Tartinijev trg from Piran, Slovenia

Giuseppe Tartini, author of the well known Il trillo del diavolo, was born in this city, then called Pirano, part of the Republic of Venice. The Piran square bears his name, and the birthplace of the composer can be found on one side of the square. At the time of his birth, however, the place looked completely different. Rather than a square, this area was first a loading dock for fishing boats coming in from the Adriatic, found outside the citadel walls . In time, palaces and beautiful administrative buildings were built closer to the piers. By 1894, the importance of the place grew enough that the authorities decided to silt the gulf and build a true square. Two years later, Tartini’s statue is unveiled, thought of as a focal point, and the square, dominated from the hill by the Saint George church and with a campanile identical to the one in Venice, is a harmonious and lively space, with a proper and accomplished balance of form and proportion.

 

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Prešernov trg & Mestni trg from Ljubljana, Slovenia

Prešernov trg was a simple crossroads at the entrance to the medieval city, where, in 1646, a Franciscan monastery was built and remains to this day. In the 19th century, the crossroads was paved and started to resemble an urban square. The end of the same century brought about a radical transformation, as an earthquake in 1895 resulted in the old houses being replaced by Neoclassical and, later, Sezession style buildings. In 1980, the Slovenian architect Edvard Ravnikar created the current circle design of its pavement, which lends a special note to the square: a sun, on a granite background, with rays made of Macedonian Prilep marble. A triple bridge, Tromostovje, across the Ljubljanica, ties the square through Stritarjeva ulica to the old square of the city, found at the foot of the hill where the castle is, next to the cathedral. The city square, Mestni trg, is dominated by a fountain built in 1751. The two squares, although they were not planned together, as each was partly the result of later redevelopments, represent an unexpectedly coherent and suggestive urban whole.