The alienation of modern man is reflected in his inability to persist on things. The thoughtful,
quiet principles of the “old man”, who knew how to listen to himself, to the land and the
people, have been replaced by quick fixes turning our spaces into the settings of generic
images, attractive only to the cameras of tourists. Today, there is no longer a place along the
coast that can completely silence the noise and direct our attention to the authentic
experience of “the way it used to be”. In the hinterland of the coastal rush, we can still find
isolated fragments of spaces bearing the legacy of traditional agriculture, old crafts and
atmospheres that may be able to cure us of our insensitivity, but they are disappearing.
The coastal hinterland is waiting for an influx of new activities, but only those such a place
can sustain. The abandoned monastery of St Onofrio in Krog is the single monastery in the
Slovenian Littoral linked to the hinterland, as opposed to the sea as a key agrarian centre like
the rest. By introducing new and different public contents within, not duplicating those in the
city, the hinterland may be connected to the overdeveloped coastal zone. The monastery at
Krog thus becomes an entry point into the countryside, where the hinterland space, its values
and legacy are actively explored.
The new centre for discovering the spaces of the hinterland maintains atmospheres of
tranquillity, through art and the revitalisation of sustainable practices. A small-scale
programme within the ruins adapts to the seasons and different needs. Through living,
learning, and good practice, a model sustainable creative process is established, necessary
for a concrete solution to the problem of the hinterland’s decay; where traditional skills are
upgraded with new knowledge, continued in the needs of the new times, and can be
implemented in organised ways in practice in other Istrian villages.
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