Metelkova Museum of Contemporary Art

Brief Information

The Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova occupies not a purpose-built museum palace, but former barracks on Metelkova Street. These premises were part of a large military complex: it was first built for the Austro-Hungarian army, after the Second World War it was used by the Yugoslav People's Army, and after its departure from Slovenia part of the site was given a museum function.

Thus contemporary art is shown here in a place with a very different past. The state allocated the southern part of the complex for museum activity, and the Slovene Ethnographic Museum and the National Museum of Slovenia ended up next to MSUM. The museum itself opened in late November 2011 as a new venue of the Moderna galerija organization: the old building is more closely associated with Slovenian modernism, while the Metelkova premises are associated with international postmodernism.

What to Notice First

It makes sense to look at the museum as a reused part of a barracks complex. The main clue is not any individual decoration, but the very purpose of the building: military premises were turned into a space for contemporary art. This changes the reading of the austere former barracks: its previous function has not disappeared from the history of the place, but now works as a contrast to the exhibitions.

You can compare three physical things: the MSUM building, the neighboring museum buildings in the southern part of the complex, and the northern part of Metelkova, where an autonomous cultural center was established after 1993. This adjacency shows how one former military site split into different cultural scenarios. The renovation of the barracks and the overall design of the museum quarter were carried out by the Groleger arhitekti bureau, so the individual building should be read together with the quarter, not as an isolated museum object.