The old city of Ljubljana lies alongside the river Ljubljianca which is noted for its many bridges. One of the more recent additions is Butchers’ Bridge.
The construction of a bridge with the same name, Butchers’ Bridge, was planned already in the late 1930s by the architect Jože Plečnik. According to his plans, the bridge was to be covered, and was a part of the Ljubljana Central Market. However, due to the outbreak of World War II, the bridge was never built. For more than fifty years, an empty spot in the middle of the Ljubljana Central Market marked the place where the bridge was meant to be built.
In the 1990s, the first proposals of building the bridge and thus completing Plečnik’s project of the Ljubljana Market were advanced. Some proposed that the bridge should be built according to original plans, while others suggested that a modern bridge should be built.
In 2009, the city administration under the mayor Zoran Janković launched the construction of the current bridge, which cost 2.9 million euros and was completed the following year.[1] The unveiling took place on 10 July 2010.[3] Although a bridge was envisaged on the site already in the 1930s by the architect Jože Plečnik, who arranged his Water Axis along the Ljubljanica, Plečnik’s bridge would be far more monumental and the current bridge is rather an antithesis than a completion of his plans.[1] With its length of 33 metres (108 ft) and the width of 17.3 metres (57 ft),[1] it functions as a square on water and is in this regard similar to Plečnik’s bridges.[4]
The bridge features many sculptures, the largest of which represent figures from Ancient Greek and Christian/Jewish mythology:
- Adam and Eve, shamed and banished from Paradise, after having been induced by the Serpent to taste from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil (they are walking towards Ljubljana Cathedral)
- Satyr, startled by the Serpent
- Prometheus, running and disemboweled, in punishment for having given knowledge (of fire) to mankind
There are also some smaller grotesque sculptures of frogs and shellfish on the top of the bridge’s fence.
Shortly after the bridge was completed, it was adorned by padlocks, the so called ‘Love Locks’ that adorn bridges in many European cities. As I walked through Ljubljana I saw several shops selling ‘fancy’ padlocks that were obviously intended to be added to the many that were already attached to the bridge.
