Plan: 1933-1939 Built: 1939-1945 Commissioner: Municipality of Ljubljana
Address: Poljanski nasip, Ljubljana Access: open
The entrance in the city of Ljubljana is marked with the Watergate which looks like a bridge at the front side and like an entrance to an Egyptian temple at the side. Plečnik made the first plan in the year 1933 and changed the architectural design in 1939.
Even though the technical base of the sluice is very modern, it is hardly noticeable from the outside. The technological solution of elevating and descending of the two metal gates demanded putting up three towers. The gates slide by their sides and the rest of mechanics is hidden.
The architecture resembles more an entry portal (entry of the Egyptian or Greek temple or propylaeum) than it does a sluice. On the west side the city is protected by three huge stone heads which penetrate massive “Ionic pillars”; on its opposite side, facing the city, three sacrificial vases are placed on altar resembling “Doric pillars”.
Dragon heads sculptured on the vases continue as a motif in the plastics on the Dragon Bridge (the bridge following the Šempeter Bridge) facing the Sluice and connected to Plečnik's market built in the same period. Plečnik also designed the Ambrož Square on the right side of the Ljubljanica River next to Šempeter Bridge, deepened Vraz Square and managed to create a wide sand promenade with plane trees in the middle leading to the Sluice.
Plečnik transformed a utility building like the Sluice, which regulates the river, into an unusual and original building in terms of expression and function. The Sluice with its »postmodern compilation« of architectural elements resembles the Egyptian, Jewish and Greek models and is an unusual combination of history and the modern - completely out of context and yet as if they have existed forever.
