Church of St. Michael in the Ljubljana Marshes

The church at Ljubljana Marshes was built at the request of the parish priest of Trnovo, Fran Saleški Finžgar, who was Plečnik's neighbor and a frequent commissioner of his projects. Due to a lack of financial resources and complications with the land, the realization of the project was constantly postponed, until the large estate owner Josip Kosler stepped in, bequeathing part of his property for the construction of the church. However, as it later turned out, the amount was insufficient, and the project had to be revised to be built as cheaply as possible. In the swampy terrain with complicated foundations, Plečnik had to make do with donated wood and material from a local quarry.
To facilitate quicker negotiations with the authorities, the church was initially presented as a temporary structure. The base consists of a stone ground floor that houses the priest's apartment and a massive corner made of mixed masonry. The rest is filled with wooden walls and substantial columns.
On the way up the staircase to the church on the upper floor, a protruding bell tower dominates, its width monumental from the access side, but its thickness is only a third. The bell tower is also set back from the body of the church for static reasons due to the less stable foundation. The bell tower forms a solid mass lightened by eight semi-circular openings, and access to the top of the tower is via an externally cantilevered staircase. The status of a temporary structure likely also allowed for the approval of the formally striking but safety-ineffective railing for the main staircase made of concrete columns, which have up to half a meter of spacing between them.
The interior is dominated by light wood, a set of six semi-columns, and four columns. All these elements are painted with folk patterns that perfectly suit the local rural environment. Just as characteristic an element as the bell tower at the entrance is for the design of St. Michael's Church the columns, for which vertically stacked concrete sewer rings were used due to financial constraints. The outer columns are plastered, while the inner columns are sanded and painted with geometric patterns. The exposed roof structure is not meant to resemble traditional wooden trusses, but to reference deeper into history and evoke archaic associations. The lack of funds forced Plečnik into various makeshifts, many of which demonstrated his incredible ingenuity (light fixtures made from coffee grinders). For financial reasons, inexpensive concrete tiles were used for the roofing, which reference the Roman period, and Plečnik often revisited this solution later.