There has been a noticeable gap in Ptuj’s southern skyline along the Drava River since the demolition of the culturally protected Pirich tannery. A similar fate awaits the neighbouring abandoned lido building, which has been overlooked as an important building block of the historic trade quarter and the southern skyline. This thesis investigates the preservation of the spatial continuity of the riverbank area in modern planning. It aims to preserve the remaining important building blocks of the area by including in the revitalisation zone the old lido building and the immediately adjacent heritage-protected music school building, which has faced concerns about the adequate performance of educational programmes due to insufficient and inadequately used space. By preserving the existing and traditional contents and extending them to the existing gaps in the concerned area, the project creates a new creative riverside quarter, consisting of new music school premises, cultural centre, and centre for art and trade. Due to the historical diversity of the existing buildings, it revitalises the space through conservation interventions, and by taking into account the spatial elements and considering the context, it restores the space to its important, nowadays absent, spatial concepts, while paying attention to the perceptual coherence of Ptuj’s southern skyline. With the modern spatial interventions, it connects building fragments, enables a programmatic interweaving of cultural and artistic content, establishes a relationship with the river, and creates a new humanised urban environment of higher value in the old city centre: The Creative Riverside Quarter of Ptuj.
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