The Granary

The city of Ptuj (Poetovio) was the most important and largest Roman city in Slovenia in the 3rd century, as evidenced today by the rich archaeological collection of the Ptuj-Ormož Provincial Museum.

Many stone monuments are exposed to the effects of weather and polluted air in the city center, which is why they lose their quality. Not only the stone monuments but also other cultural monuments of national importance located at the Ptuj Castle require thorough structural and program renovations.

The building of the castle granary from the second quarter of the 18th century was designed as a five-story structure for storing grain and also housed a large castle wine cellar.

For the Ministry of Culture, we have prepared a scheme design project for arranging the archaeological viewing depot of the Ptuj-Ormož Regional Museum in the renovated castle barn, which is a cultural monument of national importance. The viewing depot is a publicly accessible space where objects from a specific museum are stored in a concentrated manner.

The uniform surface of the roof with the orderly rhythm of the shingles is preserved, so contents that do not need natural daylight are placed under it. A unique load-bearing wall with brick arches on three levels, which runs along the longitudinal bisector of the building, is exposed in the central part of the building by connecting several floors.

The spatial qualities of the granary are highlighted through the placement of the new program. The goal is to display as much material as possible in a way that is acceptable for objects and interesting for visitors. In this way, the latter is given access to a larger volume of museum collections and an insight into the perspective and work of curators, restorers, and documentarians in collecting, storing, and researching.

With the gradual gradation of the ambient qualities of the space, the "highlight" of the archaeological material also progressively increases, starting from the large lapidary in the basement and ground floor, passing through the small lapidary and exhibition rooms on the upper floor, and culminating in the more closed type of viewing depot in the attic.