Vesna Skala

Vesna Skala has, due to youthful inexperience, „mistakenly“ graduated in economics. The work she did through her working life has almost invariably always flirted with art. In her youth she worked as an accounting manager at the railway office in Pula, while in tandem with this, she worked in organising various culutral events in Istria. As soon as Croatia gained statehood in 1991, along with some partners, she started up the first real estate agency in Pula. In this setting, she had an opportunity to observe closely everything that was happening in town planning and architecture in Istria. By then, she had already realised that some day she will have to try it out in this area as well, having witnessed first hand the paucity of quality accomplishments in the field.

As a connoisseur and devotee to art, in year 2000 she conceived and organised, along with her partners from musical circles, an international music festival of world, ethno and jazz music – Istraetnojazz Festival. The festival has, due to its quality and repertoire of musicians presented on stage, been the only Croatian festival enlisted in the European forum of worldwide music festivals – a reputable festival organisation for world music, which included 46 of the best European festivals.

Link to the IstraEtnoJazz festival video

In six years of existence, this festival featured numerous names of world acclaim from the ethno, world and jazz scene (Cesaria Evora, Pat Metheny, John Zorn, Marc Ribot, Joji Hiroto, Kronos Quartet  and many others). Vesna Skala has worked to promote many Croatian and Istrian musicians and artists and has assisted in their reaching accalim both in Croatia and abroad (Gustafi, Darko Rundek, Tamara Obrovac, Maurizio Ferlin and others). Organising of festivals has nonetheless remained a hobby activity for Vesna, rather than something that would permanently occupy her time.

In year 2005,  she is once again attracted to her old love – architecture! Since then, the San Antonio project has begun to be developed. Her affinity for achitecture and design has reached full potential in her business and life partnership with Šime Babin. In this partnership, her varied experience from many fields has transformed into something greater still, while the joint project San Antonio has opened up new avenues for further exploration through creative work in novel enterprise challenges.