In a series of several exceptional school buildings that have been built in Croatia in the past twenty years, the Žnjan-Pazdigrad Elementary School in Split, opened last year, brought a new dimension to exploring and expanding the possibilities of architecture offered by the typology of a school building as a public building and institution.

This year, the design by Mirela Bošnjak, Mirko Buvinić, Maja Furlan Zimmermann and their associates has received the prestigious national Viktor Kovačić Award for the most successful architectural realization. It needs to be pointed out that the credit should also be given to the jury, who recognized the ingenious aspects of the design, as well as to the investor, who accepted and built their design and idea of a school and its space, with an inherently wider significance.

Unfortunately, this has been the first newly built primary school in Split in the last 26 years, although the city has significantly expanded in that period. Due to various red-tape hurdles, the development of the school project, which began back in 2009, was long and strenuous for the architects. We can only imagine how much happier the citizens of Split would have been if they had the opportunity, over the past few years, to build a few more schools in collaboration with skilled architects.