Plečnik House Ljubljana: Which Ticket, the Guided Tour and Booking

Plečnik House lets visitors in one tour at a time, and that rule shapes the whole day. The home is seen only with a guide, in groups of up to seven, on every full hour, so the booking comes first and the walk comes second. A cheaper ticket exists, yet it leads to an exhibition and never through the front door of the home.

Which ticket for Plečnik House, and what the tour means

The standard ticket costs €12 and covers the guided visit to the home plus the permanent exhibition Plečnik. The cheaper ticket covers the exhibition alone, at €8. Tours run in Slovenian and English, and mixed groups hear both languages. Reduced and family tickets exist for students, children, over-60s, the unemployed and visitors with disabilities, and children under six go in free, so say who is in your party before you pay.

Take the tour. The gap between the two tickets buys the home, and the home is the reason to come, while the exhibition offers models and plans. Buy the exhibition-only ticket when the tour slot is full or the home does not interest you. Tickets come from the museum, and the partner option is a longer guided walk through Plečnik’s Ljubljana for a small group, worth choosing when Plečnik is the whole day and not a single stop.

The home can only be seen with a guide; the exhibition-only ticket does not lead into it. Tours start on every full hour, the last at 5 pm, in groups of up to seven. Buying online is recommended.

When to come and how to book

The house stands at Karunova 4–6 in Trnovo and receives visitors from Tuesday to Sunday, one guided hour after another. The opening hours are these: Tuesday–Sunday 10–18; a tour on every full hour, the last at 5 pm; 24 and 31 December 10–14. The complex has three buildings, the houses at Karunova 4 and 6 and a cylindrical annex that Plečnik added himself.

Buy the ticket online through mojekarte.si and pick the date on the museum website. Pick the hour first and build the day around it, then arrive a few minutes early so the guide can start on time. The house is closed on these days: Mondays; 1 January, 1 November and 25 December. On 24 and 31 December it closes at 2 pm, which leaves little room for the late tours.

The tour in order: the annex, the studio, the garden

The architect’s brother Andrej, a priest, bought the house in 1915, and Plečnik moved in on 9 October 1921 after his return from Prague. Plans for the annex date from the mid-twenties. It holds two round rooms, a small cell-like bedroom on the ground floor and a larger workroom with big windows onto the garden. A north entrance leads through a corridor to the older part of the house. In the workroom stand the desks, with instruments, plans and models, with the garden outside the windows.

Plečnik furnished the house with building elements and prototypes from other projects, and he called it his experimental garden bed. The kitchen has a chair built for eating and working at once, the bathroom is modest with a wood-fired boiler, and the small reception room has a stove with a copper kettle built in. A winter garden came in 1929, and he lived here until his death. The exhibition that goes with the full ticket has two parts, his works in Vienna, Prague and Ljubljana and his private life, with models of the city, of Žale, of the National and University Library and of the unbuilt Cathedral of Freedom. A room is named for Urška Luzar, the housekeeper.

3 daysThe house is one of the three days of the Ljubljana plan, and a fixed hour decides the order of the day. The itinerary shows where the tour fits.Ljubljana in 3 days →

From Prešernov trg the way to Trnovo is on foot, along the Ljubljanica and out of the centre. Karunova street begins right beside the entrance of the Trnovo church, dedicated to Saint Francis of Assisi. After the tour, walk the neighbourhood in this order: the church and the Trnovo bridge with its avenue of trees, then the river Gradaščica, Plečnik’s Perišče and the Trnovo embankment, nicknamed the Ljubljana beach.

UNESCO inscribed Plečnik’s works in Ljubljana in 2021. Tromostovje and the market arcades are the famous half of his work, and Trnovo is where he lived. A single day can hold both, with the bridges in the morning and the house at the hour you booked.

When you are short on time

With little time, keep the tour and cut everything around it. The house is the point and the walk afterwards is a bonus.

• Book the home tour and skip the exhibition-only ticket, since the home is the reason to come.
• If the slot is full, take the exhibition-only ticket and see the models of Ljubljana and the room for Urška.
• Skip the long partner walk and look only at the church and the bridge outside.
• Take the last tour at 5 pm only if you are already in Trnovo, and remember that the house shuts at 2 pm on 24 and 31 December.

MistakesTurning up without a booked hour is one of the mistakes that page lists. The guide explains how to avoid it.Mistakes everyone makes in Ljubljana →