Zdenko Kolacio was born in Rijeka in 1912. He majored in architecture at the University of Applied Sciences in Zagreb in 1935. He founded the Urban Planning Institute for Rijeka, Istria and the Slovenian Littoral in 1952. He headed the Urban Planning Institute of the City of Zagreb during the period of intensive construction and expansion of the city from 1956 to 1971. He conducted the development of numerous urban development plans and reconstructions (Nin, Rijeka, Split, Zadar…). He designed memorial monuments and memorial parks mainly with the World War II themes. His abstract spatial compositions in stone and concrete, which were the first departures from the previous figural representations of that theme, were formed architecturally, with simple geometric elements. He wrote many articles and studies on architecture and the book of essays “Visions and Realizations” (1978). He was the editor of the “Architecture” magazine. He exhibited in solo and group exhibitions at home and abroad. He was awarded many times for his work and won the Vladimir Nazor Lifetime Achievement Award in 1983. He died in Zagreb in 1987.

He participated in the Mediterranean Sculpture Symposium in 1979.