ZapruđeThe first estate in eastern Novi Zagreb, with aluminium façades

Zapruđe at a glance

• To the main square by ZET32 min
• To the centre as the crow flies3.9 km
• Residents (2021)⁸5,362
• Built^1,41963–1968

Where Zapruđe is

Officially Zapruđe belongs to the city district of Novi Zagreb – istok (east), and a single local committee (mjesni odbor), Mjesni odbor Zapruđe, covers all of it, with its seat at Meštrovićev trg 1g.^8,10 It isn't a separate settlement but part of the settlement of Zagreb.⁹ Neighbourhoods have no official boundaries, so this guide describes Zapruđe through that committee.

The committee area runs from the Sava in the north to Avenija Dubrovnik in the south, and from Ulica Savezne Republike Njemačke in the west to Most mladosti in the east.^9,10 The committee's rules expressly leave out Lake Bundek, which belongs to neighbouring Središće. The eastern, wooded end of Bundek park, between the lake and Most mladosti, is in Zapruđe.^9,10,11 The housing estate itself is framed by Avenija Dubrovnik, Sarajevska cesta, Ulica Damira Tomljanovića Gavrana and Ulica SR Njemačke.⁴ Središće lies to the west, Utrine and Sopot to the south across Avenija Dubrovnik, Jakuševec to the east, and Staro Trnje and Trnjanska Savica, in the Trnje district, to the north across the Sava.¹⁰

For and against: life in Zapruđe

What life is like in Zapruđe

Zapruđe was planned in 1962 by the urban planner Josip Uhlik and built by the firm Jugomont from 1963 to 1968 as the first estate in the eastern part of Novi Zagreb.^4,1 Open House Zagreb calls it the prototype Novi Zagreb housing estate.⁴ The layout is orthogonal and almost symmetrical, with twenty Jugomont prefabricated blocks of four and eight storeys, built to a system devised by Branko Hlebec and Ljubomir Perić, and eight sixteen-storey Industrogradnja towers designed by Slavko Jelinek.^4,14

The blocks with aluminium-sheet façades are known as "limenke" ("tin cans"). The façade cladding was designed by Vinko Uhlik, a painter and architect and Josip Uhlik's brother.^1,14 The estate was designed for 10,000 people.¹ According to Bauštela's account of research by the urban planner Ivan Mlinar, it was built with 2,730 flats in the blocks and 640 in the towers, 3,370 in all on 36.90 hectares.¹³ Bauštela also dismisses as a myth the idea that the blocks went up as a stopgap after the 1964 flood: in its account the estate was carefully planned, and the façade panels were meant to be replaced over time.¹³

The space between the buildings was meant as a meeting place, in the library's words "a big open-air living room".¹ Paths wind through park strips with playgrounds, and traffic is graded in stages from the perimeter roads inwards.⁴ The covered centre held a bank, post office, library and shops, and the estate also got a health centre, a community hall, a central square and a primary school.^1,4 The internal streets are Balokovićeva, Baburičina, Vankina and Trumbićeva, Lojenov and Vučetićev prilaz, and Meštrovićev trg.¹⁰

At the 2011 census the committee area had 6,184 residents, and at the 2021 census 5,362, about 13% fewer.^12,8

Where the name Zapruđe comes from

The linguist Branimir Brgles derives the name from za + prud ("behind the sandbank") and counts it among the Zagreb names shaped by the Sava's floods and gravel depositsDeposit (polog)simplifiedMoney the tenant pays as security for unpaid rent, bills or damage, and gets back at the end of the lease. The lease sets the amount and when it's returned.Source: Zakon o najmu stanova (NN 91/96 … 105/20), čl. 3. i 17., checked 19 Oct 2026More in the glossary, alongside Blato, Savica and Zaprudski otok.⁵ As an ordinary Croatian noun, zapruđe means land lying behind a sandbank.⁶ The committee area lies in the cadastral municipality of Zaprudski Otok.⁹

According to Večernji list, August Šenoa's 1871 novel Zlatarevo zlato names Zapruđe as an estate of Medvedgrad on the right bank of the Sava.³⁸ The new estate was first known as the Silver City (Srebrni grad), after its aluminium façades.^15,16,14

A short history of Zapruđe

As early as 1952, Mayor Većeslav Holjevac argued for extending Zagreb onto the south bank of the Sava.^1,7 Building Most slobode in 1959 started the development of what is now the Novi Zagreb – istok district, where fewer than 3,500 people lived in 1961. Digging gravel for the bridge created Lake Bundek.⁷

Zapruđe was the area's first modern estate; Utrine, Sopot, Travno, Dugave, Središće and Sloboština followed.^7,1 The first 5,000 residents moved in at the end of 1965.⁴ The municipality of Remetinec, to which the area then belonged, founded the school on 24 June 1965. In its first year lessons were held at OŠ Trnsko, in flats and in the old school in Jakuševec, and the new building was formally opened on 26 November 1966.^18,19 The nursery opened in September 1968.²¹

Most mladosti, first called Most Borovje, opened on 2 November 1973 and linked this side of the Sava with Trnje.^31,7 The same month the poet Vjekoslav Majer, who had moved to Zapruđe with his wife, unlocked the new library himself; residents led by him had campaigned for it.^1,14 Trams first crossed the Sava, over Most mladosti, on 25 November 1979.^7,14 According to the site Mapiranje Trešnjevke, line 14 was extended to Zapruđe in 1985.³⁰

In 1991/92, during the Homeland War, the school practised evacuating into the nearby towers in case of air raids, lessons were cut to 35 minutes, and the school took in 157 displaced pupils.¹⁹ The library closed for refurbishment in May 1991 and reopened on 30 September 1992, enlarged from 88 to 120 m².¹ Since 1 August 2014 Zapruđe has belonged to the parish of Zagreb – Utrina.³² Work on Meštrovićev trg began in September 2026.³⁴

1. 1962Josip Uhlik draws up the estate plan.^4,1
2. 1963–1968Jugomont builds Zapruđe, the first estate in eastern Novi Zagreb.^1,4
3. 1965The first 5,000 residents move in at the end of the year.⁴
4. 1966The new OŠ Zapruđe building is formally opened on 26 November.^18,19
5. 1968The nursery now called Dječji vrtić Zapruđe opens in September.²¹
6. 1973Most mladosti (2 November) and the Zapruđe library (27 November) open.^31,1
7. 1979On 25 November a tram crosses the Sava for the first time, over Most mladosti.^7,14
8. 1985According to Mapiranje Trešnjevke, line 14 is extended to Zapruđe.³⁰
9. 1992The library reopens on 30 September, enlarged to 120 m².¹
10. 2000Miroslav Šutej's monument to Croatian defenders goes up on Meštrovićev trg.¹⁷
11. 2014The Zapruđe – Središće parish is abolished; Zapruđe joins the parish of Zagreb – Utrina.³²
12. 2025According to the City, semi-underground containers replace all the waste bins.³⁷
13. 2026Work on Meštrovićev trg begins (21 September), and the rebuilt Sarajevska cesta opens on 2 October.^34,35

What to see in Zapruđe

• Meštrovićev trg

  The estate's central square. According to Večernji list, residents paid for it through samodoprinos, a local levy, and it hosted Dani Zapruđa (Zapruđe Days), a music and entertainment festival.³⁸ In February 2026 HRT reported that this would be the square's first full renovation in more than 40 years.³³ Work began on 21 September 2026 at a cost of €1.25 million excluding VAT; the plan includes about 6,450 m² of new paving, nearly 1,000 m² of new lawn and care for about 90 mature trees.³⁴

• Monument to Croatian defenders

  Miroslav Šutej's 2000 work on Meštrovićev trg: thirteen stone columns in five rows of three and two, each a stack of cubes alternating red and white.¹⁷

• Školjka (the Shell)

  Residents call Nikola Koydl's bronze Sculpture-fountain (model 1976, set up 1981) Školjka, the Shell. It never worked as a fountain, and its two shallow front hollows now just collect rainwater.¹⁷ Local lore long held that it marks where the 16th meridian crosses the square.^14,33 In 2026 the City said newer geodetic measurements put the meridian outside the square itself, but that the renovation will still mark it in the paving.³⁴

• The 1972 fountains

  The square also has the sculptor Ante Orlić's Fountain with a pestle and a fountain by Dragutin Kiš and Petar Vovk, both from 1972.^17,14

• Vjekoslav Majer library

  At Meštrovićev trg 1 G.² It opened in 1973 as the first city library branch south of the Sava. According to its own history, in just 88 m² it had the largest membership in the city, 5,275. It has carried the poet Vjekoslav Majer's name since 1976.¹

• Park Vjekoslava Majera

  The park along Zapruđe's west side, first called Park Maksima Gorkog, was laid out to a design by the landscape architect Mirjana Popović.^14,16 According to H-Alter and the activist Saša Šimpraga, who coined the name, it is the first and oldest of the six parks of Novi Zagreb's Blue Horseshoe (Plava potkova).¹⁶

• The eastern end of Bundek park

  The wooded part of the park between Lake Bundek and Most mladosti, north of Ulica Damira Tomljanovića Gavrana, lies inside the Zapruđe committee area; the lake itself belongs to Središće.^10,9 In 2022 the committee council asked for the footpaths in this part of the park to be repaired.¹¹ Since May 2022 the Vjekoslav Majer library has also had a Kućica za knjige, a little free library, at Bundek.²

Did you know?

• 1According to the Zagreb Society of Architects, Holjevac meant the Silver City to stretch over today's Središće as well, and a big sign reading "Srebrni grad" was to stand at the junction of Avenija Dubrovnik and Avenija Većeslava Holjevca.¹⁵
• 2Vinko Uhlik recalled that the new buildings shone with a silver gleam, soon dulled by patina.¹
• 3According to Vladimir Tatomir's 2015 master's thesis, in 1963 a steam locomotive from the Đuro Đaković works was brought to today's Meštrovićev trg to help make prefabricated parts. It stood there for decades and was later moved.¹⁴
• 4In 1993/94 Sunday Mass was said in the school, by its western stairs, because the church in Utrina had not yet been built.^19,32
• 5Residents' memories recorded by the library tell of a pond in front of the school in the early years, full of croaking frogs in summer and floodlit as an ice rink in winter.¹

Everyday life in Zapruđe

Renting in Zapruđe

Nearby neighbourhoods

• UtrineNeighbourhood guide
• SredišćeNeighbourhood guide
• SopotNeighbourhood guide
• TravnoNeighbourhood guide
• SavicaNeighbourhood guide
• Folnegovićevo naseljeNeighbourhood guide

• Compare districts: New Zagreb – East and New Zagreb – West
• Compare districts: New Zagreb – East and Peščenica – Žitnjak
• Compare districts: New Zagreb – East and Trnje
• All Zagreb neighbourhood guides

Questions about life in Zapruđe