Zagreb Dance Center

The opening of big movieplex cinemas in Zagreb has led to the dying out of old cinema theatres in the city centre. The City of Zagreb, who is the owner of the old cinema Lika, decided to reuse the space for new cultural facilities. 

In that scenario old cinema Lika was given the role of a New Dance Centre.
Fifty years of contemporary dance culture in Zagreb has produced about 40 dance troops, with this project all of them have a new home in the city centre. 

The cinema was located in a derelict residential block only 100 meters away from the Zagreb’s main square. The entire project’s program is determined by the gross developed area defined in the master plan and it places the project in the old cinema shell. 

The only new architectural element of the centre is the new entrance lobby, a multipurpose space in the service of communication and meeting with a cafe, library and a video store. It was interpolated on the basis of almost default parameters of the existing neighbouring houses. The volume and its broken form also suggest dance movement and they are a new sign and a connecting element between the courtyard and the roof terrace.

The roof terrace is the final element of the centre and an important part of the project of preservation and restoration of Zagreb last open roof stage.