Typical
Zagorje House
A single-storey wooden house of an elongated rectangular shape with foundations
made of stone blocks which remain exposed to view even after walls made
of oak planks and boards are erected.
Running along the entire length of the house is the strongest base beam
called pocek on top of which come squared beams usually joined
by means of mortise and tenon joints, the so-called Croatian angle, a
frequent construction method in the region's traditional architecture,
along with the more recent German angle which consists of conic, angular
connection of boards with a dovetail cone.
The walls made of horizontal beams are reinforced at several points by
upright joists called klesnice.
The
House Interior
The basic dwelling of Zagorje consists of a single-room house (hiza)
which was, however, gradually enlarged, as the result of socio-economic
changes and in particular the organisation of life in co-operatives. The
hiza was extended by adding another single-room hiza to
the basic structure consisting of the entrance area (lojpa), a
kitchen (kuhja), and the main room (hiza). One of those
two rooms was traditionally somewhat larger in size that the other and
had a tiled stove built in - this was the main hiza. Larger families
living in a co-operative would usually add another small room onto the
house (the so-called stiblica) that was entered from the main house.
Very large families had an additional stiblica with entrance from
the smaller hiza.
The hall (lojpa) and kitchen (kuhja) had packed-earth floors. The floors were made by men when constructing the house from a mixture of clay and saw-dust that was pounded with wooden hammers (stamfer) into a firm and homogenous substance. In the summer, when the earth floors dried out causing dust to rise, women would renew them by covering them with a new layer of clay and saw-dust.
The ceiling of the main hiza made of squared and sawn oak planks was dominated by the main ceiling girder - hizni tram - usually featuring the year of construction and an ornament carved by the house owner. The most frequently used ornament was that of a stylised sun.
The central area of each Zagorje house is the kitchen. The fireplace - komen - was in every house connected with a tiled baker's oven located in the main hiza. The komen was used for preparing food and simultaneously served for heating the main hiza which was cold and damp even in summer. The smoke rising from the fireplace would fill the entire kitchen, so that people from Kumrovec used to call this room crna kuhja (black kitchen). Through an opening in the ceiling the smoke was carried away through a brick chimney. In every house there was a beam under the ceiling - bolta - that was used for hanging meat in the winter to be treated with smoke.
Smaller two-storey houses with 2-3 small rooms - komorice (chambers) on the first floor were used by young married couples of the co-operative in the first years of their marriage. The ground floor constructed of stone usually consisted of one or two rooms: a pantry - zidanica - and, if the co-operative had no vineyard cottage - klijet, a wine cellar, that, like the pantry, was a communal room that was shared by the entire co-operative.
Whitewashing
of the House
Once
a year, before church holidays such as Easter - Vuzem, Whitsun
or Assumption, women would coat the walls with a mixture of clay, chaff
husks and dung. Two or three days later, when this coat has become dry,
they would then paint (whitewash) the entire house with green vitriol
or some ready-made paint. For painting the interior of the house women
used lime in order to obtain a fresh white colour. The protruding section
of stone foundations - coklin - were painted in black paint obtained
by mixing soot (saje) with water and slacked lime. The same procedure
was used for painting stone houses - zidanice - with the projecting
coklin in black or grey colour the intensity of which depended
on the amount of soot and lime in the mixture.
Roof
Structure
The
most commonly used type of roof truss (scissors-style) could easily be
constructed by any householder with the help of relatives and neighbours,
due to its simple structure consisting of the tie beam, smaller beams,
the ridge purlin and tie elements consisting of wisps of twigs - škrbotinja
- and wooden wedges. The main entrance was protected against wind and
rain by the eaves. The scissors-style roof requires lighter roofing -
sop, such as rye and wheat straw. Rye straw was used for covering
eaves, the dripping edges and the roof ridge, whilst the remaining roof
surface was covered with wheat straw. The amount of thatching used for
covering the roof depends on the quality of the roofing material as well
as the size and inclination of the roof structure. The inclination also
determines the thickness of roofing. The greater the roof inclination,
the thinner the thatching. If the roof is only slightly sloping, the straw
covering is thicker.
At gable ends there is a beam called svislenjak above which a triangle consisting of vertical boards is built, often featuring an opening in the middle that leads to the attic - dilje. Commonly there is a zacelek, lastavica or kapic at the gable end.
The roof truss in most communal stone houses is constructed in the so-called chair-style, which bears evidence to the early influence and use of urban architecture in the rural region of Kumrovec. Such roof structures were normally constructed by professional carpenters - cimermani - who would first build the roof truss on the ground in front of the house and then place it in segments onto the tie beam. Chair-style roofs are always covered with plain tiles.
Stables
/ Barns
Within each plot there were outbuildings - stables- built in the traditional
style of the region, usually as two-storey structures. The architectural
style used in outhouses was adopted from the rural architecture of the
neighbouring East Alpine region. Such stables are typical of co-operative
farming.
In their lower part the barns were normally built of stone, with the upper section built of oak beams and planks. The ground floor usually comprised a stone cellar and a stable - an area for keeping cattle including a roofed space for keeping carts - the so-called kolnica. The first floor to which a wooden staircase lead was usually divided into three rooms: a storeroom for grain - hajkar, a room for threshing grains - pod (floor), and a hay-loft - senik. Along the upper flooring, between wooden joists supporting the structure were horizontal beams on which corn was dried.
The autochthonous single-storey stables were normally constructed by smaller co-operatives or individual Kumrovec families. Through the covered cart area the entrance lead into the stable (stala), the floor (pod) and the hay-loft (senik).
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