The City of Gorgona

written by Borka Bobovec, Davorka Perić

 

In his deliberations on the city Čižmek promotes the idea of restoring the value, i.e. re-appropriating the city to its citizens and urbanism to the profession. Integral visions of the urban space as human and sensitive to the existing, built or natural context, as well as the functional one, are partly the result of his Paris education, received in one of the most respectful studios at the time, Jošić, Candilis&Woods. Corbusier-like spirit, work experience from Paris and his characteristic cosmopolitism left trace in his work in the Urban Institute of Croatia, City Office for Physical Planning, and protection of the environment, Europan, New Tendencies movement and communication with the Gorgona art group. It is all sublimed in the map Zagreb in 99 variations, as a series of visual reviews of the events that took place in Zagreb from the early 1990s to 2010, which greatly influenced the outlook and functionality of the city. This is continued in the Post-map, where the dense visual text, collage of art reviews photocopied from the books, Čižmeks drawings, plans, newspaper clips (Gorgona selection from the daily life) and authors comments on the compared former utopian urban vision of the city and the images of the urban space today.