of sea waves. Bashich started the project with the aim to articulate this line of division between two powerful elements. The origin of the idea was not in creating the organ as an instrument, but thinking of the nature of this division. He started with the idea that the place is located on the division line between two elements: sea and land, water and earth. On this most important of planetary divides, spectacles and dramas take place. When approaching the design of the coast he tried to resolve the collision between these two elements working with the idea that encounter between sea and land is always marked with sound: the sea creaks, moans, roars, blows and whistles in the rocks.
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Next to the Sea organ Bashich recently finished another intervention, a circular glazed surface 22 m in diameter, situated on the seafront pavement collecting solar energy by day and releasing it by night. Passengers can walk on the circle - physically approach this dynamic light spectacle that introduces you to an immaterial ambience, but there is also the possibility of interaction - communication between the walker and the installation. The entrance of the walker into the circle of light causes a specific light reaction. One person will cause one kind of reaction, another person, another kind; ten persons will cause ten accumulated effects. The sound of the organs can be transposed into light - the sound that the waves spontaneously produce will be seen as spontaneous light. The circle has a kaleidoscopic quality (hypnotic, like children’s game).