KanalFrom a workers' settlement by the gasworks to a business district

Kanal at a glance

• To the main square by ZET23 min
• To the centre as the crow flies2.0 km
• Residents (2021)^6,11,384
• First houses⁸1922

Where Kanal is

Kanal is in the far north-east of the Trnje city district.⁷ Officially it is the Kanal local committee area (mjesni odbor), 77.25 ha, one of 13 set up in Trnje in February 2009. It covers part of the settlement of Zagreb and is not a separate settlement.^1,5,3 Neighbourhoods have no official boundaries, so this guide describes Kanal within that committee's borders.

The railway bounds it to the north, Heinzelova to the east, Ulica grada Vukovara to the south and Avenija Marina Držića to the west.^2,3 Radnička cesta cuts it diagonally into two triangles: houses and blocks of flats in the south-west one, and mostly industry in the larger north-east one.^7,40

Across Držićeva is the "Marin Držić" committee area with the bus station, across Vukovarska is Sigečica, across the railway Donji grad, and across Heinzelova the Peščenica – Žitnjak district.^2,20 The Holy Family parish church (Avenija Marina Držića 31) and OŠ Rapska, the primary school for Kanal, are just outside the neighbourhood, in Sigečica.^2,22,23,28

For and against: life in Kanal

What life is like in Kanal

The south-west triangle, between Držićeva, Vukovarska and Radnička, holds two distinct housing ensembles: "barracks-type" municipal blocks north of Botićev trg, and a settlement of low houses with small social flats between Supilova, Držićeva and Vukovarska.^7,8

The low houses are detached and semi-detached family homes with small gardens, of one or two storeys. Short inner streets run at right angles to the main roads and bend inside the triangle, so the art historian Darja Radović Mahečić writes that walking through Kanal can feel like walking a labyrinth, which gives residents privacy.⁸ The settlement's original look has since been much changed by unsuitable alterations and oversized replacement buildings on the small plots.^7,8

The geographers Šakaja, Bašić and Račevska wrote in 2024 that Kanal is changing from a workers' settlement into a business district. Poorly maintained workers' blocks, a dense web of small houses, new high-quality flats with a high price per square metre and the Green Gold complex stand side by side.⁷ According to the local-history site Mapiranje Trešnjevke, 227 businesses were active in the south-west part in January 2016, about 90% of them in services.⁴⁰ A DoubleTree by Hilton opened in Green Gold in 2012, and a Hilton Garden Inn on Radnička cesta in 2019.^44,45

According to the 2017 survey, Kanal's population is younger than in the other Trnje committee areas studied, and 35% of respondents had lived there for five to nine years.⁷

At the 2021 census the committee area had 1,384 residents in 646 households, against 1,411 in 2011. There were 220 children aged up to 14 and 246 people aged 65 or over.^6,1,4

The municipal blocks by Botićev trg

Six detached municipal blocks of small flats, built in 1922–25 between Botićev trg, Radnička and Hektorovićeva around a shared walled courtyard.⁸

The houses around Dubravkin trg

A settlement of low family houses from 1922 between Supilova, Držićeva and Vukovarska, with the triangular Dubravkin trg at its centre.⁸

The north-east triangle

Between Radnička, Heinzelova and the railway: the city gasworks, the former paper mill at Zavrtnica 17 and the former slaughterhouse at Heinzelova 66.^7,15,2,9

Where the name Kanal comes from

The City of Zagreb, the geographers and the art historian Darja Radović Mahečić agree that Kanal is named after a filled-in drainage canal, but not on where the canal ran.^4,7,8 According to the City, the old city drainage canal was filled in in 1931 along today's Držićeva.⁴ According to the geographers Šakaja, Bašić and Račevska (2024), Radnička cesta was built on the line of the filled-in canal, and filling it in is what made it possible for the city to spread out here.⁷ Radović Mahečić says only that the shape of the settlement followed the drainage canals.⁸

The name is older than the houses. In 1922 the City filed the settlement as "provisional flats for the evicted south of the Kanal", naming it after the canal itself.⁸ A 1934 newspaper report quoted by Ivan Armanda already calls the residents Kanalčani.²⁴ The local committee of that name has existed since 2009.^5,1

A short history of Kanal

The city knacker's yard at Zavrtnica 17 was converted and extended for a paper mill in 1894–95.¹⁵ Work towards a new city gasworks on what was then Strojarska cesta, today's Radnička, began in 1908. The architect Dionis Sunko designed it, and it went into operation on 10 April 1911.^16,17,15 Flats for its workers followed in 1911–12.¹⁵

In 1922 the City divided its land between Supilova, Držićeva and what was then Zlatarićeva, today's Vukovarska, into about a hundred small rectangular plots and sold them for next to nothing, on condition that the buyers started building small houses within a set time.⁸ Between 1922 and 1925 it built six three-storey blocks of small flats by Botićev trg, with four one-room flatsOne-room flat (jednosoban stan)A flat with one room besides the kitchen and bathroom, so living and sleeping share it. Unlike a studio, the kitchen is separate.Source: Pravilnik minimalnih tehničkih uvjeta za projektiranje i gradnju stanova iz POS-a (NN 106/04, 25/06, 121/11), čl. 2., checked 19 Oct 2026More in the glossary of about 44 m² on each floor.⁸ The decision to build a new city slaughterhouse and livestock market on what is now Heinzelova was taken in 1921; it was built in 1928–31 and opened in autumn 1931.^9,11

There was no church, and the people of Kanal and Sigečica belonged to the distant parish of St Peter. According to an article by Ivan Armanda (2016), in 1932 they planned a chapel of St Joseph on Držićeva. A cross was raised on the intended site and blessed on Good Friday 1934, and thousands gathered under it for open-air May devotions.²⁴ The Holy Family church, just south of Kanal, was built in 1936–37. Coadjutor Archbishop Alojzije Stepinac blessed it on 27 June 1937, the day the parish was founded.^21,22

The Kanal – Sigečica library opened on Dubravkin trg in 1955.²⁶ Town-gas production ended on 11 November 1993.^17,16 The slaughterhouse, later known as Zagrepčanka, worked until 2000. The City bought the complex in 2001, and it has been a protected cultural property since 2004.^9,11,10 Green Gold opened at the turn of 2011 and 2012.⁴⁶

1. 1894–1895The city knacker's yard at Zavrtnica 17 is converted into a paper mill.¹⁵
2. 1911The city gasworks on Radnička starts work on 10 April.^16,17
3. 1922The City divides its land into about a hundred plots for small houses.⁸
4. 1928–1931The city slaughterhouse and livestock market is built on Heinzelova.^9,11
5. 1934A cross on Držićeva is blessed on Good Friday, and open-air May devotions begin beneath it.²⁴
6. 1937The Holy Family church, just south of Kanal, is blessed and the parish founded.^21,22
7. 1955The Kanal – Sigečica library opens on Dubravkin trg.²⁶
8. 1961Zagreb Bus Station is founded across Držićeva.^35,2
9. 1989The Chromos tower at the corner of Vukovarska and Heinzelova is finished.^19,18
10. 1993The gasworks stops making town gas.^17,16
11. 2004The former slaughterhouse, closed in 2000, is listed as a cultural property.^9,11
12. 2009The Kanal local committee is set up.^5,1

What to see in Kanal

• The former city slaughterhouse (Zagrepčanka)

  At Heinzelova 66. It was designed by the Berlin architect Walter Frese, with Peter Behrens as consultant.⁹ According to a 2021 City study, the complex has 24 buildings on about 105,000 m² and was the biggest building investment of the city government between the wars.¹⁰ Today parts of it hold offices, warehouses, artists' studios and sports clubs.^11,13

• The slaughterhouse water tower

  A red-brick tower with the proportions of a small skyscraper, it was a landmark of the city's south-eastern edge. Zrinka Barišić Marenić (2015) calls it Zagreb's first modern high-rise, with nine levels. The 2021 City study also calls it the first modern high-rise and gives it eight storeys.^9,10

• The city gasworks

  At Radnička cesta 1. The 1911 complex has been much altered, but it still has the features of a historic industrial structure worth preserving.^17,15,16

• The former Katran factory

  At Radnička 27. The factory made waterproofing membranes, metal foils and bitumen sheets; today it houses nightclubs.^47,7

• Dubravkin trg

  The central triangular square of the 1922 settlement, laid out as a park, with a playground.^8,41 The local committee is based at number 4.¹

• Botićev trg

  Officially Trg Luke Botića, a triangular square at the settlement's north-west tip, with a few shops.^8,40,2

• Green Gold

  A business and shopping centre at Radnička 52.⁴⁶ Its small landscaped park is the largest green space in the south-west triangle, and residents called it an "oasis of peace". In the 2017 survey Green Gold was the favourite place in the neighbourhood for 29% of respondents.⁷

• The Chromos tower

  At the corner of Vukovarska and Heinzelova. Designed by Marijan Turkulin with Petar Vovk and finished in 1989, it is a group of 12- to 16-storey office towers on a two-storey base.^18,19

Did you know?

• 1Fedor Kritovac wrote in 1991 that the name Kanal lived on as graffiti and as a kind of family password among true locals. A wall near the Kemijski obrazovni centar, a chemistry school, on Ulica proleterskih brigada, today's Vukovarska, read "SIGA & CANAL", a sign of an alliance between neighbouring areas.^25,20
• 2According to Mapiranje Trešnjevke, a 1928 list of city bus lines already included line 4, "Zrinjevac – Kanal".³⁹
• 3The 1911 gasworks had electric overhead wagons that carried coal to the furnaces, as well as its own power station and water supply.^16,17
• 4According to the Croatian Biographical Lexicon, Mayor Vjekoslav Heinzel, after whom Heinzelova is named, stepped down after the press accused him of influencing the tender for building the slaughterhouse.¹² Jutarnji list wrote in 2026 that he had awarded the design directly, without an architectural competition.¹³

Everyday life in Kanal

Renting in Kanal

Nearby neighbourhoods

• SigečicaNeighbourhood guide
• PeščenicaNeighbourhood guide
• KvatrićNeighbourhood guide
• Folnegovićevo naseljeNeighbourhood guide
• SavicaNeighbourhood guide
• TrnjeNeighbourhood guide

• Compare districts: Trnje and Lower Town
• Compare districts: Trnje and New Zagreb – East
• Compare districts: Trnje and New Zagreb – West
• All Zagreb neighbourhood guides

Questions about life in Kanal