Bevk Perović Arhitekti

Founded in 1997 by Matija Bevk and Vasa J. Perović, Bevk Perović Arhitekti is a multiple-award winning architecture bureau based in Ljubljana. Well known for its public housing projects as well as for its broad-minded private houses located around Slovenia, the office has also gained international recognition by winning several competitions and commissions abroad. Of their more recent and notable ventures, one might mention their plan for the new National and University Library building and the Islamic Centre in Ljubljana.

Besides designing buildings, they also occasionally collaborate with the contemporary lighting manufacturer Vertigo Bird. This particular enterprise also got them recognition as well as awards.

The Ljubljana stationed House SB, designed by Bevk Perović Arhitekti and built in 2004.

Work

Though works by Bevk Perović often sport a slightly reserved feel, this – paradoxically – doesn't really prevent them from being very noticeable and outspoken buildings.

The firm's most renowned architectural projects include (mostly non-profit intended) housing projects, most of them in various neighbourhoods of Ljubljana (throughout the years they were, for example, commissioned to design three separate quarters just in the Polje district). Their Nove Poljane housing project earned them the Plečnik Award in 2007 and their Sotočje housing in the city of Kranj was nominated for the Mies van der Rohe award in 2011. Possibly the most striking of these is the Situla Building, a residential and mixed-use block built in 2014 just by the main railway station in Ljubljana.

The Student Housing at Poljanska cesta, a building on the edge of Ljubljana city centre, is another of their very curios and well received projects. Education-related are also the Ob Rinži Elementary School in Kočevje (Piranesi Award winner, 2003) and the Faculty of Mathematics, University of Ljubljana (awarded the Mies van der Rohe Emerging Architect Special Mention, 2007).

Private houses and villas are their regular fare and the Apartment Building Prule (a stack of 3 open-plan apartments) has been nominated for the Mies van der Rohe award 2017. Often lauded is the Royal Netherlands Ambassador's Residence (nominated for the Mies van der Rohe Prize, 2004), as is their House D project.

In Wiener Neustadtu (AT) a new art museum will open in 2019 on the outskirts of a large city park. The project program includes the restoration of the medieval fortress, a former ammunition depot and casemates, next to which an outbuilding and a multi-purpose exhibition hall will be built. As far as art-related projects go, the iconic Moderna galerija (MG) was an object of their intervention in 2009.

Hiša D / House D by Vertigo Ljubljana on YouTube

Other awards

The most prestigious award collected thus far is probably the Mies van der Rohe Emerging Architect Special Mention in 2007. In Slovenia, the same stands for the Prešeren Award, awarded for their achievements in the period 2002–2004.

Other awards include the the Kunstpreis Berlin – Förderungspreis Baukunst (2006), several Plečnik Awards and Prizes (the most important architectural award in Slovenia), the Golden Pencil Award and the Piranesi Award. Abroad as well as in Slovenia they received a number of prizes and wins at competitions for projects that yet await completion. In 2009 their collaboration with Vertigo Bird on designing lighting (model Slim) gained them the Red Dot Design Award.

Slim, 2008

Background

Matija Bevk graduated from the Faculty of Architecture, University of Ljubljana in 1999, while Vasa J. Perović graduated from the Faculty of Architecture in Belgrade in 1992 and finished his Masters degree at the Berlage Institute of Architecture in Amsterdam.

For a time, the office was also running the T5 Project Space, a regular venue for the PechaKucha Night events in Ljubljana.