Golob announces prompt renovation of country’s leading theatre

Ljubljana – Prime Minister Robert Golob announced on Friday a prompt start of renovation works at SNG Drama in Ljubljana. Visiting the country’s leading theatre in the company of Culture Minister Asta Vrečko after delayed renovation preparations, Golob expressed surprise at how the building had been allowed to decay to its current state.

“Politicians like to talk about culture being the cornerstone of the Slovenian nation. But once you then take a look at of one of the symbols of this culture, you get the shivers,” said Golob, who also met the theatre’s director Vesna Jurca Tadel.

The prime minister announced that the renovation, which “is not a project of one ministry but a development project of the entire government”, would be put in all the key documents needed for the investment to start immediately.

Golob announced that the government will include the project into the national programme of developments projects as it supplements the national budgets for 2022 and 2023 at the end of August.

Minister Vrečko said that the “previous governments failed to secure funding for a serious renovation of what is after all one of our most important cultural institutions”.

“This also goes for the previous government, which allocated no funding for this in the 2022 and 2023 budgets despite all the promises made,” Vrečko added, expressing her belief that things will be different under the new government and that “Drama will be renovated as quickly as possible”.

The theatre building will be renovated in line with the plans of the architecture studio Bevk Perović Arhitekti, which won a public competition in 2017. In 2019 a three-year funding contract was signed with the Culture Ministry.

The project made headlines in November last year as the theatre’s long-standing director Igor Samobor resigned due to what he described as government foot-dragging over the badly needed renovation.

The then culture minister, Vasko Simoniti, acknowledged that the renovation will be delayed, but argued that the ministry wanted to clear up certain issues to make sure the project is transparent.

The renovation was initially estimated at EUR 60 million, whereupon the price tag dropped to EUR 45 million. “These are exceptionally high figures that demand precise answers to the financiers – the state, which the minister is responsible for,” Simoniti said, announcing the renovation would continue but with a lower budget.

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