Kos Manor

The Kos Manor ( _sl. Kosova graščina, "Blackbird's manor") is a 16th century manor house located near the centre of the town of Jesenice, Slovenia, at the street address of "64 Titova". It is one of four so-called "ironworks castles" built in the area during the 16th and early 17th centuries by the owners of iron-mining and -processing facilities, in what were then the clustered settlements of Plavž, Sava, Murova and Javornik, amalgamated into the town of Jesenice in 1929. The Bucelleni-Ruard Manor in Sava is another survivor of the original four.

The Kos manor was built in 1521, at the foot of the path leading to the church of St. Lenart located atop a small hill a few hundred meters away. It is mentioned in period documents as the "old belopeš castle"," in reference to the ancestral home of its builders the Bucelleni family, the village of Bela Peč ("White Furnace"," _it. Fusine), near Tarvisio in present-day Italy. [ [http://www.burger.si/MuzejiInGalerije/GornjesavskiMuzejJesenice/KosovaGrascina/KosovaGrascina_Uvod.html the Kos Manor at Burger.si] ] The manor obtained its current name in 1821, when its then-owner, the local merchant Frančišek Pavel Kos, enlarged and renovated it in neoclassical style. At some point thereafter it was acquired by the Ruards, from whom it in 1872 passed into the hands of the KID company, by the the sole operator of the local ironworks. Ten years later it was purchased by the Jesenice municipal government, initially for use as a public school. Around 1912 the manor, by then commonly known as the "stara šola" or "old school," was converted into a courthouse and prison, in which capacity it served until the beginning of WWII. During the war the occupying Wehrmacht seized the building for use as a transfer prison.

Currently the manor is administered by the Upper Sava Museum, Jesenice, and serves various cultural and public functions: [ [http://www.gornjesavskimuzej.si/ Upper Sava Museum web site] ]
*Ground floor: art gallery (with rotating exhibits), permanent exhibit "Occupation Terror of the Years 1941-1945"
*First floor: permanent exhibit "The Workers' Movement and the National Liberation Struggle," on the 19th and 20th century workers' movement and its connection to local partisan resistance agains the German occupation
*Second floor: multipurpose hall for cultural events, wedding hall

References