A 900-year-old church, having fallen into disrepair by the end of the 18^th century and witnessed the first renovations and reconstruction in the 1960s, has now been wholly restored by Ljubljana-based architectural practice Medprostor. With a few histrionic additions to the archaic structure, Medprostor has managed to bring the desolate building back to life, while ensuring that the structure is embedded with marks that enable a chronological reading of the sacral architecture. Some of the main interventions undertaken by Medprostor include the installation of a movable folding roof, the reconstruction of the demolished part of the northern wall of the church and a glass loft that offers panoramic views of the surroundings.

The renovation and restoration work was undertaken by Medprostor in the upper monastery of Žiče Charterhouse, in Slovenia. Žiče Charterhouse is a former Carthusian monastery built by the owner of this estate - the Margrave of Styria, Otokar III. It is the first and oldest Carthusian monastery built outside its native Romanesque cultural sphere. "The charterhouse is a monument of national significance as well as a part of European heritage due to its historical, artistic, architectural, archaeological, spatial, aesthetic and symbolic significance," the Slovenian architecture studio shares.

Within this estate, two monasteries were built. The upper monastery comprised several spaces connected via the Great Cloister and Lesser Cloister respectively. While the Great Cloister connected the living spaces for cloistered monks, God’s Acre for the burial of the monks and a cemetery chapel, the Lesser Cloister linked the communal rooms and served as a passage to St John the Baptist church, the Chapter house, the dining space and kitchen and a dormitory for brothers practising liturgy on Sundays. The lower monastery or the Domus Inferior, on the other hand, comprised spaces reserved for lay monks, a hospice, library, garden and a church. While many historic buildings were demolished after the dissolution of the monastery at the end of the 18th century, a few remained, such as the St John the Baptist church, whose roof collapsed about 200 years ago and which has recently been restored by Medprostor.

Medprostor, hired by the Municipality of Slovenske Konjice, was asked to work on the structure such that the remains of the church could be protected and preserved. “Besides the protection of the remains, the central question of the renovation was how to preserve the specific relationship between the ruins (as ruins) and their unique immaterial effects, despite the new interventions. It was the question of which interventions in historic building materials would be acceptable and how to protect them,” the studio elaborates, citing the material remains of the Romanesque, Gothic and later periods in the Slovenian church architecture.

Medprostor’s response to the client’s brief came in parts. “It is a conceptually thought-out solution, which resolves in several key points the half-a century-old dilemma concerning the acceptability of interventions in historic building material and the question of how to protect it,” reads an excerpt from the project description. As part of the building renovation, the studio reconstructed the demolished northern wall of the church. At the brink of the original wall and the newly constructed one, a glass lookout point was constructed. This spot is accessible via two suspended spiral staircases installed within the existing vertical shafts of the former staircases.

The lookout point, conceived in glass and directly visible from a little distance, is starkly situated against the old and the new walls. Covered partially by the old wall on one end, the glass loft, seemingly levitating next to the monumental structure, appears to be emerging from the remnants of the ruins, as if to say that it is now a different era and the church yields to newer ways of building. Further, the view of the surrounding area from the elevated glass loft—which can accommodate a couple of people at a time—in the northern part of the monastery complex is suitable for solitary contemplation. “It is only after entering the church and completing the visit with a contemplation of the site at the lookout point, that the visitor receives an insight into the organic genesis of the architect’s thought process, which was guided by the existing situation,” the Slovenian architects explain, drawing attention to the importance of the glass structure. Further, the placement of the lookout point serves as an alluring intervention capable of attracting visitors to not only examine the proximal ruins and remnants from this elevated spot but also study the material and situational evolution of the site over the centuries. In a way, it augments the possibility of the usage of this site and hence, better guarantees its maintenance and care.

Another prominent intervention in the structure is the design of the roof. When first approached by Medprostor, the structure had a collapsed roof. Open to the sky at all times, it was difficult to ensure any privacy or protection from the harsh weather, rendering the building unusable. Covering the building with a semi-movable folding roof ensures that the structure can remain covered so that events within the church can run smoothly regardless of the season, weather or time of day. On the other hand, it can be raised to reinstate its connection with the sky. This technological mechanism enables the preservation of the intangible connection with the outside that the pre-restored ruinous structure had. “The floating monolith roof forms both a physical and symbolic turning point between past interventions and the doctrine of modern cultural heritage protection - the space between a ruin and a reconstruction,” the studio asserts.

“The high-tech modern solution in the renovation project does not appear as an apotheosis of the achievements of modern construction, but—on the contrary—enables an intense phenomenological experience of the immaterial qualities of the remains of the former monastery, while at the same time protecting them from further deterioration,” the designers further add. In addition to its symbolic and aesthetic relevance, the light roof structure, in the form of a half gabled roof, also physically protects the original walls. The steel connections above the arched poles statically stabilise the building in the north-south direction. Stage technology, with seven simultaneous motors, is used to raise the roof. While the movable part of the roof is conceived in wood, the roof is covered with slate. This preservation of the intangible with a tangible intervention is opulently described by the architects as “the intersection of the matter of the immaterial and the immaterial matter.”

It is through these interventions that the church, which is also the visual focus within the large monastic estate, has once again attained a spatially dominant character without any expansion or formidable structural intervention. With the phantom limbs of the structure recreated with novel materials and the intangible relationship between the ruinous church and its proximal dilapidation retained, the collective memory of the nine-century-old religious architecture remains unscathed, even as the building is now ready to host various cultural events, while the rest of the buildings in the monastery display archaeological heritage. The intervention is redolent of the studio’s overarching ethos, “Amid wish and reality is a void, seen from both sides – understanding, that we cannot create space, we choose to rather draw boundaries in it, composing the in-between spaces in cosmos.”

Project Details

Name: Covering the remains of the church of St John the Baptist in the Žiče Charterhouse and the temporary lapidary
Location: Stare Slemene, Žička kartuzija, Slovenia
Client: Municipality of Slovenske Konice
Architect: Medprostor
Design Team: Rok Žnidaršič, Jerneja Fischer Knap, Samo Mlakar, Katja Ivić, Dino Mujić
Chief Conservator: ZVKDS OE Celje, Matija Plevnik
Structural engineers: Proming, d.o.o., Tomaž Klančnik, Andrej Hribar; Hiša Niša, d.o.o., mag. Tomaž Habič; UL FGG, prof.dr. Vlatko Bosiljkov
Electrical engineers: Enerko biro, d.o.o., Ivan Stepišnik
Folding roof design: Janez Mrše Jaka
Electric motor roof lift system: Maori d.o.o., Marsel Osmanagić, Klemen Špehar
Contractor for construction and crafts work: Gradnje Marguč d.o.o.
Contractor for restoration and conservation work: Gnom d.o.o.
Steel structure and equipment: Kostroj - strojegradnja, d.o.o.
Roof lift system: Maori d.o.o.
Wooden construction: Huba hiše d.o.o.; Streha SOS d.o.o.
Roofing metalwork: Borovnik d.o.o.
Slate covering: Jože Podgrajšek, s.p.
Paving: GP KB, d.o.o.
Year of Completion: 2022