KlakaA 1970s estate with buildings by Branko Kincl and the Grana – Klaka sports centre

Klaka at a glance

• To the main square by ZET41 min
• To the centre as the crow flies6.3 km
• Residents (2021)¹9,469
• Estate built⁶1970s and 1980s

Where Klaka is

Klaka is in the city district of Gornja Dubrava and is covered by a single local committee (mjesni odbor), 9. Mjesni odbor Klaka, based at Ulica Zdenka Škreba 3.^1,2 It was never a separate settlement (the committee covers part of the settlement of Zagreb), and until 1994 it was one of the local communities (mjesne zajednice) of today's Gornja Dubrava.^2,6,4 Neighbourhoods have no official boundaries, so this guide describes Klaka through that 117.37-hectare committee area.¹

The committee's boundary starts at the junction of Dubrava street and Grižanska and runs north along Grižanska to Ulica hrvatskog proljeća, then by Pernatska and Makarska, across Oporovečka and up Aleja tišine to Miroševec cemetery. From there it turns east, past Lelijska, to the Trnava stream, follows the stream down to the junction of Oporovečka and Dankovečka, runs south along Dankovečka and closes along Dubrava street, the border with Donja Dubrava.² Neighbouring Grana is not part of the committee area.²

For and against: life in Klaka

What life is like in Klaka

Klaka is a planned estate of blocks of flats with a residential-and-commercial centre; at the same time, orderly family-house building spread along Grižanska.^7,4 The architect Branko Kincl led the urban project for the estate's centre from 1974 to 1977. His residential-and-commercial buildings S1, S2 and S3 went up between 1977 and 1983; S1 stands on Grižanska, and he designed S3 with Professor Josip Frankol.^10,11

Iva Körbler writes on the Arhitektura Zagreba site that Kincl's Klaka buildings alternate pushed-in and pushed-out volumes floor by floor, so they don't read as monoliths.^14,13 In 1992 the art historian Ivo Maroević called Kincl's Klaka building (1978–1981) perhaps the clearest example of the "Zagreb school" at the turn from the 1970s to the 1980s, with its pure volume, distinctive colouring and restrained design.¹²

In Dubrava's planned estates the ratio of built to open land was kept at 50:50, sometimes 40:60, and Crljenko names Studentski grad and Klaka as the best examples.⁸

At the 2011 census Klaka had 9,953 residents, 3,645 households and 4,338 dwellings; in 2021 it had 9,469, about 5% fewer.^5,1 According to Crljenko, the estate was settled mostly by one generation of newcomers, so in 2011 Klaka's ageing index (people aged 60 and over per 100 under 20) was above 100.⁸

Residents who spoke to the art collective Otvoreni likovni pogon in 2025 praised the neighbourhood market, which they called the only private one in Zagreb, and the cultural centre's programme, but regretted that its building was never finished. They would like a mural at SRC Grana – Klaka honouring well-known people from Klaka.⁴³

Where the name Klaka comes from

The sources we checked don't explain where the name Klaka comes from. The oldest mention we found is an urban project called Grana-Klaka from 1965, which the geographer Ivana Crljenko places in the cartographic collection of the State Archives in Zagreb; the name may be older.⁷

Klaka and Grana were planned together from the start: the 1973 implementation plan covered the settlements of Klaka and Grana, and they share the Grana – Klaka sports centre.^9,8

A short history of Klaka

According to a City study, before the 1930s the flat south of today's Gornja Dubrava was practically uninhabited and largely covered by oak forest, which gave Dubrava its name.⁴ The Janeković subdivision of the 1930s, Dubrava's first planned division of land, took in more than 200 jutara (the jutro is an old land measure) and stopped at Grižanska; Klaka lies on the street's eastern side.^3,2 From 14 November 1948 to 7 October 1964 a narrow-gauge pioneer railway, 5,920 metres long, ran from Dubrava to Slanovec up the valley of the Trnava stream, which now forms part of the committee's boundary.^46,47,3,2

The 1973 implementation plan came into force on 3 April 1974 and was amended later.⁹ The estate grew up in the municipality of Dubrava, which existed from 1974 to 1990.^3,9 The school opened in 1974 under the working name Osnovna škola Klaka u izgradnji (Klaka school under construction) and was named after the teacher and writer Mate Lovrak, who had died that spring; the teachers asked his family for permission.¹⁶ The first phase of the Grana – Klaka sports centre opened in 1981.⁸ By the 1980s most of Dubrava's planned high-rise housing was up, including the blocks in Studentski grad, Grana and Klaka.⁷

From 1970 the Catholic community met in a pastoral centre with a chapel of St Lawrence of Brindisi, fitted out in two joined family houses in Klaka, as a branch of St Michael's parish in Dubrava.^19,21 The parish of St John XXIII was founded on 1 September 2001, when St Michael's was split into four.^19,21 The archdiocese bought the plot for the church in November 2002, Cardinal Josip Bozanić blessed the pastoral centre beside the building site in 2009, and the church was built in 2013 and 2014 and consecrated on 11 October 2015.^20,19

According to the school, the 145th Brigade of the Croatian Army set out from its building in the Homeland War; a square in the neighbourhood is named Trg 145. brigade HV-a.^16,2 The Dubrava – Dubec tram line, along Klaka's southern edge, opened on 11 October 2000, and the local committee was set up in February 2009.^35,2,3 A fire on 2 November 2020 spread through about 1,000 m² of the school's roof; after repairs all pupils were back in class on 23 November.^48,49 In December 2025 the City Assembly approved buying the unfinished building and parts of the cultural-centre complex for about €7 million, so that the complex, whose shell has stood since the 1980s, can at last be completed.^33,34

1. 1948–1964The Dubrava – Slanovec pioneer railway runs up the Trnava valley.^46,47
2. 1965The Grana-Klaka urban project is drawn up.⁷
3. 1970A pastoral centre with a chapel of St Lawrence of Brindisi opens in two joined family houses.^19,21
4. 1974The implementation plan for Klaka and Grana comes into force, and the school, named after Mate Lovrak, opens.^9,16
5. 1977–1983Kincl's residential-and-commercial buildings for Klaka's centre go up.^10,11
6. 1981The first phase of SRC Grana – Klaka opens.⁸
7. 1990Knjižnica Dubrava moves into the Narodno sveučilište building at Dubrava 51a.²⁹
8. 2000The Dubrava – Dubec tram line opens.³⁵
9. 2001The parish of St John XXIII is founded.^19,21
10. 2009The Klaka local committee is set up.^3,2
11. 2015Cardinal Josip Bozanić consecrates the church of St John XXIII.¹⁹
12. 2017The renovation of the SRC Grana – Klaka pitches is finished.²⁴
13. 2025The City Assembly approves buying the unfinished part of the cultural centre.^33,34

What to see in Klaka

• The tower at Aleja Blaža Jurišića 9

  This twelve-storey residential-and-commercial tower was designed by Branko Kincl and Josip Frankol and built between 1980 and 1983.^13,10 Iva Körbler compares its shifting volumes to the Japanese Metabolist architects of the 1960s, Arata Isozaki and Kenzo Tange.¹³

• Klekovačka 30–34

  Branko Kincl designed this residential-and-commercial building, built between 1980 and 1983 as part of Klaka's complex of varied buildings. Its modular facade, a row of loggias and balconies, is in light silicate brick.¹⁴

• OŠ Mate Lovraka

  At Aleja Blaža Jurišića 13. It was designed by Radovan Nikšić, who drew 14 similar schools across the former Yugoslavia, and a large sports hall with stands was added later.^16,15 The school has a mural, Lovrakov mlin (Lovrak's mill), painted in 2011 by Miroslav Sekulić, then a young artist and now an award-winning comics artist.¹⁶

• Church of St John XXIII

  At Ulica Križnog puta 111; consecrated in 2015.¹⁹ On 12 October 2026 the parish marked its 25th anniversary with the blessing of its bells.²¹

• Park dubravskih branitelja

  The Park of Dubrava's Defenders, by Dubrava 51, has a memorial to the fallen defenders that was renovated under the 2013–2016 programme of small local works.^2,22

• Centar kulture Dubrava

  At Dubrava 51a; until 2025 it was called Narodno sveučilište Dubrava. The building houses Knjižnica Dubrava and the Galerija Vladimir Filakovac.^30,29,31 The library began in 1950 as the library of Zagreb's 3rd district (Maksimir), worked from a 120 m² barrack in 1974 and moved here in 1990.²⁹

• SRC Grana – Klaka

  At Aleja Blaža Jurišića 2. It has main and auxiliary football pitches, courts for volleyball, basketball and handball, a bocce court, an athletics track and four tennis courts, and its open ground hosts concerts during the summer Dani Dubrave (Dubrava Days). NK Dubrava plays here.^8,4

• The iron bridge over the Trnava

  In 2020 the local-history site Dubrava.com.hr described, from a walk in 1999, a well-preserved iron bridge of the old pioneer railway over the Trnava stream near Lelijska ulica. It was fenced off and used by pedestrians.⁴⁷

Did you know?

• 1Klaka's school was long confused with the school in neighbouring Grana, now OŠ Vjenceslava Novaka, 550 metres away, and one architect listed it among his works by mistake. Alen Žunić explains that Klaka and Grana originally occupied a single space; the Klaka school is of a different type, identical in form to OŠ Sopot.¹⁵
• 2Krunoslav Jakopanec "Kac", born in 1975, grew up in Klaka. As he remembers it, the neighbourhood recorded an amateur rap album around 1991, now lost, and in 1993 he founded the hip-hop collective Klaka Crazy Posse.³²
• 3According to the school, OŠ Mate Lovraka has hosted RoboCup Junior, Croatia's national robotics competition, for more than ten years.¹⁶
• 4The footballer Marko Radas grew up in Klaka, according to 24sata.⁴⁴

Everyday life in Klaka

Renting in Klaka

Nearby neighbourhoods

• DubravaNeighbourhood guide
• RetkovecNeighbourhood guide
• DubecNeighbourhood guide
• RavniceNeighbourhood guide
• BukovacNeighbourhood guide
• BorongajNeighbourhood guide

• Compare districts: Gornja Dubrava and Donja Dubrava
• Compare districts: Gornja Dubrava and Maksimir
• Compare districts: Gornja Dubrava and Podsljeme
• All Zagreb neighbourhood guides

Questions about life in Klaka