We have inherited a very old land. Our monument inventory begins from pre/historic times. When we want to present something as a monument, we usually start from the deep layers of time. But, to inherit these deep layers of time, to be an inheritor of one's own heritage can be done only in such a way that we continue to build on it to add to it a contribution from our days. This is exactly what the architect Nikola Bašić made by his two interventions in the public space of the town of Zadar.
Zadar is in its own way an exemplary monument of suffering and renewal. One should only remember the taking of this Christian town in 1202 by the crusaders, which served - in spite of all excommunications by pope – to pay for the transport costs to Venice. Or, the destruction of the 80% of the historic town tissue by the Allies in the Second World War. Or, the most recent shelling and destruction in the Homeland War. No renewal was able to restore to full measure what had been lost, but it gave to the new time a chance to explain the remembered.
In the case of two works by the architect Nikola Bašić, they are an absolute novelty: but at the same time they also include that remembered. Both works actually are a continuance on the heritage of Zadar: because that heritage contained a number of highest formative and spiritual values intended for public space - a space of social community. The architect Nikola Bašić was aware of the value of public space - of its beauty, of its wonder and spiritual intensity. In Sea Organ and the Greetings to the Sun he realised points of strong connection of nature and history, nature and town, town and space, a single person and nature, town and the universe. And especially with one's own being that suddenly opens toward the visible and invisible, the audible and the silent.
The Sea Organ is a marble staircase serving as a “dwell area” of the Zadar coast. It leads into the sea in a regular rhythm of the double-height wane. This plastic game points out to the structure of a huge musical instrument. The tubes of various diameters and lengths connect the undersea part with above-sea galleries; the waves inject sea into the tubes; the sea pressures the air through various openings and in this way produces unpresumable sounds and then returns again to its immense mass. And, when the sea is absolutely calm, a mere passing of a boat, a touch of bird’s wing on the surface or an impetus of a swimmer, is sufficient to provoke music. It is aleatoric and eternal, as is the project of being.
To the magic of sound of the Sea Organ joins also the visual magic: deep blue glass circle of the Greetings to the Sun. Every evening the Sun activates innumerous sensors in the circle, creating thus with its rays a dance of coloured light and shadows. The participants in this dance are also the people who at that time walk on the circle. At the perimeter of the circle the dates of historic holidays in Zadar are marked, which at particular time of the year the Sun hits and activates including thus the history into the experience of the present moment and one's own life. These holidays are recorded in an abundance of antique books and calendars from Zadar, spread all over the libraries in Europe, from Italy to England. From that world in which Zadar participated on equal footing, they today once again put the town on the map of European and world's top creations.
For the Sea Organ and the Greetings to the Sun the architect Nikola Bašić was awarded many prizes among which also the prize for the best new shaping of the European public space (European Prize for Urban Public Space, 2006). His work attracts visitors from the whole world. It is an attraction and sensation: and especially so because no one who has experienced it leaves unchanged. As if the people have suddenly learned a new language. As if they have begun to understand until then unknown words. As if they have become aware of innumerable messages all around them, messages to which they have been paying no attention until now. Because with his Sea Organ and the Greetings to the Sun the architect Bašić has accomplished a tremendous translation work. He has translated the secrets of God's speech into a recognisable language of people.
Željka Čorak
