Architect Zlatko Neumann (1900-1969); Fifty Years of Death

Abstract

Studying at the Vienna University of Technology and concurrently being the pupil of Adolf Loos, Zlatko Neumann was one of the most ardent propagators of the Raumplan. He transplanted Loos’ design practices modified to his landlords’ needs into Croatian society when apprenticing to the civil engineer and building entrepreneur Leo Neuberger and independently after 1931. As a German POW 1941-1945 he gave lectures in architectural design to prisoners and wrote an essay about the state of architecture. In 1947 the team including Vladimir Potoènjak and himself was awarded with design of the Yugoslav Government Presidency Building in Belgrade. In 1950s his own architectural office designed schools, apartment and industry buildings in Zagreb. With life being a kaleidoscope of miracles, he reinvented his expression from clean white boxes of the Raumplan to the infinite meshed surfaces of his last designs