Majda Neřima, Architect

The exhibition presents the life and work of architect Majda Neřima (1916–2001), who spent most of her creative career in Kamnik. She graduated in 1940 under Professor Jože Plečnik and focused her expertise primarily on the design and renovation of sacred architecture.

The exhibition showcases her most important works, encompassing a wide range of architectural tasks: from new constructions and renovations of religious buildings to the design of church furnishings, tombstones, cemetery crosses, shrines, and monuments. An important part of her oeuvre also includes residential buildings and carefully designed interiors. She worked across the regions of Gorenjska, Dolenjska, and Prekmurje, where she left a distinctive mark.

Already during her studies, she designed the Neřima Villa in Kamnik. Among her notable projects are plans for the offertory altar in the Franciscan church in Kamnik, a proposal for the renovation of the church at Šutna, and an architectural solution connecting the bell tower with the nave in Stranje.

Majda’s largest and most important work abroad is the mission complex in Vangaindrano, Madagascar. Although she never went to Madagascar, in 1971 and 1972 she drew up plans for several buildings in Vangaindrano: a mission house for priests, a convent for sisters, a residence for leprosy patients or students, and a small hospital.

Insight into her work is provided by a carefully preserved legacy kept by her nephew, Marjan Neřima. Based on this archive and a review of her work, a documentary film was produced and screened in February 2025, with screenplay and direction by Andreja Humar Gruden, based on a study by architect Saša Lavrinc.

The exhibition and the film are dedicated to the 110th anniversary of her birth and the 25th anniversary of her death, honoring an architect who significantly shaped the space and time in which she worked.

The exhibition was created with the support of the Neřima family, the St. Jacob Society Kamnik and the Intermunicipal Museum Kamnik.