Congratulations!!!
If you are on this page, then you have most likely already decided to come to the House. Reading this article, however, will provide you with a further reason to look forward to your stay here. We believe that a place once visited remains a vivid memory for only as long as the story surrounding it is kept alive. And the houses on the Novakov family estate, where MokrinHouse is located nowadays, each contain some untold, hidden story, quite suitable for a novel or a film plot.
The first and earliest one is the story of House B. This was the spot where Nova Novakov put up his humble mud hut in 1872. It is known that the Novakovs were refugees, but the facts concerning their origins are insufficient. It is also known that Nova was the second generation in Mokrin, while the first generation members didn’t even have a house.
Ample material for our story № 2 could provide House A – a large, bourgeois house whose original façade has been preserved to this day. It was built in 1925 by Nova’s grandson Milan at the time when the Novakovs had become fairly prosperous landowners whose newly acquired wealth was best reflected in this elegant building, so out of place in its rural surroundings, that it almost looked as if it had been physically transferred from some grand European boulevard of the time.
A couple of decades down the line, during the post WW2 period, the story takes a different turn – the family is stripped of their land and property, the houses fall into decay and disrepair and the remaining descendants stay in the house to spend the rest of their days reduced to bare subsistence.
It would be interesting to imagine a story describing the ensuing thirty year period, during which the house was completely abandoned. If anything, it could be told as a fantasy tale.
For all these stories and reasons, back in 2008 we came up with an idea that we should make our own contribution to the impressive set of narratives chronicling the history of this extraordinary place and tell a story of our own – the one about creating a meeting place for all outside-the-box thinkers from across the world, where they could work, have fun together and, possibly, create some stories of their own. And the first in line was the story of four young architecture students whose first building project in life was – this house. The four of them deserve all the credit for the many architecture and design awards they have won for this project in several different categories, which makes us no less proud.
We also take great pride in having hosted dozens of programmes attended by several thousand visitors and participants over the six year period of the House’s restoration. We could say, in a somewhat literal sense, that all those exhibitions, workshops, panels, concerts, festivals, performances and presentations are built into the walls and foundations of the House, as it was due to them that the original house plan had to be readjusted on several occasions. Without those events, it wouldn’t be the place it is today.
It is your turn now. What is your story? We invite you to tell it or create one here. And to hear the stories of others. The house with a story is the right place for that.
We are looking forward to welcoming you!
MOKRIN HOUSE TEAM
