The Saturday at Design District Zagreb kicks off with an all day rooftop party at Ibler’s building at the start of Martićeva street, where a new garden was set up by local landscape architects for the tenants of Zagreb’s iconic building. FRüHSTüCK collective will play their sets of hip hop, jazz, soul and funk. The beats will spread from the rooftop throughout Martićeva street, the backbone of the first Design District Zagreb festival until 7 pm.
At the same time Miron Milić, a known Croatian street artists will be painting a giant mural across the wall of a building at Vojnovićeva street 19. His goal is to finish it by the end of the festival, Sunday evening. Just a few steps from there, at Ratkajev prolaz passage, folks from FabLab will host an open workshop of digital productions. FabLab is an international network of DIY enthusiasts that are based on ideas from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT, SAD). Anyone interested in learning what they can produce with the technology they can find at home should check it out. The workshop is opened from 1pm – 7pm.
Right next to it, at the same spot, another, quite different, DIY project is presented to the public: Teams of product and interior designers were set loose at IKEA to pick and choose different items at the store an hack them, giving them a new purpose in the home. The results will be showcased from 12am until 10pm.
By walking around the neighborhood, people can bump into different spacial interventions that are there throughout the festival, as well as opened workshops of raw food preparations (Trg žrtava fašizma, 10am – 12am), chocolate manufacturing workshop (Martićeva street 4, 1pm – 3pm), and urban gardening workshop where people can learn how to build their own terrarium (Vojnovićeva street 19, 6pm – 9pm).
If you’re more of a looking than participating type, there are a few exhibitions to check out as well, like the exhibition of old book designs at Bibliofil antique store (Baureova street 9, 4pm – 7pm) or the works of a famed Portuguese couple, architect Álvaro Siza and illustrator Maria Antónia Siza, who’s exhibition at ORIS House of Architecture marks the celebration of Portugal’s National Day (King Držislava street 3, 9am – 9pm). Vladimir Dodik Trokut, the founder of world’s first anti-museum, kick starter of post-conceptual and no-art movement, owner of a few national treasures and more than 500 000 different non-artistic artifacts he collected throughout his career as a conceptual artists, is opening his flat to the public at 7pm, Bulićeva street 6. Visitors can take polaroid photos with him for his next project.
The zone of Design District is one of the bastion of Croatian modern and socialist architecture, with plenty of iconic structures anyone interested in architecture should check out. Not to worry if you aren’t very familiar with architecture because the organizers have set up professional tours on English language with local architects starting at Trg hrvatskih velikana from 6pm.
After the tour you can hop by one of the evening events, from aperitif and food tasting at Cantina bar (Ibler square 10, 4pm – 7pm), poetry readings at Block Bar (Tomašićeva street 13, 7pm – 8:30pm), easy listening jazz in a hidden courtyard garden (Vlaška street 81a, 7pm – 9pm) to gypsy swing and funk at Mojo bar (Martićeva street 5, 5pm – 2am).
Design District Zagreb festival takes place from June 16th until June 19th.
