History of Factory Rog

Chronology of the factory spaces on Trubarjeva street.

• 1871
  The land is bought by Ivan Janesh who builds a smaller groundfloor building for tanning hides.
• 1879
  Janesh upgrades it into a one storey building that holds a tanning workshop.
• 1884
  His sons build the second floor.
• 1900
  The tannery is bought by Karel Pollak, who renovates and modernizes the workshop.
• 1904
  Pollak surrounds the area with a wall and builds a residential villa.
• 1918-19
  Pollak expands the production spaces with a groundfloor extension near the Ljubljanica river.
• 1922
  The production building is made taller by two floors by Pollak. It is made through the Hennebique system which uses reinforced concrete - such methods are rare before the first world war. It was the first building of its kind in Ljubljana and was made by the czech architect Alois Kral who consults even with Plečnik about the project. The factory operates soundly and does well on the market.
• 1937
  Pollak goes bankrupt.
• 1938
  The factory is bought by Mergenthaller, owner of a tannery in Vrhnika.
• 1945
  The expropriation and societalization(nationalization) of the leather factory »Indus«.
• 1951-53
  Redesign of the factory and the start of »Rog« bike production.
• 1991
  The management of the factory decides to join all production in the industrial zone on Letališka street due to high logistic expenses and abandons the site on Trubarjeva.
• 1992
  A change in the city plan is put in motion that proposes the production building of Factory Rog as a protected building.
• 1994
  The department for urbanism of the municipality of Ljubljana initiates a public competition for a construction test. The denationalization process begins. Production of bikes is completely abandoned on this location.
• 1995
  Factory Rog is taken as a sample case in the international colloquium Eurocultures - Rehabilitation of urban area - valorization of the architectural heritage in the organization of the municipality. The participants of the workshop suggest that the factory is put under protection and put in public use (ateliers, ballet school, crafting workshop, library ...)
• 1997
  Presentation of Factory Rog on an international gathering »Water and the Industrial Heritage« in Venice.
• 1998
  The city council passes the plan that regulates the use of space »PUP CI 5/6 Rog« in which it says that the factory is protected. One of the uses of the area is public programme.
• 2000
  A research project of the municipality about the spaces for culture in the city (done by the Peace Institute): the suggestion is that Factory Rog is used for visual arts, dancing, music and theatre. On the same year in May Factory Rog is used for Vdor 21, the fourth international festival of independent artists and the biennale of industrial design in October.
• 2001
  The denationalisation process comes to an end and the real-estate with the factory is bought by LB Hipo, d.o.o. In the framework of the municipalities urbanistic questionnaire for the new space plan for the city of Ljubljana, Borut Burger mentions factory Rog as a case of a degraded part of the city and suggests that the municipality takes the inititative for the revitalization of this area.
• 2002
  Municipality buys the factory and real-estate on Trubarjeva through a leasing contract with LB Hipo, d.o.o and LB Leasing, d.o.o. According to a report in the newspaper Finance, the municipality overpays the real-estate with 9,5 million euros although the actual price on the market was 4,1 million euros, which raised certain questions. Thinking about renovation dies out in 2003.
• 2006
  The occupation of the factory by a student group called Temp. Although many users of the factory changed during the years, we can see the occupation as continous until today.
• 2011
  The leasing is payed for and the municipality becomes the full owner of the real-estate. Final price is 12 milliion euros.
• 2016
  Rog users block the municipality’s attempt of eviction and establish a truly autonomous Factory Rog. The start of court processes from the side of the users as well as the municipality.

Sources:

• Nika Grabar.Prenovljene fasade ne morejo skriti problema revščine. Delo, 02.07.2016
• Breda Mihelič (več prispevkov na delavnicah Evrokultur 1995 in 1997, raziskovalna naloga Industrijska arhitektura v Ljubljani do 1. sv. vojne)
• Borut Burger (prispevki na delavnicah Evrokultur 1995, 1997, urbanistična anketa »Vključevane mesta v prenovo degradiranih območij in ponovno rabo obstoječih objektov«, 2001

We can see Factory Rog through three phases in the first ten years. First phase was the occupation and the time after it, which was full of common initiative and optimism. Second phase was the crash of collective initiative, fragmentation, arrival of destructive elements and persistance of small islands of continuity, which were due to a lack of communication and common motivation also fragmented. Third phase is the gradual transition from the middle phase through more active connecting between the continuous and newly established collectives and individuals in the factory. In this phase, the user’s assembly has been put into practice again and new spaces have been cleaned and made usable. Individuals that were clearly destructive to the community were evicted, infrastuctural sanation has been made, repairs, maintenance and construction. We acquired many new users and got ready for the fourth phase.