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FRENCH PAVILION SCZG

ADDRESS
Savska cesta 25, Zagreb

YEAR OF CONSTRUCTION
1936— 1937

PROJECT AUTHOR
Robert Camelot (architect and urbanist), brothers Jacques and Paula Herb, Bernard Lafaille (construction designer)

RECONSTRUCTION AUTHOR
Alan Braun

INTERIOR AUTHOR
Alan Braun

MAIN CONTRACTOR
TA-GRAD d.o.o.

Located in the Student Center of the University of Zagreb as an individually protected cultural property., it was built as part of the then “Zagreb Choir” as an exhibition pavilion of the Republic of France. The pavilion is a circular building, conceived as a cylindrical monovolume of irregular circumference, covered with a hanging roof in the form of an inverted shallow cone cantered on short reinforced concrete columns pulled out of the concrete base. The roof is welded, without a skeleton, main lines and connectors. It is one of the rare examples of avant-garde and bold architectural construction realized exclusively from thin trapezoidal steel plates that represent one of the fundamental values of the pavilion. The pavilion is considered a unique engineering innovation and the first application of thin-walled constructive elements in general. The peripheral walls in the lower belt are concrete, and in the upper zone wooden frames with plank cladding and narrow window verticals. The energy efficiency of the pavilion has been improved by installing thermal insulation on the floor, roof and inside the wooden facade panels. The new period of this masterpiece of modern architecture began with the completion of renovation and reconstruction in 2014.