Vila Panajotopulo is a villa located on a hill near the city of Koper, designed in the style of Palladian Venetian country villas. Throughout its life, it has undergone several renovations and alterations and hosted a multitude of different programs. Nowadays, the villa is abandoned and has been slowly degrading for years. Through spatial analysis, it is clear that the villa, in its genesis, lived in dialogue with the city of Koper, which at that time was a very different place. In the last century the city of Koper has undergone a drastic transformation. The city’s development was not limited to the old city center, but expanded the city and transformed the entire Koper Bay including its outskirts, including the area around Vila Panajotopulo. Once a medieval island town, it has become a modern maritime metropolis. As a result, the once extensive complex of a rural villa with auxiliary buildings, external landscaping and vineyards, which dominated a large portion of the hill overlooking Koper, has turned into a forgotten architectural heritage that has lost contact with its space. This master's thesis explores the question of architectural heritage, which, as a result of urbanization and degradation of its landscape context, has lost its connection with it, and has remained isolated, spatially behaving as a forgotten fragment of history. Through the renovation of Vila Panajotopulo, I explore potential answers, especially the possibilities of revitalizing the architectural heritage with a program that reimagines the building through the integration into the social context of the locality.
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