… honey products and candles, craft knowledge and cooperation, friendship, love, and the stories of two families connected by Ljubljana and the Slovene architect Jože Plečnik …
New permanent exhibition Plečnik's Lectarija by the Slovene Ethnographic Museum in is part of the programme marking the 150th anniversary of the birth of the architect Jože Plečnik, which Slovenia is celebrating with UNESCO.
The fixtures and fittings from both shops, Lectarija and Krbavčič’s candle and honey product workshop, are now museum items kept by the Slovene Ethnographic Museum. In the exhibition Plečnik’s Lectarija they are brought together to testify to the architect’s deep respect for and understanding of handicraft work. They also bear witness of the tradition and significance of candle-making and honey product crafts, the ties between the Krbavčič in Freyer families, and the memories of their descendants.
On the wooden rim of the chandelier are imprinted short selected sayings by the architect (which rhyme in the original): From the eye speaks the soul / Time flows but says nothing / Gold does not rust / The wife makes the man. The furniture was made from Pokljuka spruce in the Hreščak joinery workshop in Ljubljana, while the spiral was made by the well-known Ljubljana metalworker and close collaborator of the architect, Alojzij Pirnat.
There is also a connection between Plečnik and Lectarija, and Krbavčič's candle and honey products workshop and shop that stood at 55 Trubar Street, in Ljubljana. The exhibition also presents the whole of this shop interior, the tradition of which goes back to the inter-war years, when Plečnik used to call in. Master craftsman Krbavčič’s “skilled hand” and superb products were a rich source of inspiration to him. When Krbavčič's workshop and shop closed in 1996, the son Andrej Krbavčič, the last bearer of this craft work at this address, gave up the business and passed on the whole inventory to the Slovene Ethnographic Museum.
- text courtesy of the Slovene Ethnographic Museum
