ČrnomerecA brewery, old barracks, Lauba and a tram terminus

Črnomerec at a glance

• To the main square by ZET18 min
• To the centre as the crow flies3.3 km
• Brewery on Ilica since^1,191893
• Residents, MO Bartol Kašić (2021)¹⁰3,313

Where Črnomerec is

Črnomerec is the name of both a city district and a neighbourhood. The Črnomerec district was set up by the City Statute in 1999 and has eight local committees (mjesni odbori), none of them called Črnomerec.^3,8,2 The neighbourhood is an everyday name with no official boundary.^8,11 In the narrowest sense it means the area around the tram terminus, and Mladen Klemenčić takes about a kilometre of Ilica, from Mandalica to Mitnica, as its core.^1,3

This narrow Črnomerec is split mainly between two local committees: Bartol Kašić, mostly south of Ilica down to the railway, and Kustošija – centar, which takes in the terminus.⁸ The City's 2023 tables put the terminal and the tram loop in Kustošija – centar and Ilica by house number 272 in Bartol Kašić.⁹ North of Ilica, Ulica Črnomerec and Topnička belong to the Sveti Duh committee, and the eastern part of Ilica, towards the Lower Town, to Ban Keglević.⁸ According to Klemenčić, the neighbourhood lies between the Lower Town to the east, Kustošija to the west and Trešnjevka to the south.¹

For and against: life in Črnomerec

What life is like in Črnomerec

Around 1900 Črnomerec grew as an industrial and military zone and looked like the edge of a city, with single-storey houses and gardens scattered between factories and barracks.¹ Through the 20th century blocks of flats replaced them, so buildings of very different ages now stand side by side on Ilica.¹ Many blocks on Ilica from the 1950s and 1960s were built by companies and institutions for their staff: the Me-Ga factory built number 230, for example, and Tipografija number 181.¹

Besides Ilica, the flat part's other long street is Prilaz baruna Filipovića with Ulica grada Mainza.¹ Ulica grada Mainza was fully lined with buildings only in the early 21st century, while Prilaz baruna Filipovića stays more open, with free-standing buildings, green space, factories and former barracks.¹ The oldest building on Cankareva is a block of municipal housing round an inner courtyard (Cankareva 12–20), built between 1928 and 1938 to designs by Edo Miklosz Schreiner and Ivan Zemljak.¹ Klemenčić calls Cankareva, Prešernova and Gregorčičeva, named after Slovenian writers, a Slovenian corner; Bleiweisova and Slovenska also carry Slovenian names.¹

According to Klemenčić, the people here were once mostly workers, clerks and small craftsmen, and in 2013 he described Črnomerec as more and more a quiet residential neighbourhood close to the centre but away from the bustle.¹ The Bartol Kašić local committee area lost about a fifth of its people between the 2001 and 2011 censuses, the biggest drop in the district, and by 2021 it had 3,313, more than in 2011.^12,10

In 2020 the City noted that old industrial sites along Ilica and the railway were being turned into housing, mixed-use and public areas, and named Lauba as a successful example.¹² A new building with flats, offices and a nursery, in the area of the Gradišćanska – Cankareva – Ulica baruna Filipovića urban plan, received its use permits between July and September 2025.⁴³ The City proposed buying its six-group nursery space for €4.71 million.⁴³

Mandalica

Named after the "K Mandalici" inn, opened in 1866 at Ilica 214 by the city councillor Antun Kocijan. The house was pulled down in the 1960s; Mandaličina ulica is named after the inn and after mandalica, an old word for apricot.¹

Mitnica

The place where Ilica crosses the Črnomerec stream. The city toll gate stood here; toll gates were abolished after 1945, but the place kept the name.^1,5

Where the name Črnomerec comes from

According to Mladen Klemenčić, the name comes from a Medvednica stream and a former suburban village, recorded in the sources as Č(e)rnomerec and Č(e)rnomerci.^1,3 In its upper course the stream is called Veliki potok, and the City's own leaflet writes "Veliki potok (Črnomerec)".^5,12 Ulica Črnomerec, named after the stream, runs north from Ilica alongside it.¹

Božidar Duduković argued the reverse in the mountaineering magazine Hrvatski planinar in 1993: the name first belonged to the land and the village, and only later passed to the stream.⁴ He writes that a territory and a village of that name appear in the 14th century, and that the name goes back to a Slavic man's name, Črnomer or Črnomir.⁴ The stream, Duduković writes, used to be called Kuhinšćak and first appears as Črnomerec in a document of 1477.⁴

A city legend links the name to cheating at the scales.¹ Klemenčić writes that historical sources do not confirm it.¹

A short history of Črnomerec

Črnomerec is mentioned as early as the 13th and 14th centuries as one of the settlements of Gradec's serfs.^2,5 According to the journalist Branimir Špoljarić, the old village covered today's Kuniščak, Topnička, Krčelićeva, lower Ilica and Ulica Sveti Duh.⁵ The City gives the village 197 people in 1819 and 725 in 1878.²

Zagreb's first railway station, today's Zapadni kolodvor, opened on 1 October 1862 and was the city's main station until 1892.⁴¹ Klemenčić writes that its position on the western edge of the Lower Town decided that the city would grow westwards.¹ The railways to Zidani Most and Karlovac sped up industry.² Brickworks were built at Ilica 157 (1870) and Ilica 288 (1885).² In 1893 the brewery started work, and so did Franck's chicory factory on Vodovodna, where Franck still has its headquarters.^1,19,20 Between 1888 and 1911 the Rudolf, Domobran, Artillery and Cavalry barracks went up.¹

From 1891 the horse tram ran along Ilica only as far as Vodovodna.^1,13 According to Klemenčić, the line was electrified and extended to Črnomerec in 1911, and a turning loop was built at the Mitnica.¹ According to Špoljarić, the Črnomerec stream was Zagreb's western boundary, and Kustošija began beyond the toll gate.⁵ The City's district history puts the boundary until 1945 at the Kustošak stream instead.² When the municipality of Kustošija was set up in 1937, Černomerec was one of its places, along with Frateršćica, Gorenci, Gornja and Donja Kustošija, Ljubljanica and Rudeš.⁶

In 1928 the Kaštel works moved from Karlovac to the land south of Prilaz baruna Filipovića.¹ Its owner Eugen Ladanyi began making medicines there with the chemist Vladimir Prelog in 1935, and in 1941 the works became Pliva.¹ Pliva is still at Prilaz baruna Filipovića 25.²⁹ The western part of today's district joined Zagreb only in 1945.² The municipality of Črnomerec was re-established in 1974 and abolished at the end of 1990.^7,2 The 2020 earthquake damaged the Catholic University campus, the main Rudolf barracks building and the old wing of the health centre.^33,35,31 That same year, according to the Croatian Technical Encyclopaedia, a flash flood from Medvednica flooded buildings and streets in several suburbs, Črnomerec among them.⁴⁰

1. 13th–14th c.Črnomerec is mentioned as a settlement of Gradec's serfs.^2,5
2. 1862Zagreb's first railway station, today's Zapadni kolodvor, opens.⁴¹
3. 1888–1889The Rudolf barracks are built, named after Crown Prince Rudolf.^1,35
4. 1893Franck's factory on Vodovodna starts work on 21 June, and the brewery on Ilica opens on 12 July.^1,19,20
5. 1896The Sveti Duh school, now OŠ Pavleka Miškine, opens in its present building on 5 December.^25,1
6. 1909Slavoljub Penkala builds a hangar on the army exercise ground between Selska cesta and the Črnomerec stream.¹⁸
7. 1911According to Klemenčić, the electric tram reaches Črnomerec.¹
8. 1937Černomerec becomes part of the new municipality of Kustošija.⁶
9. 1945The western part of today's district joins Zagreb.²
10. 1974–1990Črnomerec is again a municipality of its own.^7,2
11. 1980The tram loop moves from the Mitnica to its present site, on land once taken by a brickworks.¹
12. 1999The city district of Črnomerec is set up.^3,1
13. 2011Lauba opens in the former riding hall of the cavalry barracks.^17,1
14. 2021Ciglana's last chimneys are blasted down, and the bus terminal's renovation is finished.^37,16

What to see in Črnomerec

• Lauba

  The cavalry barracks' riding hall, designed in 1910, where the Zagreb textile combine worked until 2008. Converted after a 2007 competition, it opened in 2011 as a house for people and art. The building is a protected cultural monument, at Prilaz baruna Filipovića 23a.^17,1

• Zagrebačka pivovara

  Founded in 1892 and built on Ilica to plans by Kuno Waidmann. It opened on 12 July 1893 with a garden for 1,500 guests and still brews on the same site, Ilica 224.^1,19 A 1962 brewery building at Cankareva 6 / Gregorčičeva 2 carries the brewery's emblem on its façade.¹

• Catholic University campus

  The former Domobran barracks at Ilica 244, built in 1898–1899 to a plan by Milan Lenuci. The Archdiocese of Zagreb took it over in 2006.^33,1 Construction work on the renewal finished in October 2025, with the landscaping and interiors still to come at that point. According to the university, the renovated building 244 J will have student housing for 162 people.³⁴

• Rudolf barracks

  Built in 1888–1889 between Ilica and the station. The army used it until 1978, when 10 of its 14 buildings were pulled down; the grounds became a city park in the late 1970s, and the four surviving buildings, now protected, became state and city offices.^1,35

• Teatar EXIT

  In 1998 the theatre moved into the cinema hall of the Centar za kulturu i film Augusta Cesarca at Ilica 208. The centre's offices and workshops are at Ilica 227.^21,22

• Črnomerec terminus and bus terminal

  The tram loop moved from the Mitnica to land once taken by a brickworks in 1980.¹ The bus terminal was renovated between October 2020 and March 2021, with 14 new shelters and LED lighting.¹⁶

• The former Ciglana brickworks

  Next to the terminus, at Ilica – Ciglanska 7. Its last two chimneys, 49.8 and 62.2 metres tall, damaged in the 2020 earthquakes, were blasted down at noon on 21 February 2021.³⁷ In December 2025 Index reported a plan for about 1,000 flats on the site; the City said a public urban-design competition would have to come first.³⁸

Did you know?

• 1Slavoljub Penkala's plane, flown by Dragutin Novak, made the first public flight in 1910.¹⁸
• 2For the brewery's opening in 1893 the horse-tram line, which normally turned at the "K Mandalici" inn, was extended.¹
• 3During the First World War the Sveti Duh school served as a barracks and a military hospital.¹
• 4In 2013 Klemenčić wrote that the smell of coffee roasting at Franck or wort boiling at the brewery could be caught only between Mandalica and Mitnica.¹
• 5Ulica grada Mainza is named after Mainz, the first city with which Zagreb set up cooperation, in 1967.¹

Everyday life in Črnomerec

Renting in Črnomerec

Nearby neighbourhoods

• Sveti DuhNeighbourhood guide
• KustošijaNeighbourhood guide
• VoltinoNeighbourhood guide
• Šestinski dolNeighbourhood guide
• JelenovacNeighbourhood guide
• LjubljanicaNeighbourhood guide

• Compare districts: Črnomerec and Upper Town – Medveščak
• Compare districts: Črnomerec and Podsljeme
• Compare districts: Črnomerec and Podsused – Vrapče
• All Zagreb neighbourhood guides

Questions about life in Črnomerec