Mestrovic Gallery

Ivan Mestrovic, the most internationally known Croatian sculptor of the twentieth century, designed and built this villa on the slope below Marjan in the 1930s as a house and studio, intending eventually to leave it to the state, which he did before emigrating to the United States after the war. The rooms and the terraced gardens hold his sculpture in marble, bronze, stone and wood, arranged with the sea below. The ticket also covers the Kastelet a few hundred metres along the shore, a fortified sixteenth century house he bought and adapted to hold his cycle of wooden reliefs on the life of Christ, carved over decades.

The main sights

• A villa built by the sculptor - designed as house and studio in the 1930s.
• Work in marble, bronze and wood - through the rooms and terraces.
• The Kastelet chapel - his wooden relief cycle in an adapted old house.
• Gardens above the sea - the setting he chose for the collection.

When to go

Year round, with shorter winter hours. Two to three hours.

Practical notes

The Kastelet has separate and shorter opening hours than the gallery, so the combined ticket is easy to half-waste. It is a walk or bus from the old town. The building has closed for works at times.

Nearby

Marjan hill is above; Diocletian's Palace is east along the shore.