After visiting the Berlin Wall in Zagreb, we move on to another wall – one with slightly more positive connotations 🙂
It is also located in Zagreb and refers to a complex of residential buildings in the New Zagreb neighborhood of Travno. Because of their length and their stepped, terraced appearance, they were given the nickname the Chinese Wall, and over time, also the Pigeon House.
If you’re not into brutalism and socialist architecture, then this simply isn’t for you. It doesn’t help that the area around the buildings has been left to weather years of neglect: the stone slabs of the plateau are broken, reeds grow out of the cracks, and the staircases are cracked and crumbling, as reported by Jutarnji list, a major Croatian daily.
Still, even those who describe the buildings as ugly cannot deny their functionality. The insulation is excellent, making them comfortable both in summer and winter, and given Zagreb’s post-2020-earthquake atmosphere, their structural resilience is also worth emphasizing.
Built with the mindset that “we will live for a hundred years, but tomorrow there might be war,” the buildings followed construction standards developed after the devastating Skopje earthquake of 1963, one of the most influential earthquakes in socialist Europe. And just in case, there is even a wartime bunker located in the courtyard.
These were times when there was no shortage of bricklayers, and when we were building China, not the other way around.
In that same spirit, the entirety of New Zagreb was built.
The neighborhood of Travno was built in the 1970s, on land that until then had been dominated by potato, wheat, and corn fields. The writer Gustav Krklec was tasked with speaking to local residents in order to come up with an authentic name for the area, but in the end, it remained (or became) Travno – named after the grass and meadows that once covered it.
Seen from above, the central part of the neighborhood reveals itself as a large park, surrounded by high-rise buildings, with additional grassy areas stretching along the edges of the district. This is typical of New Zagreb neighborhoods: spacious, filled with greenery, and designed as places meant for everyday living rather than spectacle.
What’s particularly striking is that out of roughly 11,000 residents, more than half live in just two buildings. The most famous is Mamutica, home to around 5,000 people, while the other is the Chinese Wall, with “only” about a thousand residents.
The attempt to give these concrete giants names that would better reflect the meadows surrounding them ultimately failed. Mamutica was originally called Tratinčica (Daisy), and it is fairly obvious why that name did not survive, not even as an ironic gesture.
To this day, concrete buildings planted in green open spaces define the neighborhood’s recognizable skyline. This contrast was even celebrated by students of Gustav Krklec Elementary School in a local anthem: “Grass, grass, grass, grass – Travno, concrete and flat!”
Over the years, this usually matures into a form of local patriotism, summed up in the proud chant: “Travno je glavno!” (“Travno is the boss!”)
