Registration and Documentation of Anonymous Rural Architecture Heritage in the Area of Kozjansko Regional Park

After several educational and other competent institutions from Slovenia and Bavaria signed a letter of intent in 1998, a project of registration, documentation and evaluation of anonymous rural architectural heritage was initiated in 1999 in the protected area of Kozjansko Regional Park.
This international Bavarian-Slovenian project organised by the Bavarian-Slovenian Society and Kozjansko Park, has been carried out by the University of Applied Sciences in Regensburg, the Architecture Faculty of Ljubljana and Civil Engineering Faculty of Maribor. The project which is funded by the Bavarian State Chancellery and Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia, has continued in the year 2000.
Given the state of the relatively unexplored and endangered heritage and the demand for a management plan, the following project objectives have been defined:
- a systematic and comprehensive registration, followed by cataloguing and classification in terms of the architectural history:
- expert evaluation of individual buildings of rural architectural heritage and preparation based on a specific rehabilitation concept;
- social, economic and ownership survey of homesteads or areas from the priority list of urgent measures;
- setting up of a rural architectural heritage documentation centre;
- strengthening of awareness among the local population. Employing a specific and uniform working method, according to which the surface area to be surveyed was divided into quadrants covering one square kilometre each, over the last two years under expert guidance Bavarian and Slovenian students surveyed 31 quadrants, which represents 16% of the entire protected area.
Each quadrant was divided into five categories: historical building, an old building with new elements, a new building with architectural heritage, a ruin; a new building.
As a result, the total of 600 buildings of the first category have so far been documented. The extensive and thorough expert work performed has yielded the following results:
- a comprehensive survey of buildings and documentation of architectural heritage. The working method employed can also be used as a model;
- formation of solid expert bases for the incorporation of rural architectural heritage in a plan or management strategy;
- strengthening of awareness regarding the significance, value and possible use of architectural heritage among the local population;
- promotion in Slovenia and abroad.