ZrinjevacFrom a cattle fair to a park of plane trees from Trieste

Zrinjevac at a glance

• To the main square by ZET5 min
• To the centre as the crow flies0.3 km
• Residents of the MO (2021)¹1,437
• Park opened^6,81873

Where Zrinjevac is

Zrinjevac is the popular name of Trg Nikole Šubića Zrinskog, a park square in Donji grad, the Lower Town.^4,5 Officially it is also one of the 14 local committees (mjesni odbori) of the Donji grad city district, covering 15.49 ha. Besides the square it takes in Boškovićeva, Praška and Amruševa, parts of Đorđićeva, Jurišićeva, Palmotićeva and Petrinjska, and numbers 12 to 15/1 on Trg bana Jelačića, the main square.^1,2,3 The HAZU (Croatian Academy) palace at Zrinski trg 11, Strossmayerov trg and the Sacred Heart basilica officially belong to the August Šenoa local committee.³

The neighbourhood has no official boundary. In everyday speech Zrinjevac means the park and, according to the book Grad kao susret (2019), sometimes the whole eastern arm of the Green Horseshoe, from Zrinjevac via Strossmayerov trg to Tomislavov trg.¹³ A 2024 draft proposed merging the Zrinjevac and Cvjetni trg committees, but the City still lists Zrinjevac as a committee of its own, whose council was constituted on 4 July 2025.^43,1

For and against: life in Zrinjevac

What life is like in Zrinjevac

The park is framed by neo-Renaissance, neo-Romanesque and classicist buildings.^4,5 According to the art historian Snješka Knežević, the rim of the square was built mostly as upper-class residences, and the most important palaces are now in public and cultural use.⁷ The Supreme Court building was once the house of Count Ivan Buratti.^5,13 The Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs works from the former palace of the Croatian-Slavonian Land Mortgage Bank, built in the early 20th century to designs by the Viennese architect Friedrich Schachner.^21,5

Knežević writes that the square remained a top-class residential address until the 1890s, and that until about 1900 every house apart from the court building and the Academy was purely residential. Between the two world wars the ground floors on the west side became shops and offices.⁶ Baron Dragan Vranyczany built the palace at number 19, two storeys with a mezzanine, to let, and kept its interior plain for that reason.^16,17

At the 2011 census the local committee area had 1,902 residents and 1,274 dwellings, 1,071 of them for permanent residencePermanent address (prebivalište)simplifiedThe address where you've settled for good, the centre of your life. You register it with the police within 15 days of moving in.Source: Zakon o prebivalištu (NN 144/12, 158/13, 114/22), čl. 2.–4. i 10., checked 19 Oct 2026More in the glossary.³⁰ At the 2021 census it had 1,437 residents.¹ The ethnologists Valentina Gulin Zrnić and Nevena Škrbić Alempijević found that for some residents the three eastern squares of the Green Horseshoe are simply their neighbourhood, and children play on them.¹³

In 2000 the Tourist Board turned the old tradition of concerts at the pavilion into a summer series, the Promenadni koncerti, which Infozagreb says still runs.^13,9 Advent na Zrinjevcu began on 3 December 2011, and switching on the lights on the square has become a fixed part of the Advent opening; according to Index.hr, 90,000 lights went on in 2024.^33,13,34 The square has also hosted the More knjiga book fair and the Food Film Festival, and in summer 2026 Plesnjak na Zrinjevcu, ten evenings of free dance workshops and concerts.^13,45

Where the name Zrinjevac comes from

The square's official name is Trg Nikole Šubića Zrinskog; Zrinjevac is what people call it.^4,5 It is named after the Croatian ban (viceroy) Nikola Šubić Zrinski. The former Novi trg (Novi terg, "New Square") was renamed in 1866, the 300th anniversary of his death at Siget in 1566.^9,8,6 According to 24sata, the cattle fair had earlier earned the square the nickname Marvinski terg, from marva, livestock.¹¹

Locals usually call the three eastern squares Zrinjevac, Stros and Tomislavac, and sometimes use Zrinjevac for the whole stretch, as City publications did from the 1970s to the 1990s.¹³ The City's parks company is also called Zrinjevac, a name it has carried since 1 July 1977.^35,36

A short history of Zrinjevac

In 1826 the cattle fair moved here from Harmica, today's Trg bana Jelačića, and Knežević calls the site the first planned square of the Lower Town.^6,7,36 According to her, the weekly and annual fairs brought tavern keepers, bakers, acrobats, circus people and fortune-tellers alongside the livestock.⁶ In 1863 the city resolved that its surveyor Janko Grahor should draw a plan for Novi trg.^4,5 After three years of debate, backed by Mayor Dragutin Cekuš and his deputy Pavao Hatz, the city chose a park over the planned main market hall, so the daily market stayed on Trg bana Jelačića until the mid-20th century, Knežević writes.⁶

The city surveyor Rupert Melkus drew the plan in 1870, four fields edged with tree-lined walks around a central roundel, and Rudolph Siebeck, director of Vienna's public parks, designed the garden parterre.^6,7,8 Melkus finally drove the cattle fair off the square in 1872.^6,11 In 1872 and 1873, 220 plane saplings arrived from Trieste for the walks, and the park was handed to the public in summer 1873.^11,10,6,8 The city gardener Josip Peklar divided the parterre into eight fields with flower borders in 1878, and in the early 1890s Franjo Jeržabek gave it a third, French-style form.^8,6,7

In the mid-1870s the first private palace went up on the square, Baron Ljudevit Ožegović's at number 17, home to Kavana Zagreb, for a long time the only café between Trg bana Jelačića and the railway station.^6,13 The Vranyczany palace at number 19 (1878–1879) followed, and the Academy palace was formally handed over on 9 November 1884.^16,14 In 1893 a tram line was laid along the west side of the square.^6,7 A synagogue stood at Praška 7 from 1867 until the NDH authorities demolished it between October 1941 and April 1942.^25,26,28

The Archaeological Museum moved into the Vranyczany palace in 1945.^18,14 The park was declared a protected monument of park architecture on 23 October 1970.^4,5 The 1987 Universiade prompted the renewal of the facades, the paths were relaid from 1999 with copies of historic benches and lamp posts, and the parterre was restored in 2000 and 2001 to the 1894 design.^6,13,8 After the 2020 earthquake the museum fully reopened on 16 July 2024, and the renovated ministry building on 27 November 2024.^20,21 On 28 May 2026 the City Assembly adopted an urban plan that allows a new synagogue and a cultural centre at Praška 7.^27,26

1. 1826The cattle fair moves from Harmica to today's Zrinjevac.^6,7
2. 1866Novi trg is renamed after Ban Nikola Šubić Zrinski.^8,6
3. 1870The city surveyor Rupert Melkus draws up the plan of the square.^7,6
4. 1873The park, planted with plane trees from Trieste, opens to the public in summer.^6,8,10
5. 1884The Academy palace is formally handed over on 9 November; Dr Adolf Holzer gives the meteorological pillar.^14,6
6. 1891The music pavilion goes up on the spot meant for a Zrinski monument.^7,6
7. 1893A tram line is laid along the west side, and Bollé's fountain is set up on a northern field.^7,6
8. 1942The NDH authorities finish demolishing the synagogue at Praška 7.^25,26,28
9. 1945The Archaeological Museum moves into the Vranyczany palace.^18,14
10. 1970On 23 October the park is declared a protected monument of park architecture.^4,5
11. 2000–2001The parterre is restored to Jeržabek's 1894 design.^8,6
12. 2011The first Advent na Zrinjevcu opens on 3 December.^33,13
13. 2024After earthquake repairs the Archaeological Museum and the ministry building reopen.^20,21
14. 2026The City Assembly adopts a plan that allows a new synagogue at Praška 7.^27,26

What to see in Zrinjevac

• Music pavilion

  Set up in 1891, a gift from the wholesale merchant Eduard Prister, a prominent member of Zagreb's Jewish community. Hermann Bollé designed it, and it stands on the spot that was meant for a Zrinski monument.^6,7,12

• Meteorological pillar

  Dr Adolf Holzer's gift of 1884, a classicist pillar of Istrian marble at the northern end of the park, designed by Hermann Bollé.^6,7,4 It still shows the temperature, humidity and air pressure, and has a clock with a 24-hour dial.^15,9

• Gljiva (the Mushroom)

  The fountain on a northern field, given in 1893 by the Craft School and the architect Hermann Bollé. Locals call it Gljiva, and for Advent it is hung with hundreds of lights.^7,11,44

• Archaeological Museum

  In the Vranyczany palace at number 19 since 1945.¹⁸ It holds the Zagreb Linen Book (Liber linteus), written on the linen wrappings of the Zagreb mummy; the museum calls it the longest Etruscan text ever found, at about 1,200 words.¹⁹ Its garden lapidarium was open from June to October 2026 as a free place to rest.²⁹

• K Zrinjskomu pharmacy

  The corner pharmacy on the square has worked without a break since 1890.³⁷ Its facade carries a copy of a painting by Bela Čikoš Sesija showing Zrinski at Siget; according to Glasnik HAZU, for decades it was the only image of Zrinski on his own square. The painting was restored in May 2016, for the 150th anniversary of the square's name.⁷

• The semicircle of busts

  Opposite the Academy, around a large flower roundel, stand busts of Julije Klović and Andrija Medulić (1879), Krsto Frankopan (1884), Nikola Jurišić (1886), and Ivan Kukuljević Sakcinski and Ivan Mažuranić (1911).^6,7 According to the book Grad kao susret, the originals were replaced by replicas in 1995.¹³

• Praška 7

  The empty plot where the synagogue stood, the only unbuilt parcel in its historic block.^27,28 According to Croatian Wikipedia, the synagogue was designed by Franjo Klein.²⁵ The 2026 plan allows a new synagogue and a cultural centre there; according to HRT, the new synagogue will not be a replica of the old one.^27,26

• HAZU palace atrium

  The palace at number 11 is officially in the August Šenoa committee.³ According to HAZU, the Baška tablet, an early 12th-century stone with the first mention of the Croatian name in Croatian, has stood in its atrium since 1934.⁴⁶

Did you know?

• 1The centre of Zrinski's square never got its Zrinski monument, and Ivan Rendić's design for a grand fountain-monument to him was never built.^6,12,7
• 2The meteorological pillar was first meant for Trg bana Jelačića, Glasnik HAZU says.⁷
• 3In its early years the park had only six benches, so extra chairs were rented from a private operator.¹²
• 4According to 24sata, the plane saplings travelled from Trieste by train for more than twelve hours. In spring 2026 a storm uprooted one of the 1873 planes, and a young plane from the Markuševec nursery will replace it.¹¹
• 5The City's parks company Zrinjevac began in 1893 as Gradska vrtlarija under Franjo Jeržabek, the same gardener who reshaped the park.³⁵

Everyday life in Zrinjevac

Renting in Zrinjevac

Nearby neighbourhoods

• Lower TownNeighbourhood guide
• KaptolNeighbourhood guide
• RibnjakNeighbourhood guide
• Upper TownNeighbourhood guide
• MartinovkaNeighbourhood guide
• KvatrićNeighbourhood guide

• Compare districts: Lower Town and Upper Town – Medveščak
• Compare districts: Lower Town and Maksimir
• Compare districts: Lower Town and Peščenica – Žitnjak
• All Zagreb neighbourhood guides

Questions about life in Zrinjevac