Centralna Lekarna (Central Pharmacy), Ljubljana

Centralna lekarna, or Central Pharmacy, occupies a late 19th-century residential and commercial palace built after the destructive earthquake of 1895. Often known as Mayer Palace, the building was designed by Ferdinand Hauser in 1896–97 for the Mayer family, whose pharmaceutical activity on the site dated back to the early 1800s. At the time of its completion, it was considered one of the largest and most richly decorated private residences in the area.

The three-storey building combines a rusticated ground floor with a more refined upper façade. Four monumental columns emphasise its central section, while the windows are framed by pilasters and curved pediments. Visitors who look closely can see stucco cartouches, floral medallions and sculpted human heads above the windows. Construction was carried out by Gustav Tönnies’s company, while Filip Supančič designed and executed the detailed façade.

The ground floor originally contained a pharmacy, a stationery shop and a café, each with its own wooden shopfront. The café, first known as Valvasor and later as Prešeren Café, remained a popular meeting place until World War II, attracting writers, artists and members of bourgeois society. Today, the building still houses a working public pharmacy, while its broad exterior links the busy square with the quieter riverside embankment.