PHOTOS: How the New Cave House Visitor Centre Near Plitvice Will Look

Cave House

An impressive looking new Visitor Centre is going to be built near Plitvice Lakes National Park.

This week a contract was signed allocating nearly 20 million kuna from the European Cohesion Fund to build the “Cave House” Visitor Center. It is one of the biggest investments in tourism in the Karlovac County area and great news for the entire Plitvice Region.

How will the Cave House look?

The main attraction and reception point of the project is a visitor center that includes a presentation / museum complex, a cave-educational center with a library, a multi-purpose multimedia hall, a catering space, an office space, a children’s playroom, a souvenir shop, and an exterior area with presentation points and a parking lot , a total area of 2000 m2.

Cave House

The goal is to achieve a unique, innovative and attractive presentation of the cultural and natural values of the localities, to provide tours and visitors with special needs and to create a modern infrastructure for the maintenance of various educational and recreational activities.

Cave House

Everything will follow modern technology to create the experience and interpretation of natural and cultural heritage, which is a great step in the perfection of the experience in the modern age. Additionally, this cave house project will also encourage the interest of culture and nature in the local population and develop awareness of nature conservation and the importance of sustainable interaction between man and nature.

Cave House

“It is these projects that leave a great mark and finally put some of our most beautiful and most valuable resources into a function, which is a natural heritage. For us who manage protected areas, it is a great responsibility to put resources into the function of sustainable development and to be a generator of new jobs and economic activity. Realization of the project will directly contribute to the increase of the number of visitors to the site, education of the local population and visitors on natural heritage and the increase of the tourist recognition of the Rakovica municipality as a destination of natural heritage,” said Director of the Public Institution of Barać Cave Tihana Oštrina.

The cave house is designed in such a way that its propositions match the locality it represents, and for that reason, it is buried beneath the ground.

Cave House

The subject and the interpretation differ in two larger entities – the general biological – geomorphological themes of the site that are processed on the ground floor of the building and a kind of “showroom”. In this way, the visitor first perceives themes, learns about the concepts and basic characteristics, and then, by lowering into the underground, it has the opportunity to experience it through a series of multimedia presentations, sense chambers and similar effective exhibits.

Plitvice Lakes

The project partner is the Public Institution National Park Plitvice Lakes, and common goals are to develop joint programs and content for better visitor management and dispersion and to directly create conditions for extending visitors’ stay at the destination.

The Cave House Visitor Centre is due to be completed in 3 years.