SISTERS-HOMES ON THE ISLAND OF CRES

A Renovation Project that Redefines Luxury

“To provide meaningful architecture is not to parody history but to articulate it.”

– Daniel Libeskind

One can rarely experience such a deep sense of indigenous island life like in Vidovići, a centuries-old village situated on the western coast of Cres island, located 25 km away from Cres, the largest town on the island, and 2 km away from Martinšćica, the second most populated place on the island. The name Vidovići probably comes from the Croatian verb “vidjeti”- to see. The altitude of Vidovići is about 260 metres above sea level. From there, one can enjoy the most amazing view on the Istrian peninsula and numerous islands, including Zeča, Lošinj and Unije.

Kevin Rushby in his article for The Guardian from 2016 described the island of Cres, which is the largest one of 718 Croatian islands, as a place of ghosts and vultures, with “magical soaring griffons and astonishing blue sea”. I would add that its undeniable charm comes from the fusion of the dense fern green landscapes, the purest essence of blue sea, hidden coves, remote bays, majestic coastal cliffs and traces of a thousand-year history that still haunt visitors. The legends about the creation of the island’s archipelago can even be found in Greek mythology, in the myth of the Argonauts. During the final battle between the Argonauts and the Colchians in Kvarner, Jason, at the urging of his sister Medea, killed Apsyrtides, the son of the Colchian king Eteos, and threw his dismembered body into the sea, thus creating the archipelago of the islands Cres and Lošinj.

It is not only the story about the creation of Cres but also the protagonists of this story about design that refer me to the legends of Greek mythology. Like Apollo and Artemis, the divine twins of Zeus and Leto, born on the island of Delos shaped very fabric of ancient Greek society and culture, our twins Ingrid and Nataša, owners of Sisters Homes, managed to create a new, refined identity of Vidovići inspired by history and art, despite numerous obstacles set by traditional conventions. Their rental homes in which art holds a special place, master the art of renovation, harmoniously blending contemporary design with traditional structural architecture and the natural environment.

“My main thought about Vidovići is that here one can realize all the ideas about the Mediterranean in one place: from the architecture of the village with the magical view of the sea, the surrounding islands and the Istrian peninsula, to stone, dry stone walls, the sea, the scents of sage, immortelle, lavender and rosemary, sheeps and olives, the winds Bura and Jugo, and the starry sky with striking colors” explains Ingrid.

THE HISTORICAL CONTEXT

© Magrit Dittmann Soldičić: several centuries old stone house in the center of the village, presently part of
Sisters Homes

As in all branches of human activity, the concept of luxury always intersects with the social component. To be able to truly understand the immense work on preserving the cultural and environmental aspect in the process of renovation of what are today Sisters Homes, I find it necessary to go back in time, and provide some context about life in Vidovići, how it was in the past. The information I am using was collected by word of mouth from Mr. Ivo Saganić, a retired long-distance captain and man of letters, author of the book ” Naši Stari Vidošćani“ (transl. Our Old People of Vidovići), and used in my documentary Vidovići – the history of the village.

During history Vidovići was composed of 29 houses (today 27), each of them having a nickname of the family they belonged to. The common rule when building a house was that the first son remained in the house and the second son made a new one, by building a new wall. There were cases of arranged marriages between relatives, mostly to preserve the property in one family, keeping in one next to another.

The habitants used the limited amount of spare land for agriculture and sheep farming. It was a hard life, a question of survival mostly, a place from which people escaped rarely coming back. To have a piece of arable land that was initially full of stones, it was necessary to “jamat” or take the stones from the soil, and make a suhozid or gromače, which is a traditional Croatian technique of dry stone walling, where walls are constructed by stacking stones without using mortar or any binding material. These dry stone walls represent centuries of painstaking work by man in this region. They are synonymous with the great Croatian painter Oton Gliha.

Only after 1850 the habitants of Vidovići were able to have their own property, permitting them to stay on the same place and have more children. During the First World War the village was ravaged by diseases, when a lot of people died and started to emigrate to the United States. In the period of Musolini”s fascist government the italisation tried to be applied by force. An Italian teacher Angelo Bolzani came to the village in 1936 to carry out the Italianization at school, though children were speaking a version of a Croatian dialect at home with their families. 108 children died from the total of 370, mostly after the First World War, due to diseases and lack of food (crop illnesses).

The disease of Spanish influence after the First World War took the lives of many young women under the age of 40 so there were a lot of children left orphans. The development of non agricultural activities on the coastal part was the major reason for emigration of the active population. The years of intense immigration were 1906 up to the beginning of the First World War. These migrants were mostly men, without the intention of permanent stay. According to Mr. Saganic, they were mostly going to the United States, to Ohio, where they would work in mines. Trieste served as a major port for Croatian emigrants to the United States, particularly during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The biggest wave of immigration was in the period after the Second World War, with the rise of the communist party. According to some sources there are about 10 000 US citizens originally coming from the islands of Cres and Lošinj. Those who didn’t have the possibility to immigrate to the States, set out in search of a better future in Italy and Australia. Most of the emmigrants never came back.

Many Mediterranean villages share the same destiny with Vidovići, being a temporary oasis for tourists in the summer period, and very quiet, almost deserted, in the winter.“. But even the silence and emptiness didn’t erase the spirit of life as it was before: simple, modest, religious life of daily struggle for an easier present and a better future.

A SHIFT TOWARDS “LUXURY ESSENTIALISM”

In this context charged with history, it was hardly impossible to enter into a completely new design and restoration process without arousing the spirits of the past. As Nataša explains: “It was hardly possible to fall in love with the interiors of these homes as they were when we first arrived. They were inside ruins, loaded with a pervasive darkness, with ceilings literally crushing down”. United by their visionary spirit and an artistic family background, the Sisters imagined the homes initially as their secondary residences, a place where they could reunite with friends and family. Vacation rental was a sector they were completely unfamiliar with, in which they entered following their personal aesthetic and artistic intuition.

The house number 5, in which I was invited to stay, consists of a traditional three-storey stone house and two small outbuildings: Mali Raj (Little Paradise) and Magazin. The term Magazin refers to an agricultural building detached from the living unit. The magazines were used for various everyday purposes, such as grinding fluor, baking bread, producing brandy, etc. The magazine belonging to House No. 5 is amongst the oldest in the village and used to have the biggest bread baking stove. Mali Raj was previously a village tavern built in the beginning of the 1970-ies under the same name, famous for its Cres lamb and sheep cheese. Both outbuildings have a living room, a sleeping gallery, a bathroom and a patio.

The “queen of the room” is without doubt the concrete floor with pressed black stones on the ground floor’s bedroom area, that speaks in an authentic way about the architectural history of this village. In this renovation, which fully complied with the architectural settings of the house, materials such as concrete, glass and steel harmoniously coexist with authentic decorative elements.

A part from the floor, elements that evoke the past are disposed with great attention all along the place: suitcases that evoke the unspoken stories of those who left, an impressive stone that was originally part of the wall left untouched, Immortelle in a basket that was originally used for cherry picking and a traditional chest, a symbol of the maritime tradition of people connected to the sea. Guests of Mali Raj and the Magazin have access to a community kitchen and dining room, with a shared central terrace.

The most fascinating piece of architecture in the large apartment of the main house, extends over three upper levels is a freestanding sculptural spiral staircase, connecting the open kitchen and dining area, the salon and the bedroom with an en-suite bathroom. It is important to add that all the architectural ideas were sketched and imaged by the sisters, sometimes completely opposite to common rules in architecture. As Nataša explains: “It was probably in this restoration process that we were able to express our artistic side, coming up with ideas sometimes completely opposite to those in standard architecture, like building up a three-level staircase without having a load-bearing wall.”

An interesting background story about the house is that it was divided from the inside for two families, each one of them with their own entrance. With the removal of the inner walls that divided the house, it became a single home after almost a hundred years. The way the Sisters present and organise their homes, always honoring the past, telling stories about the customs of the people like those of stuffing pillows and mattresses with cornmeal or burying a pile of glass as a sign of land demarcation, keeping the objects, preserving and using the original furniture and kitchen utensils, represent a shift in what we commonly perceive as luxury tourism.

Martina Olbert, founder of Meaning.Global and a leading expert on brand meaning and cultural relevance introduces the term “luxury essentialism” in her report from 2019, that can perfectly be applied to explain the vision of Sisters Homes when speaking of vacation rental. The importance is no longer in what luxury does for us, but how does luxury make us feel, especially in a time when we are more disconnected from ourselves, from our surroundings, from nature and from other people more than ever before. In the field of tourism, it means that people don’t just search for a form of escapism, but for meaningful experiences that add value, helping them to reconnect with their own self, their spirituality, bringing them closer to a more truthful, authentic form of life. In this sense, the elements of preserved nature, cultural heritage and meaningful historical objects of value play a dominant role. “This clear shift from the tangibles (products and services) to the intangibles (experiences and memories) will mark the biggest shift in our understanding of luxury in the 21st century”, explains Dr. Olbert in her report.

The house we will lastly feature in this text is the house number 11, over 200 years old and once belonging to the most prosperous family in Vidovići and located in the center of the village. The house had a spacious ground-floor cellar, interconnected through doors with neighboring houses. An interesting visual testimony of the original interior can be found in the documentary of the German photographer Magrit Dittmann-Soldičić, called “Es ist ein Wind in meinem Haus” (“There is a Wind in My House”). It is a melancholic visual story reviving sequences of a past life, accompanied by Bach’s music.

Old industrial pots from the Rikard Benčić motor equipment factory and foundry in Rijeka give a special charm to both the lower and upper outdoor space, with their rough surface of earth tones perfectly blending in the architecture of the village. “When the legend of Croatian jazz Elvis Stanić held a concert on this terrace, before the concert he went from one lamp to another and tapped on them. Each produced a different tone” recalls Ingrid.

“The idea was to leave the space as free and open as possible for future modifications, in case of new ownership”, explains Ingrid. The sleek and visually appealing epoxy floor coating brings an almost industrial vibe to the whole space, while the perfect shade of grey unites the wooden ceiling, the concrete stairs leading to the mezzanine, and the iron support beams in one harmonious whole.

Elegant and unpretentious, the living room contains some typical elements from the village like the wooden chest, the old woven carpet and the bread oven door that is used as a storage for drinks, a part of being a decorative element. Throughout the houses we can find displayed pieces of a wide range of Croatian artists. By introducing art in their homes, the Sisters have ensured a timeless, transcending presence, providing a deeper sensory experience to their guests. More than honoring the centuries and centuries of past life, art is a means of revival, an attempt to restore the lost pieces of life by creating new visual identities of spaces.

ART AGAINST OBLIVION

“Art is restoration: the idea is to repair the damages that are inflicted in life, to make something that is fragmented into something whole.”

Louise Bourgeois

The work of several artists selected add a special charm to this picturesque Mediterranean landscape, proposing new reflections and perceptions about the sea, nature and our own consciousness. Some of them cherish a deep connection with the island, like Bojana Vuksanović, architect and designer currently living on the island Cres after years spent abroad. She graduated architecture from Edinburgh College of Art in 2003 and holds a postgraduate degree in architecture from ECA, studied at Escola Tècnica Superior d’Arquitectura de Barcelona [ETSAB] in 2005. Prior to that, she studied architectural engineering in London. With a surface that imitates the seabed, Vuksanovic creates objects where architecture and nature meet, art that celebrates the aquatic ecosystem in its entirety.

Several pieces of the Croatian artist of the middle-generation, Nina Atević Murtić have found their home in Vidovići, among which the impressive dining ceramic table holds a special place. Her ceramic surfaces reflect the timeless dualities of the Mediterranean heritage: sea and stone, light and shadow-captured in her unique artistic technique. In recent years the artist has been working on various interpretations of blue color, resulting in the exhibition “Plavo Plavije” (Blue, Bluer) hosted in the home of Daghmar Meneghello, one of the most important Croatian art collectors, in Palmižana, on the on the Croatian island of Sveti Klement. Existing both as “meditation and movement”, here paintings harmoniously complement the wild beauty of this historically rich landscape.

Atević Murtić graduated painting from the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb. She has exhibited at private and public galleries and museums across Croatia, as well as in international group projects (“Croatian Artists” at Gallerie Meneghello in Munich, and “Miniscule” at Gallery Oblong, curated by Vanya Balogh and Jim Racine in London). Since 2001, she has collaborated with her husband Ranko Murtić on the Zona Gallery project.

The sculpture Ships and People by Ivana Zubović was presented on the island of Lošinj in 2011 during a festival international cultural event “ŠKVER!” as an homage to the suffering state of the island’s shipyard, The island Mali Lošinj had as many as six shipyards in the 19th century, the most significant of which was the one of Marko Martinolić, founded in 1850. The sculpture questions in an interesting way the relation between the man and the ship but also on a more metaphorical risk, man’s journey through time.

IVANA ZUBOVIĆ (academic painter, conservator and restorer) Born in Rijeka in 1982. She graduated from the School of Applied Arts in Rijeka. At that time, she exhibited at several group exhibitions in Rijeka, at the Rijeka City Museum and the Palach Club Gallery. She participated in the painting of over a hundred costumes for the opera Amelie, held at the Croatian National Theatre Ivan pl. Zajc in Rijeka. She completed an interior design course at the Italian School of Fashion and Design Callegari in Zagreb. She worked on the restoration of the Jelačić Palace in Zagreb. She graduated in painting in 2007 in the class of Professor Zlatko Keser, at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb. Since 2010, she has been leading art workshops and other projects within the Autonomous Cultural Center Attack. Since 2012, she has been working for the company Terracotta d.o.o. as a conservator and restorer for stucco and stone sculpture.

Energy Softwares by Boris Bedrač explore how energy and communication coexist and manifest through different aspects of human perception, enabling a deeper understanding of the connection between energy, consciousness and material reality. Inspired by frequencies, vibrations, and geometric patterns – such as those found in cymatics – he creates works that are not only seen, but felt. Boris Bedrač graduated from the Zagreb Academy of Fine Arts in 1994. He has exhibited at both individual and group exhibitions.

An ultimate concrete example of honoring the past through art is the way Natasa and Ingrid created a completely new identity for guvno, certainly one of the first basic functional buildings that man constructed for his own basic needs. Guvno is initially a hard and flat surface that was used for threshing grain, with edges enclosed by a dry stone wall or a simple low stone border. It was mainly intended for threshing grain with the help of cattle, which, walking in circles over the stacked grain, separated the wheat grains from the stalks with their hooves. This process left behind straw that was moved and stacked on top of the stack, and the grain was separated from the chaff by being thrown into the air with the help of the wind.

Offering a breathtaking view, guvno has become a summer stage for jazz concerts, hosting some of the biggest names of the jazz music scene such as Elvis Stanic, Zvjezdan Ruzic, Borna Sercar’s Jazziana Croatia and singer Astrid Kuljanic.Could we possibly imagine a better way of honoring the history of Vidovići than the sound notes that break against centuries-old stones and disappear in the Mediterranean tree trunks and the depths of the Kvarner Bay.

More about Sisters-Homes:

website: https://www.sisters-homes.com/home

Instagram: @sisters.homes

Sources and References:

Ana Malnar: Vidovici-the History of the village, https://www.facebook.com/malnar.ana/videos/585616978219234

Es ist ein Wind in meinem Haus: short film directed by Magrit Dittmann-Soldičić with the music by Johann Sebastian Bach. Camera Andrea Comari (videophotoart.com). Title from a poem by Anna Gwildis: https://madisol.de/portfolio/es-ist-ein-wind-in-meinem-haus/

Martina Olbert: The Luxury Report 2019: Redefining the Future Meaning of Luxury, https://martinaolbert.medium.com/the-luxury-report-2019-redefining-the-future-meaning-of-luxury-2691

Kevin Rushby: Cres, Croatia: Island of Ghosts and vultures, https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2016/aug/20/cres-island-croatia-road-trip

Special thanks to Magrit Dittmann Soldičić for her photographic contribution and to Nataša and Ingrid for their generosity making my stay an unforgottable experience!

SISTERS-HOMES ON THE ISLAND OF CRES

A Renovation Project that Redefines Luxury

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SISTERS-HOMES ON THE ISLAND OF CRES

A Renovation Project that Redefines Luxury

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