The contractors of Plečnik’s works were masters of their craft. One of them was Franc Koncilja, a carpenter from Mekinje, near Kamnik. The opus of his works extends from Stranje to Belgrade.
The architect, Jože Plečnik, began renovating his first big post-war building, the church in Stranje, on the initiative and commission of Franciscan friar, Martin Perc. Perc was, at the same time, a link between Plečnik and local craftsmen, who later collaborated on the renovation of the church in Stranje, and by other works. For the numerous works that required expert carpentry in the church of Stranje, Perc recommended a local, Franc Koncilja, to Plečnik. His son, Jernej Koncilja, spoke about his father’s cooperation with Plečnik.
Franc Koncilja was a qualified carpenter, who had run a general carpentry workshop in Mekinje since 1929. Before the Second World War, his workshop employed either four to five workers, mostly making furniture. Numerous commissions were ordered by Kamnik city dwellers to outfit their homes. The cooperation between Jože Plečnik and Franc Koncilja began soon after the Second World War, after a recommendation from friar Martin Perc.
Koncilja made all of the most demanding carved works which were part of Plečnik’s designs in the area. The first cooperation with Plečnik was at St. Benedict Church in Stranje, after the Second World War. Koncilja’s workshop was entrusted with the making of all walnut elements. His works are: The main altar, the window in the presbytery, the door to the vestry, the baptistery, the frames for the Stations of the Cross, and fourteen various chandeliers representing the Stations of the Cross. Alojz Kladnik made the pews.
Next was the commission for oak squares to line the wall of the baptistery of St. George Church in Nevlje. The commission was followed by the chapel of the Holy Sepulchre at the Franciscan church in Kamnik, where Koncilja made all of the wooden elements. The workshop’s production also includes the wooden door at the church of St. Anne in Tunjice. He also collaborated in the renovation of the baptistery in the church of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin in Šutna.
The last, and at the same time largest, commission in the framework of cooperation with Plečnik was the church of St. Anthony in Belgrade. Besides the sacred objects, Franc Koncilja also made furniture for the living room of the Stele family: Four chairs, a table, a candelabrum, and a chandelier, which was the most demanding of all his works, as he said. Some other, minor commissions also came through his cooperation with Plečnik. Preserved correspondence shows that, for some of them, he was commissioned by Plečnik himself. This opus includes crosses, bookcases and more. Some preserved designs, especially for monuments, have been unrealized.
Information courtesy of:
Jernej Koncilja, Mekinje
