Collection

Focus: national and international architecture, design. MAO houses nearly 80.000 different objects, from plans, sketches, and models for buildings to various kinds of furniture, small objects, instruments and appliances, posters, various kinds of printed materials, and photographs. Almost all the prominent Slovene architects and designers from the 20th and 21st century, as well as many photographers, are represented in the museum’s holdings, totalling more 1,000 authors altogether. MAO’s architectural depots hold a variety of documents about more than seventy Slovene architects, from Joze Plecnik, Ivan Vurnik, Edvard Ravnikar, and Edo Mihevc to Danilo Fürst, Vinko Glanz, Ivo Spincic, Vladimir Subic, and others. The Industrial Design Collection includes works by such international authors as Alvar Aalto, Ron Arad, Konstantin Grcic, Richard Sapper, and Judith Rataitz. MAO preserves and catalogues visual communications of 340 designers, from posters, graphic identities, books, catalogues, and calendars to stamps and other printed matter. The Photography Department maintains a collection on the history Slovene photography, with more than 400 photographers represented covering the period from 1930 to 1980.

Library Holdings

MAO is the main Slovene museum of architecture and design and the library consists mostly of books on these two areas. It features some 10,000 monograph titles and 4,500 serial publications. It also encompasses a large archive of Slovene and international journals. Since 1972 the library staff has also collected articles on the museum’s areas of interest from the main Slovene newspapers and magazines. Holdings: Joze Plecnik’s original library, including rare books, catalogues, portfolios, etc.