The oldest architectural treasure in Maribor is the Cathedral - a Catholic Church of St. John the Baptist, first mentioned in 1248. Over the centuries, it adapted elements from several architectural styles and was successful in melding them into a harmonious whole.
The next important Maribor architectural monument is the Castle, built towards the end of the fifteenth century. Over the centuries it evolved from a fortification into a nobleman's castle; finally, it became an ethnographic museum. The Castle, too, shows a number of different arhitectural styles: from the Gothic, to the Renaissance and to the Rococo.
On the other hand, the Town Hall in the Glavni trg (Main Square) is a Renaissance masterpiece. The most medieval architectural remains are what is left of the Jewish quarter east of the Glavni trg (Main Sguare). The quarter was once part of the town wall, along with the synagogue and two towers on the left bank of the Drava river (Water Tower and Round Tower).
The old inner city still shows the characteristic features of the Baroque in some of the manor houses. The renovation of the houses in town, on the other hand, has singulary distorted their Baroque features.
The nineteenth century was the architectural Golden Age for Maribor. Here we have examples of the rather pompous architecture of the Austrian monarchy, for example, the post office, the City savings bank, the court building, and the classical secondary school (Gymnasium) building.
Creativity in painting in Maribor was spurred on in the beginning of the seventeenth century, before the influence of the Baroque Period. Maribor witnessed a widespread revival of fine arts in the Baroque Period - from the mid-seventeenth century. Since in this period many new buildings were erected, mainly churches, with the older ones being renovated in the new artistic style, artists found work plentiful. Josef Straub (d. 1757) came to Maribor from Ljubljana and, among other works, created the Plague Memorial in Maribor's Glavni trg (Main Square) in 1743, as well as many other fine works throughout Slovene Styria. During this time, the Maribor Baroque Period was refined artistically and assumed a wider European perspective.
In the nineteenth century Maribor's interest in the fine arts waned; Mariborian citizens, by now solidly middle-class, preferred to have their portraits painted in the Biedermeyer and flowing romantic fashion. They had their portraits painted by numerous travelling painters or, in the case of well-to-do families, by distinguished painters from abroad.
The plastic arts became popular after World War I, when the Slovenes, in the newly receptive political climate, wanted to elevate the plastic arts as well.
The local residents of Maribor keep in touch with the arts through numerous exhibitions organized by the Art Gallery, together with the Rotovz Salon (they have their galleries in the Town Hall) and in Kraigherjev trg. Additionally, there are many local exhibitions in bookstores, banks, schools, and private galleries, where the art works are for sale. The city has been enhanced with outdoor avant-garde creations in concrete by sculptors from abroad. These sculptors met at the international symposia Forma Viva during 1967 - 1986.
