John Lennon Bust in Zagreb's Rock'n'Roll Theme Park

The John Lennon bust in Zagreb stands in the courtyard of the Subkulturni centar at Pavla Hatza 16, a space now called the Rock'n'Roll Theme Park. Boris Leiner, a sculptor who was once the drummer of the Croatian band Azra, made it. It was unveiled on 15 November 2013, alongside a growing row of rock busts.

A drummer's Lennon

Boris Leiner came to sculpture from rock. Born in Čakovec in 1957, he became widely known in Croatia as the drummer of Azra and played with Haustor and other bands before turning more and more to sculpture.

His Lennon bust was unveiled on the evening of Friday 15 November 2013, at 8 pm, in the courtyard of the Subkulturni centar (SKC) on Hatzova Street. The event was organised by the Zagreb venue Tvornica kulture together with the SKC. Entry was free, and the Boris Leiner Band played in the club afterwards.

From one bust to a rock park

Lennon was not the first. A bust of Joe Strummer of the Clash had gone up when the SKC opened on 27 September 2013, and the courtyard was informally named Joe Strummer Square. The organisers announced Lennon as the next step in a theme park for key figures from roughly 50 years of popular music.

That plan held. By 2018 the Lice Grada city magazine described the courtyard, shared by two SKC bars, as Croatia's first park devoted to rock'n'roll figures, with busts of Nick Cave, Jimi Hendrix, Amy Winehouse, the Ramones and the Croatian funk singer Dino Dvornik. In June 2024 Leiner added a red bust of his old Azra bandmate Branimir "Johnny" Štulić, placed in the same park as his Lennon and Hendrix.

Statue or bust?

Some listings call it the "John Lennon Statue", but this is a bust, not a full figure. According to OpenStreetMap, its plaque is in Croatian and gives his birth date, 9 October 1940, and the date he was killed, 8 December 1980, before describing him as the founder of the Beatles.

Because the courtyard doubles as a bar terrace, the busts are easiest to see when the SKC venues are open. No official hours are published. Other Lennon busts and statues across Europe are on the map.