Building in a historical town for Rafael Moneo means understanding the formal principles of the town, analyzing the plan of the town and its nature. Boris Podrecca has been dealing with the historical core of Maribor already in 1994, when he won the tender for the design of Slomškov Square, the square that outlines significant public buildings – the University, the Theater, the Bishop’s Palace. A central ellipse envisioned as homage to a project by Plečnik was supposed to dominate the fully paved square. However, only a small part of the square has come to life in front of the University, along with extensions and reconstructions of the University building.

Faced with planning the Medical School on the right bank of the River Drava, opposite the old town centre, Podrecca primarily focused on the analysis of the relation between the new building and urban spaces on both banks of the Drava. The investigation of various possibilities of defining the corpus, from fragmentation to reduction to two significant volumes, was always led by the idea of a free flow of the building and the continuity of the townscape.