Municipality of Ljubljana

A beautiful aerial view of Ljubljana Castle and the Old Town Centre, 2008

Municipality of Ljubljana covers a total area of 275 square kilometres and has a population of 264,269 people (2002) living in 38 settlements. It is one of 11 Slovene Urban Municipalities and incorporates the Slovene capital city of Ljubljana, the country’s largest city as well as its political, administrative, economic, educational and cultural centre.

Ljubljana was named the 10th UNESCO World Book Capital in 2010 for one year. By becoming part of the Creative Cities Network, Ljubljana has been assigned a permanent City of Literature designation by UNESCO in December 2015. Since 2011 the city of Ljubljana is also a member of the International Cities of Refuge Network (ICORN) offering residency to politically exiled writers and artists.

The European Prize for Urban Public Space 2012 was awarded for the renovation of the banks of the Ljubljanica River in the old city center. In June 2014 Ljubljana was named European Green Capital 2016.

Funding of culture

The Board for Cultural Activities of the City Council is responsible for municipal funding of arts and culture and other activities in the field. Annually the Župančič Award is bestowed to the outstanding creators in the field of arts and culture.

The Department of Culture of Municipality of Ljubljana functions as a governance and professional body in charge of public cultural institutions (11 municipal cultural institutions) and non-profit cultural organisations in the municipality, seeking to provide a creative environment for cultural associations, groups and individuals in the field of art and culture and to stimulate amateur cultural activity. The Department is also responsible for cultural heritage, local monuments and infrastructure.

A tender for co-financing of cultural programmes and projects is issued annually (usually at the end of the year). Other bids for various initiatives are issued throughout the year.

Municipal cultural institutions

Out of 29 public cultural institutions located in the city, 11 of them have been founded by the Municipality of Ljubljana. The Ljubljana City Library consists of 6 libraries and their branches round the city, the 3 theatre houses include the Ljubljana City Theatre (MGL), Mladinsko Theatre and Ljubljana Puppet Theatre), the major event organisers are Festival Ljubljana Public Institute originating from 1952 and the newly established Ljubljanski grad Public Institute, while a centre for children's and youth creativity since 1963 is Pionirski dom. The visual arts and heritage municipal institutions are the International Centre of Graphic Arts, Ljubljana and the Museum and Galleries of Ljubljana that manages also the Plečnik House. Recently (re)established institutions are Kinodvor Cinema, Kino Šiška Centre for Urban Culture and the Španski borci Culture Centre, a significant contemporary dance facility.

Hidden Dance Walk - Španski borci 15.9.2015 by Dusan Tesanovic on YouTube

International projects and networking

The Municipality of Ljubljana has signed a number of inter-municipal agreements with other cities of the world: in 1964 with Pesaro and Parma (Italy), in 1966 with Chemnitz (Germany), in 1967 with Bratislava (Slovakia), in 1969 with Sousse (Tunisia), in 1977 with Wiesbaden (Germany) and Tbilisi (Georgia), in 1979 with Leverkusen (Germany) and Rijeka (Croatia), in 1981 with Chengdu (China), in 1999 with Vienna (Austria) in 2000 with Athens (Greece) and Moscow (Russia), in 2001 with Zagreb (Croatia), in 2002 with Sarajevo (Bosnia and Herzegovina), in 2004 with Brussels (Belgium), in 2007 with Skopje (Macedonia), 2010 with Belgrade (Serbia), 2013 with Baku (Azerbaijan), 2014 with Fujairah (United Arab Emirates) and in 2015 with Ankara (Turkey).

The first project for which the Municipality of Ljubljana received funding by the European Commission was the SCENE project by partners from Bologna, Ljubljana, Stockholm and Vilnius, members of the Association of Significant Cemeteries in Europe (ASCE). The project funded the first phase of renovation of the Žale ossuary (a memorial of the international victims of the IWW, a modernist building by Edvard Ravnikar. A Guidebook to European Cemeteries was published and Ljubljana took part in the first festival dedicated to European cemeteries in 2004.

Since 1999 the Municipality of Ljubljana and Urban Planning Institute of the Republic of Slovenia have collaborated in a network of 23 European cities that joined in the Réseau Art Nouveau Network (RANN) in order to encourage research, popularization and protection of Art Nouveau (Secession) heritage. In 2006 two international seminars – National Identity and International Trends and Tourism and Art Nouveau – were organised in Ljubljana, while in 2008 the exhibition Art Nouveau & Society at the National Gallery of Slovenia presented the pan-European movement for the modernisation of art.

From April 2010 till April 2011 Ljubljana acted as the UNESCO World's Book Capital, which concluded with the adoption of the Ljubljana Resolution on Books, a document that "stresses the importance of books as key vehicles of human development, cultural pluralism and sustainable diversity". During that year books and reading were the central theme of events across Slovenia, the city gained a new Trubar Literature House, the arts and culture printed fortnightly, the Pogledi Newspaper was launched.

Ljubljana has pursued the active involvement with literature and obtained the permanent UNESCO title of the City of Literature in the UNESCO Creative Cities Network in December 2015.

In April 2011 Ljubljana became a city of refuge, a member of the International Cities of Refuge Network (ICORN) of more than 50 cities that offer residency to politically exiled writers and artists. So far Ljubljana has hosted Zineb El Rhazoui, Ali Amar (both from Morocco), and Girma T. Fantaye (Ethiopia). In May 2014 the Municipality of Ljubljana hosted the ICORN Network General Assembly.

Urban public space solutions

In 2010 Municipality of Ljubljana joined the European project Second Chance in which it takes the transformation of the former Rog factory as a case study, compared to Nuerenberg (former AEG factory), Leipzig (HALLE 14 of the former Cotton Spinning Mill), Venice (the Arsenale), and Krakow (the tram depot in the St. Lawrence district).

Ljubljana has won the 2012 European Prize for Urban Public Space for the renovation of the banks of the Ljubljanica River in the old city center, sharing the top prize with Barcelona’s landscaping of Turo de Rovira. In June 2014 Ljubljana was named European Green Capital 2016.