Drago Ibler

Who was Drago Ibler?

Drago Ibler was a Croatian architect and pedagogue. His style can be described as pure simplicity and functional architecture.

Ibler was born in Zagreb. He gained his Diploma of Architecture at the Technische Hochschule in Dresden. In 1921 he joined the group around Le Corbusier and L'Esprit Nouveau in Paris. Then studied from 1922-4 at the Staatliche Kunstakademie, Berlin, in the studio of German architect Hans Poelzig.

His firs significant project District Labour Insurance Building, in Zagreb, was the first project to reflect the spirit of the modern architectural movement in Yugoslavia. Between 1925 and 1935 he established the so call Zagreb school of architecture with fellow architects Drago Galić, Mladen Kauzlarić, Stjepan Planić and others.

Drago Ibler was a fellow and protagonist of the social ideals of modern architecture as well as the aesthetics, and he founded the Earth Group, with a group of left-oriented progressive artists. He was also a member of CIAM.

From the 1920s and 1930s Ibler worked on numerous architectural competitions, but with poor results due to conservative environment and resistance to his progressive ideas. In this time he executed villas on the island of Korčula and in Zagreb, several industrial buildings, the District Labour Insurance Building in Mostar, built in 1930 this building has a beautiful convex half-ring-shaped entrance with a porch, and a dynamical balance of the low office building and the tall volume of the residential part and stairways.