World Art Nouveau Day
10th June marks the World Art Nouveau Day – a new art which at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries changed the design of cities in Europe and beyond.
On that date Antoni Gaudi and Ődön Lechner died, two of the most charismatic Art Nouveau architects who, although in different parts of Europe, took art into a new century.
The idea to celebrate the World Art Nouveau Day came to the Hungarian Art Nouveau Magazine. Since then all activities related to World Art Nouveau Day are coordinated by the international Réseau Art Nouveau Network (RANN) in Brussels and Ruta del Modernisme in Barcelona, with Ljubljana as a member of both networks. In the week of 10 June there are diverse events held in all partnership cities within the RANN network – exhibitions, lectures, guided tours of cities and museum collections.
Rich Art Nouveau heritage
The City of Ljubljana also celebrates the World Art Nouveau Day as a member of the international Réseau Art Nouveau Network (RANN), which was established in 1999 in Brussels.
Its key objectives are research, conservation and evaluation of the new art – Art Nouveau, which at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries marked the urban society in all fields of art, ranging from architecture, painting, sculpture and artistic crafts to theatre and music.
Today the network includes already 22 European cities with rich Art Nouveau heritage, and since 2014 the network is listed among the Cultural Routes of the Council of Europe.
In 2018, Ljubljana’s institutions (City of Ljubljana – MOL, City Museum of Ljubljana – MGML, National Museum of Slovenia – NMS, National Gallery of Slovenia – NGS, Museum of Architecture and Design – MAO, Department of Art History at the Faculty of Arts at the University of Ljubljana – FF UL, Urban Planning Institute of the Republic of Slovenia – UIRS and Institute for the Protection of Cultural Heritage of Slovenia, Regional Office Ljubljana – ZVKDS) formed a local network Art Nouveau Ljubljana (AN Ljubljana) to take part, in line with their competences, in the operation of the international network RANN and carry out its key tasks at the local level.