As the trees lose their leaves in the Slovenian winter, the landscape is dominated by strong verticals. It’s a landscape that Marusa Zorec describes as big on solitude; but one in which she finds freedom.

Welcome to Slovenia! A country of 2 million people that is around the same size as Lake Eyre in South Australia! Marusa’s talk is an example of how a 3 week journey through the rich and remote Australian outback shaped her thinking - as it did for Marina Tabassum, Rick Joy, and Niall McLaughlin who all joined Peter Stutchbury and others to drive across the red centre; from Broome to the Chau Chak Wing building at UTS, Sydney for an event titled ‘Stories of earth: echoes in architecture’ in September 2024.

Marusa Zorec tells us Slovenia’s past is one marked by conflict, which has somehow imposed a negative on its memory. So much so that many buildings and spaces are just not appreciated; so often rejected for what they represent in the minds of so many.

As a result, much of the built heritage is derelict. This brought Marusa to the work she’s become known for - modern interventions in older buildings. It’s patient work, requiring her to listen to the stories of the sites she works with. As she puts it; so many of the buildings she works with are stone and brick, with vaulted rooms inside. These are spaces Marusa is driven to liberate with contemporary thinking that brings daylight and places for community while balancing the latest construction standards and conservation.

Marusa speaks to one of her early projects, interventions in a Franciscan monastery in Ljubljana, and more recent projects like the Square and open air altar at the basilica of Mary Help in Brezje, the Renovation of Plečnik house - the museum-home of one of Slovenia’s most well known architects - and an Institute for Deaf and Hard of Hearing People in Ljubljana.

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