Refurbishment works on the premises on Grohovčeva Street known as RiHub, which opened in September of 2018, were financed by the City of Rijeka in the amount of 4.4 million HRK.
Ana Boljar and Ida Križaj Leko (CRO) were the interior designers.
RiHub spans 1007m² and is the European Capital of Culture information centre. Since opening its doors, RiHub has also acted as a venue for European Capital of Culture participatory programmes that involve citizens and in 2020 it will become the press centre of the ECoC. RiHub also doubles as a co-working space with an average of 35 users per month.
In the year since it opened, 9,500 citizens have passed through RiHub, which has held numerous workshops, training programmes, participation campaigns and lectures.
So far, 32 training programmes in the area of culture and cultural event organisation, including 15 workshops, 7 seminars, 1 international conference, 3 international projects and 6 continuous training programmes comprising 32 workshops with 312 mentorship hours have been held at RiHub as part of the Classroom flagship of the European Capital of Culture project. The Classroom training programmes have involved 122 national and international lecturers, as well as 1455 attendees from Rijeka, Primorje-Gorski Kotar County and Croatia, who have acquired a wide range of knowledge, skills and experience regarding cultural management, audience development and the utilisation of space and technology in culture.
As part of the ECoC project in 2018 and 2019, two Participate campaigns have been conducted in order to invite the citizens of Rijeka to propose small-scale greening projects or to organise smaller culture and art events in the neighbourhoods. The invitations also included applications for the Citizens’ Council, which evaluates the quality of the submitted projects and selects the best for inclusion in the ECoC programme and financing as part of the project. A large number of individuals and civic groups that use RiHub responded to the invitation and became involved in the campaigns by submitting a total of 141 projects, while 155 citizens applied to participate in the Citizens’ Council.
RiHub has hosted 57 different public events, such as workshops, lectures, panel discussions and project presentations concerning environmental protection, civic activism, solidarity development etc. A total of 64 lecturers, mentors and panellists and 872 civic attendees participated in the programme.
The Co-working Space that was opened at RiHub as part of the ECoC project has been used by 215 people, who have spent 2,758 working hours there. The co-working space has 35 users per month on average.
