Maribor Art Gallery

The history of the buildings on the large plot between today’s Koroška Street and Strossmayerjeva, Gospejna, and Orožnova Streets dates back to around 1300, when two smaller single-story houses stood along Koroška Street. Both were donated to the Benedictine monastery in Šentpavel in Carinthia, which later connected and raised them, creating a garden behind them extending to today’s Orožnova Street. The building was subsequently remodeled, given a Baroque appearance, and a Church of the Annunciation was constructed on the northern part of the garden.

After the monastery was dissolved, the buildings served military and administrative purposes, while the church passed into the hands of entrepreneur Carl Gerdes, who converted it into a coffee substitute factory and added wooden floors inside. On the former garden, he built a residential house and connected both buildings with a three-arched loggia, creating an enclosed residential-industrial complex. A later transformation into a city palace introduced a romantic garden, a Neo-Renaissance façade facing Strossmayerjeva Street with a viewing terrace, and Italian-inspired painted ceilings inside.

Between 1951 and 1954, the building was thoroughly renovated according to architect Saša Dev’s plans, giving it its current appearance and repurposing it as the newly established Maribor Art Gallery.

The Maribor Art Gallery officially opened its doors on February 8, 1954. With its opening, Maribor gained its first professional institution dedicated to museum and gallery activities in the field of modern art. Today, the Maribor Art Gallery operates as a regional museum of contemporary visual arts, serving the area of its founder, the City Municipality of Maribor, as well as the wider region of northeastern Slovenia, and is classified as a public cultural institution of broader significance.