Renovation of the façade and furniture of the Bee House in Radovljica on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the death of the architect C. M. Koch
Text by. Maja Avguštin, Conservation Consultant, ZVKDS, OE Kranj,
Conservator in charge of the restoration of the Beehive
The urbanisation of the Radovljica suburb towards Lesce along today's Gorenjska cesta started relatively late only at the end of the 19th century or at the beginning of the 20th century. Surviving photographs show that the construction and expansion of the town did not proceed evenly. The central axis of the new quarter was the chestnut tree avenue. At the end of the 19th century, a school, a fire station and a courthouse were built along it. At the same time, it was a time when art currents were mixing with the outgoing historicism and the coming Art Nouveau. In this sense, all three of these buildings are aesthetic apologists for the outgoing art style, while the younger ones, built in the first decade of the 20th century, are already harbingers of the new era and the contemporary modern taste of the time. It is worth mentioning that Gorenjska cesta and its surroundings today represent an exceptionally high quality range of artistic styles of the first half of the 20th century, since, in addition to the architects Josef Hronek and Ciril Methodius Koch, Josef Seeland, Willy Mohr and Danilo Fürst also left their creations here.
One of the most important buildings of its time in Radovljica is the loan house, which was named the Bee House after the artistic motifs on its façade.
It was built in 1906 according to the plans of the Slovenian architect Ciril Methodius Koch (1867-1925), who created the plans for several famous buildings in Ljubljana (Čudnova hiša (Odd House), Pogačnik's House by Miklošič Park, the house and factory of K. Binder, the Police Directorate, the school in Barje, the Town Hall in detail, the Farmers' Loan House, the National Printing House, Mladika, the Tivoli Hotel, the Kollmann Villa, the Adriatic Insurance Company and many others), Bohinj (the bridge at the Church of St. John in Bohinj), Celje (3 houses and the Loan House), Opatija (a school and reconstruction of a chapel), St. Veit near Vienna (the Ginzelmayr Mausoleum) and many plans for smaller houses and villas in Slovenia.
When it was built, the ground floor housed a loan office and a lawyer's office, while the upper floors were used for apartments. Balconies were therefore formerly located on the courtyard façade on both floors. In the oldest photographs, it can be seen that there was a small park design on the site of today's car park next to the building, which could be reconstructed in the future to restore the building to its original parkland layout. The surroundings of the Beehive have changed over time. The 1909 photograph shows a newly built building with young chestnut trees planted in front of it, while the 1936 photograph shows an ornate fence in front of the building, which bordered the property from Gorenjska cesta.
The architectural design of the loan building is relatively simple and traditional. It is a two-storey high building, with a shallow four-pitched roof. The central five bay part of the façade is flanked by two shallow single bay buttresses. The most important decorative element of the façade is the central entrance area, which is artistically enhanced and accentuated by a mosaic of ceramic tiles. These create a motif of two trees rising above a beehive across the high ground and first floors. The bee swarm depicted in the canopy is now complemented by three-dimensional copper bees, which are placed on the façade, including where the sign for the lending office used to stand. Originally, there was supposed to be only one bee. The eaves, with their moulded rafters and intermediate painted fields, are reminiscent of Florentine Renaissance eaves, and also make an important contribution to the aesthetic and artistic value of the façade. Such hoods came into fashion again in the Art Nouveau period.
In December 1964, the building became the property of the Municipality of Radovljica. In 1987, on the proposal of the then Kranj Institute for Monument Protection, the municipality declared it a cultural monument. Today, the building is entirely used for the premises of the Radovljica Administrative Unit. In 2023, the ZVKDS, OE Kranj, together with the investors, the Municipality of Radovljica and the Ministry of Public Administration of the Republic of Slovenia, undertook a restoration which, due to the exceptional nature of the monument, we wanted to be a reconstruction of the original state. The aim was to restore the building as faithfully as possible and in accordance with the findings, so that it would best reflect the state it was in in 1906. In this sense, we returned the building's double-hung windows to the box and the façade to its original appearance.
Since its construction, the Beehive has undergone several renovations and alterations, both on the façade and on the interior. The last renovation of the façade and the replacement of the joinery took place in several annual phases between 1984 and 1987. During this renovation, the original joinery was replaced by new industrially manufactured joinery. The box windows were abandoned, the double-hung opening method was abandoned, and some aesthetic accents were redesigned in accordance with the technological possibilities of the time. Restoration attention was paid to the repair of the façade and to the new colour scheme in ochre with accentuated elements in white. In 2023 and 2024, Eva Tršar Andlovic, M.Sc., from the Institute for the Protection of Cultural Heritage, OE Kranj, together with the selected conservator-restorers Jako Grmek and Ana Resnik, carried out probing investigations on the plaster, the soffit and the remains of the window spandrels, which were uncovered after the removal of the secondary windows. It turned out that the original colour of the façade was sandy tones, and the scarce paint remains allowed us to determine the original colour of the joinery. When we investigated the hood, we came across a real surprise. When we looked at the composition and quality of the painted panels, we found that the original hood had been covered forty years ago with newly painted chipboard, but that the original wooden hood was preserved underneath, which was not made up of cassette panels, but of wooden planks that had been stacked above the moulded rafters. This was the reason why they could not be properly restored, so they were simply covered over. The boards were in poor condition. Due to waterlogging, the painting survived only in terms of small traces of colour. The chipboards were removed and stored. Due to the complexity of the work on the eaves, it was decided to renovate the eaves during the roofing replacement phase, which will follow in the next few years. The eaves are currently being adequately protected to prevent further damage while awaiting renovation. Stencils for the painting have been created based on the paintings on the particle board. The cornice and the Ionic frieze underneath have also been restored several times. Again, the rafters were originally a different green colour and the Ionic frieze was highlighted in a different colour scale than previously known.
The main conservation and restoration focus of this year's renovation was the restoration and consolidation of the ceramic tiles. These were cleaned, the weathered and unstable joints between them were consolidated, and some of them were redone. Some missing and cracked tiles have been newly made. The missing bees were newly made and reinstalled on the basis of the only preserved ones. The front door was restored and the secondary courtyard door was replaced.
