Origin and Development

The idea for Ivana's House of Fairy Tales – Visitor's Centre first came about in 2006, when the Tourist Board of the City of Ogulin, with director Ankica Puškarić at its head, called for a study of cultural tourism development: “Ogulin – the Homeland of Fairy Tales”.

The study was prepared by Dragana Lucija Ratković Aydemir of Muses Ltd., a Zagreb-based company for the consulting and managing of projects in culture and tourism. In this study, Ivana's House of Fairy Tales – Visitor's Centre and the international Ogulin Fairy-Tale Festival are conceived as key elements in the development of a unique destination, the identity of which is built around fairy tales. This idea was inspired by the fact that Ivana Brlić-Mažuranić – Croatia's foremost writer of fairy tales – was born in Ogulin. Tales of Long Ago, her most successful collection of fairy tales, bears traces of the natural beauties of Ogulin, and the intangible heritage of its tales and legends. In addition, the study views the widespread literary genre of the fairy tale as an incentive for creativity, target and focused marketing communication, and destination profiling, as well as a platform for international cooperation built around the project's European identity.

The museological programme and concept was developed by Dragana Lucija Ratković Aydemir and a team of designers lead by Vanja Cuculić and Vladimir Končar (of Studio Revolucija – Revolution). More than sixty collaborators from different areas of expertise were involved in the various phases of developing Ivana's House of Fairy Tales. Their wide range of knowledge along with a variety of their individual talents and skills make Ivana's House of Fairy Tales a prime example of an interdisciplinary and multimedia team project! The project would surely not have been so successful without the highly motivated local inhabitants, who took an active part in the various activities and showed support for the idea of turning their hometown into a homeland of fairy tales.

However, the main incentive for realising the project came from the Tourist Board of the City of Ogulin: to be more specific, its director Ankica Puškarić and her associate Aleksandra Kolić Puškarić. With technical assistance provided by the Ministry of Regional Development, Forestry and Water Management, Puškarić and Kolić Puškarić worked studiously and meticulously to prepare the necessary documentation. Thanks to a well-prepared project, the Tourist Board of Ogulin and the European Union's Central Financing and Contracting Agency (CFCA), Zagreb, signed an agreement on 15th March, 2012, allocating non-refundable funds from the European Regional Development Fund for the realisation of the Ivana's House of Fairy Tales – Visitor's Centre project.

As the contractor and holder of all the project's activities, the Tourist Board of the City of Ogulin – in partnership with the City of Ogulin and the Conservation Department of the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Croatia, and its numerous collaborators: the Ministry of Culture (Zagreb), the Ogulin Fairy-Tale Festival Association (Ogulin), “Radost” (Joy): association of disabled persons and parents of children with developmental disabilities (Ogulin), “Naša djeca” (Our Children) society (Ogulin), and the Tourist Board of the Karlovac County (Karlovac) – successfully realised all project-related activities by December 15, 2013.