The hotel has got many names, also known as Children’s Maritime Resort for the Treatment and Rehabilitation of Children with Lung Disease Insured Through the Military.

Between 1963 and 1964, the architect Rikard Marasović created the Children’s Health Resort. This resort catered to children who suffered from respiratory illness. 

Actually, the “flying saucer” structure was never used for holiday leisure activities. In the middle of a dense pine forest of the beach in Baško polje, not far from Makarska, lies a children’s maritime sanatorium for the treatment and rehabilitation of children with lung diseases. The resort for children with lung diseases was built and managed by the Yugoslav People’s Army (Jugoslovanska Narodna Armija) and operated from the 1970s until the 1990s as a military holiday resort. The design was originally by Richard Marasović who left the project due to disagreements with the principal. Centroprojekt Beograd took over with Slobodan Kasiković as project leader. After the earthquake in Skopje in 1963, the regulations in the region were stricter. A more stable construction was required and the statics had to be revisited.

The resort supposedly catered to children who had a parent employed by the JNA and who suffered from a respiratory illness. According to a healthcare professional who worked in socialist Yugoslavia, it was easy to get a doctor to write a note attesting to your child’s “illness” as a favor. Many of the children who stayed at the seaside resort likely suffered from asthma or so-called “weak lungs”.

The Flying Object In A Pine Forest is dominated by a circular floating volume on columns. On the ground floor, there was an L-shaped multi-purpose space for children to rest and play, which communicates with the dormitories on the first floor via a two-pronged ramp. The fluidity and uniqueness of the interior space continue in the relationship between the building and the environment, and the boundaries between natural and artificial are erased through imaginative design. Playful roof volumes, in addition to breaking up the monumentality of the building and fitting it into the environment, together with cleverly placed windows enable ideal use of daylight and ventilation.

The former resort was placed on the register of protected places.

The structure, completed in 1964, has been described as a “ring on pillars”, with one side of the ring offering a view of the mountains, and the other a view of the Adriatic Sea. The living quarters were cleverly designed. The outermost section of the ring contained a series of modules with three separate rooms: Two hospital rooms for children, with a nurse’s room in between. This optimized the nurse’s availability in the event of an emergency. Each room had access to the terrace.

The resort served its intended purposes until the end of the 1980s. 

This abandoned medical resort on Croatia’s Adriatic Coast was established for the sole use of children who had a parent in the Yugoslav People’s Army and who suffered from breathing-related illnesses. It was the beginning of the Croatian War of Independence in 1991 that led to its resulting abandonment but not until after it became a shelter for refugees displaced by the conflict. Prior to this, the facility was strictly off-limits to anyone not connected with the military. 

Like so many others, the building was neglected during the war years and was ultimately abandoned. Since it had belonged to the JNA, a state-owned company called Club Adriatic d.o.o took over ownership and management of the property after Croatia achieved independence. Club Adriatic d.o.o. manages other former military sites, including Kupari. According to the website for the town of Krvavica, “the former resort for children…due to difficulties of privatization…deteriorating empty since the Patriotic War”. The public knew little about the former resort for many years, until one of Oris magazine’s contributors published an article about it in 2008. But it wasn’t until last year that news of the building’s existence reached a greater number of people. Architects had argued that the resort exemplified “critical regionalism”, an approach to architecture that is simultaneously “modernist” and specific to a site’s geographic qualities. On August 31st, the former resort was placed on the register of protected places. The designation expires in three years but gives conservationists and architects time to study the design and decide what to do with it moving forward. Given the fact that it’s abandoned and still managed by a state-owned company, the ultimate fate of the building is anyone’s guess.

The complex consists of three buildings – a circular main building, a storage area, and a residential wing for the staff. On the circular upper floor of the main building are children’s bedrooms. There, double-sided natural lighting and ventilation were created by a fold in the ceiling. It was designed to function as a natural healing apparatus using wind, sun, and nature. In 1974 the JNA turned the children’s hospital into a hotel for its employees. n the 1980s it was expanded with prefabricated bungalows in the surrounding pine forest. During the Yugoslav Wars was used as a refugee shelter. Since then the main building has been vacant, while the eight apartments are still inhabited. The efforts of the local municipal administration to demolish the building and establish a luxury tourism resort failed as the building was listed as heritage in 2015.

This unique example of critical regionalism in modern architecture, which applies the canons of the international style in a local context, was designed in 1960-1962 by Rikard Marasović, and a look at the photos and plans that we bring you clearly speak of the value and need to preserve this unique example of modern architecture in our country. However, until the middle of 2012, the building did not have any protection. Since the breakup of Yugoslavia, the facility has not been in its primary function. It is owned by the Republic of Croatia and managed by the state company Club Adriatic d.o.o. which was given the management of former military facilities. From devastation through commercialization for tourist purposes, this object in an attractive location was saved by the fact that it was not registered in the cadastre and especially by its economic unprofitability according to today’s market standards. The decision on preventive protection, for three years, was issued on August 31, 2012, by the joint efforts of Platform 9.81 and the Split Conservation Department, and the object is now in the Register of Cultural Properties of the Republic of Croatia, on the List of Preventively Protected Cultural Properties

(source: Tonči Kranjčević Batalić)

• architectuul.com/children-holiday-resort
• kathmanduandbeyond.com/childrens-military-resort/
• mercedesmeltemaydem.com/abandoned-childrens
• balkanist.net/dark-side-of-croatia-tourism-boom/
• reubenkidd.pb.photography/sanitarium