Gruber Palace

The building, originally designed as a school for hydraulics and mechanics, began construction in 1773 based on plans by the Viennese Jesuit Gabriel Gruber. Construction commenced following the issuance of an imperial decree that allocated 2,000 gulden for the establishment of the technical school.

The palace, designed symmetrically and along a central axis, stood between the old Jesuit seminary and the college. The latter burned down a year later, along with a row of six houses opposite the site of the new palace, where a garden was later arranged. The original eleven-axis façade, featuring a slightly protruding central risalit, is adorned with a Rococo-style portal.

The façade surfaces follow a unified design. The simple rusticated ground floor is topped by a crowning cornice, above which stretches a smooth wall surface punctuated by richly designed window openings. Gruber replaced the original pilaster design with stucco decoration featuring motifs of floral garlands and drapery, limited to the areas below the windows and on the window heads. This marked the first appearance in Ljubljana of the so-called “garland style”, which was later adopted and applied in architectural designs by his students, including Jožef Šemerl and Leopold Hofer. This garland style also appears in the building’s interior.

Gruber combined educational spaces with living quarters and a chapel within the building. Due to financial difficulties, he offered the palace for sale in 1784. After his departure to Russia, the building was gradually converted into apartments. In the early 19th century, a three-axis southern wing was added, designed to imitate the original façade. In 1842, then-owner Anton Virant constructed a thirteen-axis building along what is today Levstik Square, aligned with the northern façade. This extension, created in a historicist spirit, partially adapts to the older architectural core.