After many years of restorating, the renovated and partially reconstructed French Pavilion, which has not been in operation since World War II, finally opens in mid-October. The author of the renovation project is architect Alan Braun, whilst the pavilion itself was rebuilt according to its original appearance.
The roof is an inverted cone shape (point down, like an ice cream cone), a bizarre and very curious phenomenon indeed. Architectually curious folk from all over the world come to Zagreb to see this. It was built by Bernard Lafaille in the mid 1930s as part of a competition, who said that his project is representative of the avant-garde construction of the period. Legend says that Lafaille became enraged when people claimed it wasn't a sound design, and to disprove their doubting he took a bicycle to the roof and rode around up there for hours. The building was sponsored by the French government and was initially used by the French automoblie manufacturers as a showroom. As of late, it was used as a theatre, and in 1995 the famous writer Pascal Bruckner came to check it out to premier his movie and was absolutely thrilled by its design.