European Heritage Days and Public Guided Tour of the Vlasto Kopač Exhibition

The central theme of this year’s 36th European Heritage Days, Heritage in the Vortex of Change – Opportunities and Challenges, is to draw attention to the vulnerability of all forms of cultural heritage – tangible, movable and intangible – as well as the natural heritage and natural assets associated with it.

This raises a number of questions: What is the most vulnerable heritage in our local community or more broadly? Is it rural heritage, 20th-century architecture or industrial heritage? Is it traditional knowledge and occupations, dialects or the cultural landscape? Perhaps it is heritage that has not yet been recognised or valued as such? And how can we protect and preserve what remains?

The theme encourages us to reflect on how cultural heritage is responding to the rapid social, technological and environmental changes of our time, and on the role it plays in shaping our future. On the one hand, change poses a threat to heritage; on the other, it can open up new opportunities for its preservation, interpretation and integration into contemporary life.

We will also explore this theme during a public guided tour of the temporary exhibition Vlasto Kopač – With Sensitivity Towards People and Place: Tourist Settlements on Velika Planina and Other Projects in Kamnik, on Wednesday, 30 September 2026, at 11 a.m. at the Museum at Zaprice Castle. The tour will be led by the exhibition’s co-author, Janja Železnikar.

As an architect, conservationist, mountaineer and collector of tangible and movable shepherding heritage, Vlasto Kopač devoted his entire professional and creative life to protecting heritage, while also thoughtfully guiding its further development.

You are warmly invited.