Splitfolk Feel Good Even When Naked and Barefoot

We covered the GollyBossy Hostel located in the center of  Split within the context of the first Split Pecha Kucha as well as in connection with the Piranesi Award, where the hostel’s authors, architects Lea Pelivan and Toma Plejić from Studio UP, were awarded an Honorable Mention.

The city of Split has often been called out as an “incidental city” and so with that epithet, and a problematic and controversial governance set, it’s quite rare for anyone in that city to give credit when and where credit is due. It’s near impossible for anything to get lauded in Split either by Split inhabitants, the general public, professionals, or even by passing tourists. That’s why the fact that the Golly & Bossy Hostel managed to secure all of the above is quite a stunning revelation. In a tourist destination where accommodation capacities are a daily challenge, and new hotels in the city center offer unavailable and staggeringly high prices for overnight stays, the fact that a Hostel was built at one of the most attractive places sounds virtually unbelievable. However, in a relatively short period of time, the investor Ante Kotarac along with the architectural duo Pelivan Plejić and designer Damir Gamulin Gamba succeeded without much ado and media build-up in realizing something that has the potential to, location and concept-wise, provide the City of Split with a completely new character.

At the beginning of this century, the building of today’s hostel, a secessionist structure on Morpurgova’s Poljana just below the Split fish market was adapted into a department store. Some ten years later, early last year, investor Ante Kotarac, the twenty-five-year-old son of Split entrepreneur Zvonko Kotarac, came up with the idea of a completely different approach to tourist content in Split, the “designer hostel”.

His idea was, as he explains in his own words, “a spontaneous reaction to the hyper-production of shopping malls and a flood of bland accommodations lacking in character “. In a mere hundred days, the time span the architects and developers had at their hands for transforming the one-time multi-story department store into a designer hostel, they managed to create, with their guerillaesque operation an esthetical and program-wise, one of the most interesting spaces that Split has to offer.

Communications within the facility, escalators and a panoramic elevator are department store elements that were kept and which dominate the center of the building, while the retail and storage spaces of the one-time department store have been remodeled and filled with a system of walls that contain all necessary accommodation functions a hostel requires – beds, showers, sanitary facilities.

The recognizable bright yellow color is prevalent in the common rooms of the Golly&Bossy Design Hostel, occasionally “broken” with signalization and signs in black, visuals created by Damir Gamulin Gamba, who is also the designer for the pogledaj.to site. In place of the usual hotel signs and room numbers, the signalization represents Split’s history, thus the hostel’s rooms are named after important historic and cultural dates along with significant dates that represent and sports event important to Diocletian’s city. Some rooms are also names after famous “Split” couples. The year Hajduk was established, the pirates attacked Split, opening of the “Peškarija“ (the fish market) or the new waterfront, who Lepa and Smoje are or Tijardović and Floramye, are but a few sketches from which hostel visitors can learn more about Split and its inhabitants.

The hostel counts 29 rooms, i.e. 138 beds, and has a small amphitheatar, common rooms on every floor, while the café and restaurant De Belly are located on the ground floor.

If you still haven’t had the chance to check out what the Design hostel Golly & Bossy looks like, be sure to do so on your next visit to Split. For more information on their accommodation capacities go to their official web page, while you can be on the lookout for events within the hostel on their Facebook page.

They’ll soon be releasing a competition for creating souvenirs and merchandise for the needs of a hostel concept store (T-shirts, flip-flops, etc.), and you’ll be able to read all about it on pogledaj.to shortly.

Authors:  STUDIO UP, Zagreb

Project team:  STUDIO UP – Lea Pelivan, Toma Plejić, Antun Sevšek, Iva Denona Vusić, Jelena Martić, Domagoj Jurić, Ivan Grubišić Tasić, Robert Tičić, Paula Prkačin, Jasna Hrga, Damir Gamulin (signalization), Sebastijan Vukušić (copywriter);

Associates: Moenium – Darko Fadić (construction),  Conest – Nikša Nižetić (hydro engineering),  RotMarine –  Petar Trumbić (electrotechnics);  Roterm – Davor Lučin (mechanical engineering)

Location area: 404 m²

Total layout area: 1360 m²

Project: 2010.

Development: 2010.

Investment value: 500.000,00 €

Address: Morpurgova poljana 2, Split

Client: SAFIR d.o.o., Vukovarska 148, Split

Photographs: Robert Leš