Dedeček Vladimír Interpretations of his Architecture Monika Mitášová (ed.) With Photographs by Hertha Hurnaus Authors Marian Zervan, Monika Mitášová, Benjamín Brádňanský and Vít Halada a b c Supreme Court and Ministry of Justice of the Slovak Republic in Bratislava Renovation of and addition to Slovak National Gallery in Bratislava School in housing estate on Račianska ulica in Bratislava Joint school – Secondary Vocational School of J. A. Gagarin in Bernolákovo and Primary Arts School, Bernolákovo Primary school with pre-school, Cádrová 23, Bratislava Business Academy on Račianska ulica in Bratislava Slovak University of Agriculture in Nitra Campus of Comenius University and Ľudovít Štúr residence halls Incheba Expo Bratislava Technical University in Zvolen National Forest Centre in Zvolen Institute for Public administration in Bratislava, Horné Krčace OSTRAVAR Aréna in Ostrava Eight-year school with 9 classrooms for primary education, economized design (prototype in Čiližská Radvaň, repeatable project by Stavoprojekt) Head office of Social Insurance Agency Maps Slovak National Archives in Bratislava Interpretations Slovak Medical University teaching facility, Modra-Harmónia Methodology i ii iii iv 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Vladimír Dedeček / Interpretations of his Architecture The Work of a Post War Slovak Architect Monika Mitášová (ed.) Vladimír Dedeček: Seeking ways to interpret his architectural work Introductory framing remarks Marian Zervan A / METHODOLOGY B /1 Keys to model interpretations Interpretations of his Architecture k int I Institute for Employees of Regional National Committees, function changed to Regional Political School in Modra-Harmónia, currently Slovak Medical University teaching facility, Modra-Harmónia 56 B / INTERPRETATIONS Vladimír Dedeček Monika Mitášová k int II State Central Archives of the Slovak Socialist Republic Bratislava-Machnáč, currently Slovak National Archives in Bratislava 64 k int III T  he Supreme Court and Ministry of Justice of the Slovak Socialist Republic, currently the Supreme Court and the Ministry of Justice of the Slovak Republic 74 k int IV R  enovation of and addition to Slovak National Gallery on Rázusovo nábrežie in Bratislava 88 19 MODEL INTERPRETATIONS i Slovak Medical University teaching facility, Modra-Harmónia t int I  Textual interpretation: Stepped cluster on pilasters, or horizontal and vertical cluster above/behind pilasters Marian Zervan / Monika Mitášová a int I Architectural interpretation 109 Benjamín Brádňanský _ co-authors Vít Halada / Monika Mitášová / Marian Zervan 114 _ in cooperation with Andrej Strieženec / Mária Novotná / Filip Hodulík p int I ii Photographic interpretation Slovak National Archives in Bratislava t int II a int II Textual interpretation: Clusters of a bonding of forms and flowing atrium Architectural interpretation _ in cooperation with Mária Novotná p int II Photographic interpretation 170 206 Hertha Hurnaus Supreme Court and Ministry of Justice of the Slovak Republic in Bratislava t int III a int III Textual interpretation: Clusters in the intermediary spaces between castle and palace Architectural interpretation _ in cooperation with Matúš Novanský / Monika Netryová p int III Photographic interpretation 227 Marian Zervan / Monika Mitášová Vít Halada _ co-authors Benjamín Brádňanský / Monika Mitášová / Marian Zervan iv 163 Marian Zervan / Monika Mitášová Benjamín Brádňanský / Vít Halada _ co-authors Monika Mitášová / Marian Zervan iii 146 Hertha Hurnaus 234 270 Hertha Hurnaus Renovation of and addition to Slovak National Gallery in Bratislava t int IV Textual interpretation: Clusters of agoras, amphitheatres/odeons and pavilions a int IV Architectural interpretation Benjamín Brádňanský / Vít Halada _ co-authors Monika Mitášová / Marian Zervan _ in cooperation with Andrej Strieženec / Mária Novotná / Anna Cséfalvayová / Danica Pišteková p int IV Photographic interpretation 291 Marian Zervan / Monika Mitášová Hertha Hurnaus 330 298 B /2 Keys to photographic segment of possible interpretations Monika Mitášová k seg 1 S  chool in housing estate on Ulica Februárového víťazstva (sector “Februárka A”), currently Račianska ulica in Bratislava 366 k seg 2 Secondary Agriculture Technical School, currently Joint School – Secondary Vocational School of Y. A. Gagarin in Bernolákovo and Primary Arts School, Bernolákovo 372 k seg 3 Nine- to twelve-year school, with pavilions of 8, 10, 12 or 24 classrooms (regional typification proposal [TP], Regional Project Institute Bratislava [Krajský projektový ústav Bratislava]) 376 k seg 4 Secondary Political Economy school / 33-classroom Economics school at Ulica Februárového víťazstva, currently Business Academy on Račianska ulica in Bratislava 382 k seg 5 Campus of the University of Agriculture in Nitra, currently Slovak University of Agriculture in Nitra 388 k seg 6 Campus of Comenius University, Natural Sciences Faculty pavilions in Mlynská dolina, currently Campus of Comenius University and Ľudovít Štúr residence halls 406 k seg 7 Multi-purpose exhibition facility in Bratislava-Petržalka, later Incheba, currently Incheba Expo Bratislava 424 k seg 8 University of Forestry and Wood Technology in Zvolen, currently Technical University in Zvolen 442 k seg 9 Extension to Forest Economy Institute in Zvolen, currently National Forest Centre in Zvolen 454 k seg 10 Institute of the Interior Ministry of the Slovak Socialist Republic for Local National Committees, currently Institute for Public administration in Bratislava, Horné Krčace 462 k seg 11 Construction replacing buildings demolished on Místecká ulica / Multi-purpose sports hall for Vítkovice steelworks and Klement Gottwald machine plant at Ostrava-Vítkovice, later Vítkovice Palace (Hall) of Culture and Sports, later ČEZ Aréna Ostrava-Zábřeh, currently OSTRAVAR Aréna in Ostrava 468 Keys to possible interpretations with no photographic segment Monika Mitášová k nonseg 12 E  ight-year school with 9 classrooms for primary education, economized design (prototype in Čiližská Radvaň, repeatable project by Stavoprojekt) 484 k nonseg 13 Shared administrative building of the Directorate of Poultry Production and Construction/Project Centre of Bridge-Production Plant Brezno, currently head office of Social Insurance Agency 490 Biographical map C / MAPS Monika Mitášová m cv  Vladimír Dedeček in contradictions of micro- and macro-histories (or inner and outer histories) Map of architectural works Monika Mitášová / Viera Dlháňová m works List of selected works by Vladimír Dedeček m biblio Bibliography POSSIBLE INTERPRETATIOS Photographic segment of possible interpretations Hertha Hurnaus p seg 1 School in housing estate on Račianska ulica in Bratislava 500 p seg 2 J oint school – Secondary Vocational School of Y. A. Gagarin in Bernolákovo and Primary Arts School, Bernolákovo 510 p seg 3 Primary school with pre-school, Cádrová 23, Bratislava 518 p seg 4 Business Academy on Račianska ulica in Bratislava 524 p seg 5 Slovak University of Agriculture in Nitra 542 p seg 6 Campus of Comenius University and Ľudovít Štúr residence halls p seg 7 Incheba Expo Bratislava p seg 8 Technical University in Zvolen 590 604 p seg 9 National Forest Centre in Zvolen 622 p seg 10 Institute for Public administration in Bratislava, Horné Krčace p seg 11 OSTRAVAR Aréna in Ostrava 663 819 833 558 644 630 They do not comprehend how a thing agrees at variance with itself; it is an attunement turning back on itself, like that of the bow and the lyre. Heraclit The essential point is: the greatest perhaps also possess great virtues, but inthat case also their opposites. I believe that it is precisely through the presence of opposites and the feelings they occasion that the great man, the bow with the great tension, develops. Nietzsche Detail. Whole sketch / → p. 33/. Detail. Whole sketch / → p. 33/. c division c delimitation c dislocation contact d coordination d concentration d a Methodology a Methodology Vladimír Dedeček: Seeking ways to interpret his architectural work Introductory framing remarks Marian Zervan 18 | 19 a Methodology Inner and outer frames of a work → m works The architectural work of Vladimír Dedeček represents a challenge for those who interpret and for interpretation theorists. The architect is still alive, but his body of work has been finished. Of course it may grow by newly found projects – such as a church, another school or family house – or by new confirmation or negation of his co-authorship of some building. Yet the work is finished in the sense that Dedeček stopped designing in 1997, afterwards only sporadically working on adjustments to his buildings and on lecturing. Yet he retains an excellent memory and storytelling talent, and a sense for story fabulation as such; and so it behooves anyone who might even for a moment succumb to intentionalist interpretation to corroborate the architect's explanations with his or her own conclusions, based on experience with Dedeček's work. 1 Coping even with Dedeček's finished work is no trivial undertaking. It is true that the Slovak National Gallery in Bratislava now administers most of his archives, featuring an abundance of various documentation from project plans to correspondence. However, the body of work exists in several different forms, including sketchbooks (1957-1960), fragments of different phases of project documentation of his buildings (1958–1993), research studies and dissertation text (1958–1975), and finally one explanatory diagram of the architect's thinking (1973–1985). To these unpublished texts must be added his published “Architect's Statement” (Slovo autora) and studies (1956–1991), and then all the realizations currently undergoing repairs, refurbishment and renovation. 1 See “List of selected works by Vladimír Dedeček” / → pp. 819–831 /. Project drawings would help distinguish original from secondary layers, but there is an almost complete lack of original drawings from individual phases. Only the ozalid copies on paper have been preserved (except for a few exceptions, as in sketchbooks). Some physical models have been recorded in photographs, though they themselves were not preserved. That is another reason we cannot reliably or equally carve out the lines of Dedeček's architectural work in all its creative phases. It seems just as important to determine whether and in what sense Dedeček's written and drawn, designed and planned explorations are connected to one another: to what extent they anticipate his later solutions, or reflect on what was already created by him – and so whether and to what extent they should be included in the corpus of his work. There are framing approaches that, 20 | 21 ii a in differentiating lines, set Dedeček's work off from the architectural production of project institutes (projektové ústavy) or architects' programs in Slovakia in the second half of the 20th century, and that represent the first step of any analysis and interpretation; yet it is also necessary to consider approaches to framing Dedeček's oeuvre that address the workliness (das Werkhaften or Werkhaftigkeit) of his work. One of the most important of these is the different form of incomplete completion, in the sense of whether or not his oeuvre was open to continuation. Consider that one of architecture's central themes in the second half of the 20th century was flexibility and variability of space. Dedeček himself more than once explicitly recalled them as well as the growth principle (rastový princíp) for designing schools, even as he tirelessly challenged the urban and functional mono-block; and so it becomes quite necessary to ask whether Vladimír Dedeček inclined more to closed, i.e. completed works, or to open models of works that could continue to grow. He differs from his generation in that he is a designer of architectural and urban complexes. Even in cases – as in the National Archives in Bratislava – where it can seem he designed a building with a single prevailing function, he indicated multiple possible solutions for the atrium block, for its transition into four separate spatial units, and thus indeed to a complex of structures above and below ground level. This constant oscillation between the scales of urban planning and of architecture, with the potential for further growth and the serial quality (even though he never designed a literally pre-programmed change of structure), combine to indicate that he is closer to a concept of an urban and architectural open work. In this he differs from others of his generation, such as Ivan Matušík or Dušan Kuzma, who even when resolving tasks for a building complex preferred an architecturally monumental, closed and completed work. In that case, something different comes to the forefront: there is a potential openness to future growth in such work, and growth that has an evident seriality (as a virtual opposite of simple multiplication), as in the use of effective solutions in many variations with repetition. So the questions arise, before any theory of interpretation, of how to uncover (if it is at all possible) characteristic patterns of solutions and their lines of variation, or the methods and processes of deriving them from some basic geometric formations or from historical architectural forms – and whether compositional analysis can be a successful instrument for interpreting this body of work. Another categorically important question concerns the relationship of Dedeček's architecture to written programs, to the period's imagination and symbols – i.e. what is traditionally called iconography or the representing, or referential, function of architecture. In his case, this semantic ontological layer of the work – taken with material, construction and form layers – is usually considered reduced, or even absent. Dedeček himself gives this some credence with one of his own definitions, in which he equates architecture with construction and geometry. Here we would just recall that this is but one of his many definitions, and we will return to this spectrum later. What is important is that Dedeček himself sometimes emphasized meanings of individual components of form; more particularly, his body of work was markedly linked into the period’s debates. This means that, even as his serial form is open to being completed, so too is it open to architectural discourse. Therefore it is unthinkable to interpret his work purely in formal terms; rather it is an ongoing process of architectural thinking. Inner and outer frames of interpretation A problem exists for those who interpret and for interpretation theorists regarding whether and to what extent to consider the acceptance of and response to Dedeček's work, by both architectural critics and the general public, including the mass media. It is in this latter milieu that the dispute over Dedeček's body of work has been playing out. There are many contradictions in how Dedeček is received; on the one hand this is a relevant fact, but on the other to a great extent it points to a dependence on social and political action, and possible manipulation of public opinion – far more likely with architecture than other arts. One can say that Vladimír Dedeček's work is constantly debated, while at the same time constantly defying interpretation. Being debated in his case means more than being debatable, though this is a frequent conclusion of such discussion. Being debated means above all that people have long been coming to terms with it – which attests more to its ontological quality than the opposite in terms of value. In Slovakia (and the former Czechoslovakia), people have been arguing practically since the early 1950s until now, which insinuates that this coming to terms is something inescapably and internally differentiated, by period and by generation and even by territory. And the fact that this dialogue has long continued implies a semantic richness and certainly not meaninglessness, even though meaninglessness was often attributed to Dedeček's work at the time, with contradictory implications for interpretation: the emphasis on forms that were meaningless and repeated was intended to argue a resistance to being interpreted, indicating that only formal analysis was possible; and because the possibility of filling in the emptiness with current ideological rhetoric is overdone, the reception and extra-architectural interpretation is also overdone, or their merging is fostered. 22 | 23 → t / a / p int I–IV What is known as artistic interpretation presents quite a separate problem. Using architectural forms, the architect interprets landscape and people's movement as well as their activities and ways of life, but beyond that architectural forms continue in usage and interpretation through being inserted into buildings of other architects. Moreover, architects often for themselves set out a kind of proto-formal analysis of their own and others' works, to learn something of how they were created, and of how they functioned in the form of explanatory drawings and diagrams. As his sketchbooks and the aforementioned individual explanatory diagram show, Vladimír Dedeček was one who worked in this way. These are among the fundamental prerequisites of becoming an architect and of architectural thinking. Indeed, architectural works are interpreted not just in/by architecture itself, but in other art forms: through poetry, prose, painting and sculpture, and most often through photography. Among these, photography has a truly unique position: in the days before computer visualizations and computer-generated projects, and the movie camera, it was the photograph that first enabled verification of partial design results in physical models. A photograph is also often the first reception of a landscape and building site before it is inhabited. It simultaneously documents the many lives of a building in terms of how it is received, and thus also the architect's own interpretation from the whole work down to its details; it is an autonomous proto-formal analysis, not in diagrams, but rather in artistically-created technical images. In this book we are looking for possible interpretations in connecting the textual interpretation of Vladimír Dedeček's work with two forms of artistic interpretation: architectural and photographic. Along with the main authors of the text, architectural interpretation comes from the architects Vít Halada and Benjamín Brádňanský, and students of Bratislava's Academy of Fine Arts and Design, Department of Architecture. The Austrian photographer Hertha Hurnaus made a photographic interpretation; she had already chosen to include this architect's buildings in her photographic book Eastmodern. 2 2 a See HURNAUS, Hertha – KONRAD, Benjamin – NOVOTNY, Maik. Eastmodern. Vienna; New York : Springer Verlag, 2007, 238 pages. Even as the textual interpretation intervened in the architectural and photographic interpretations (in hinting at the anticipated textual aim in the case of architectural interpretation, and in shared selection of buildings and perspectives for the photographic), so the architectural and photographic interpretations intervened back in the textual interpretation: supporting it, correcting it, and bringing in their own themes. iv i ii → p seg 1–11 iii We decided to test this quest for possible interpretation of Vladimír Dedeček's architectural work in four projects: the Renovation of and addition to Slovak National Gallery in Bratislava (1962–1980), the building of the former Regional Political School in Modra-Harmónia, (1972–1978), and the Bratislava buildings Slovak National Archives (1971–1983) and the former Supreme Court and the Ministry of Justice of the Slovak Socialist Republic (1977–1989). This selection can provoke many questions, and could seem random. Here we must note that many more buildings had a photographic than an interpretational record to draw on, while textual analysis had no choice but to consider the entire available corpus of Dedeček's body of work. In the architectural interpretation we gave focused attention to four of this corpus' most hitherto controversially-received archi-facts; the assumption was that interpreting these specific works would shake off the aforementioned suspicion of meaninglessness and resistance to interpretation, while confronting ideological over-interpretation. At the same time we expected these four pieces to test most effectively our interpretive strategy, and to bring up stimuli for the theory of interpretation. Vladimír Dedeček's architectural thinking as subject and guide for interpretation What then is Dedeček's architectural thinking? In answering, we must realize an architect's thinking considers a variety of issues; however as he reconsiders an architectural problem or task, his visual representation (Vorstellung) of architecture is an integrating force, along with the ability of his thinking to engage in current architectural discussion, even when architectural thinking does not converge. Further, architectural thinking does not end in formulating visual representation of architecture; and it cannot be said that its predominant medium, or driving element and force (živel), is the word or term. The architect thinks predominantly in various kinds of images: in schemes, diagrams and geometric figures, and in very specific images of space, shaped figures and material details, engagement with a landscape, and so forth. While verbal expressions are a part of architectural thinking, this does not mean they are the only way of discovering how an architect thinks about an architectural problem. This makes it useful to consider, in addition to the written record, both the fact that architectural thinking occurs in multiple lines and that it has multiple phases: it is present in one way in the sketchbook, in another in the first preliminary draft solution, 24 | 25 1/ Lighting. 2/ Colour. 3/ Acoustics. 4/ Ventilation and heating. 5/ Furnishings and equipment. 6/ Inner (interior) organization. 7/ Connection to nature. 8/ Hygiene. 001 002 Emil Belluš, typification scheme for national and secondary schools | typification scheme for national schools, Teória architektonickej tvorby II. Stavby sociálne, kultúrne, zdravotnícke, telovychovné a športové (course text), 1951, drawn by his assistant Ing. (J.) Cénik 003 Scheme of school types Vladimír Dedeček, basic with double classrooms in agents/factors of architecture. the former East Germany In: Vývoj priestorovej koncepcie in the 1960s and 1970s, základnej školy (postgraduate from Typenschulbauten in dissertation), 1974. den neuen Ländern, 1999. a 007 004 Vladimír Dedeček, design of 24-classroom school consisting of teaching pavilion around atrium and vertical gym pavilion, as well as horizontal pavilion for workshops and after-school activities, undated; black-pencil drawing and colour-pencil staffage on tracing paper. Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG in Bratislava. 005 008 Vladimír Dedeček, design of checkerboard Vladimír Dedeček, sketch of Belluš' Theoretical Institutes Pavilion – symmetrical composition of volumes growable cluster school – four-leaf with staircase of a three-wing building with baseboard and “umbrella” and short corridor in the middle, undated; (symmetrical balance); pen on ruled paper, 2014. black-pencil drawing with colour-pencil staffage Courtesy of architect. on tracing paper. Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG in Bratislava. 006 Vladimír Dedeček, sketch of the front pavilions meander of Comenius University in Mlynská dolina, Bratislava and pavilions of the University of Agriculture in Nitra (asymmetrical balance) – cardo and decumanus axes and the Belluš “jewel” (aula maxima) where they cross; pen on ruled paper, 2014. Courtesy of architect. 26 | 27 → m cv and in other ways in designs, models, and finally in the realized building. This alone makes it more effective to interpret architectural thinking as of a specific problem than considering just the built realization of work itself. So the reconstruction of Vladimír Dedeček's architectural thinking requires more than finding out what he wrote about architecture and his day's architectural problems. It requires careful observation of his work processes and forms of embodying specific solutions in projects and realizations. In Dedeček's case the situation is relatively favourable. We have available a number of his more extensive writings, including his dissertation and several formulations on the theme of architecture and on his work processes. Vladimir Dedeček was not an obsessive writer, and his formulations are mostly sober and factual. Yet from what he wrote he clearly had a need to come to complex terms with his architectural tasks, and an ambition to generalize. And this presents us with a noteworthy characteristic of his architectural thinking, which might be framed in a dilemma: there are multiple written formulations of what he understands as architecture, as opposed to a relatively clear-cut mode of work and processes and a characteristically consistent body of work, described in retrospect but never thoroughly formulated. We believe that the very first understanding of this dilemma will yield a useful insight into his architectural thinking. The first obvious explanation of this dilemma that appears is the historic framework and context in which his architectural thinking occurred. 3 Vladimír Dedeček became part of Slovakia's architectural milieu and events in the second half of the 1950s. This had significant impact on his architectural 3 See this publication's chapter “Vladimír Dedeček in contradictions of ... inner and outer histories” / → pp. 684–685 / and the publication MITÁŠOVÁ, Monika. Vladimír Dedeček. Stávanie sa architektom. Bratislava : SNG, 2017. thinking. It predetermined the kinds of questions he asked himself, how he came to terms with his teachers, the historical and contemporary architecture to which he reacted, and the tasks he was set. Of the various directions his teacher, the architect Emil Belluš, was pursuing, Dedeček chose to focus mainly on his classicized functionalism, in the spirit of critically rethinking it. To some extent, this affected his selective relationship to ancient Greek or Roman and Renaissance forms, something that stayed with him throughout his creative period; however other motivations also come to mind, such as his education and his view of the world. Dedeček avoided the Socialist Realism to which his teacher acquiesced for one brief episode, reacting instead to contemporary activities in the Modern 4 a 4 BELLUŠ, Emil. Teória architektonickej tvorby II. Stavby sociálne, kultúrne, zdravotnícke, telovýchovné a športové (course text). Bratislava : Štátne nakladateľstvo v Bratislave, 1951. 001—002 003 004 movement that was at the end of 1950s and at the beginning of the 1960s re-considering in debates Lecorbusian visions and Brutalist and structuralist ideas of architecture. Still, Dedeček's responses to the directions and discussions of the period were always modified by the questions he asked himself and the types of architectural tasks he confronted – questions then rhetorically posed as possibilities of architectural work in an era dominated by representation and a typification and standardization associated with prefabrication of architecture. The answers he found to such questions foreshadowed the tasks he received as an architect: on the one hand these were on both typifyied/standardized and experimental single school buildings, and on the other atypical university campuses and buildings, cultural building complexes, and architectural work of great meaning to society at large that significantly departed from typification. 5 5 DEDEČEK, Vladimír – MIŇOVSKÝ, Rudolf. Typizácia (research study). [Stavoprojekt – ZSA : Bratislava]. Typewritten, November 1958. 47 pages. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. See Chapter 4 (Kritické poznámky), and particularly Chapter 5 (Objekty budúcej typizácie). Many of these tasks were urgent and immediate, and Dedeček more than once asserted that it was his post-war generation that built a twice-devastated Slovakia. His whole generation was indeed struggling urgently to rebuild 6 Interviews with Vladimír Dedeček, in Bratislava, 2014–2015. See video document to the travelling exhibition Vladimír Dedeček: PRÁCA, Bratislava, Design Week, 2015. → m biblio / → k seg 11 6 7 Slovakia, and this is one reason Dedeček's responses and solutions coincided on many points with those of his peers, many of whom were also Emil Belluš' students; even so, his solutions were to a great degree unrepeatable in their characteristic repeatability. This resulted in Dedeček's being over-identified with the generation, and in his becoming just another late modernist. At other times this categorization was belittled, and Dedeček became unclassifiable, or even unacceptable. Even this brief framing indicates possible sources of the divergence in the written record of his architectural thinking, and what might have led to a certain working codification of his design processes; here of course it is important neither to underrate nor to overrate the socio-historical background. Vladimír Dedeček himself has recognized socio-historical influences on his architectural thinking, but has at the same time always endeavoured to liberate 7 See the texts “Východiská a činitele architektonickej tvorby troch desaťročí” (1984) and “Palác kultúry a športu Vítkovice. Architektonický koncept a projekt” (after 1989), “Bibliography” / → p. 834 / and “Key” / → p. 468 /. himself from the one-sided pressures of typification and prefabrication, and in such relative autonomization saw an opportunity for independent architectural thinking. In interpreting his work, it will be important to approach it as evolving architectural thinking in action within more complicated and complex associations than those expressed in social and historical determinism. 28 | 29 So let us try to understand the complexity of Dedeček's architectural thinking and describe its guiding forces, media, layers and the phases and forms its embodiment took. When he was starting to design architectural work, the coordinating role of the architect, institutionalized in independent private studios and architectural offices had disappeared, and what substituted it was shared work in state-owned project planning institutes, and the term architecture fell out of use. Vladimír Dedeček, like his generational peers, tried to resist this forced equalization and degradation, but he did so in a characteristically contradictory way. On the one hand he seemed to submit to the illusion of hyperbolic collectivism that turned architectural design work into labour: even now he remains convinced that his was collaborative work of many professions, and thought of the built work as the work of the people; on the other hand he acknowledged and cultivated the original meanings of the term architecture, and in a polemic with both simplified typification and a predominating interest in form within Socialist Realism, he formulated at least four working versions of defining architecture. We might call the first of these conceptual, in the spirit of his own, and still relevant, distinction between a concept and a project within Slovakia's architecture, although this distinction was more intuited than elucidated. He tried, in contrast to his older colleague Dr. Martin Kusý, to give meaning to the term concept, and returned to the original, ancient etymology of the words architect and architecture 8 See KUSÝ, Martin. Architektúra na Slovensku 1945–1975. Bratislava : Pallas, 1976, 286 pages, particularly the chapter Teória konceptu, pp. 17–25. → m biblio 005 8 9 in the sense of a person able to lead the work of others based on an idea and visual representation of a particular whole. For Dedeček, an architect is one who gives sense and meaning to the integrating force that joins up efforts to build with craftsmanlike skill, and architecture is the coordinating act only thanks to this idea and in relation to it. Back in the 1980s Dedeček resumed this version, in the sense of advocating for the integration of architectural and technical work: that the work of building as the result of social and societal work could become architecture only when an architectural idea heads this chain of society's actions. As we endeavour to understand this circular argument, there open up several possibilities, to which 9 See first paragraph of "Východiská a činitele architektonickej tvorby troch desaťročí" (1984), “Bibliography” / → p. 834 /. Dedeček gave themes. The first is his formulation that architecture is construction and geometry. Were we to take this sentence as a different version of the thesis of integrating architectural and technical work, a simple syllogism would lead → k seg 4 10 10 a See “Key” for Stredná hospodárska škola / currently Obchodná akadémia na Račianskej ulici v Bratislave / → p. 382 /. us to conclude that architecture is geometry, or that the architectural idea is a geometrical idea. There is a tradition to this way of thinking, associated with → k seg 11 11 the visual representations of God as architect or geometer, with depictions of God with a compass, creating the world. We find a differing formulation elsewhere in Dedeček's writings, where he starts with the statement that buildings embody, besides their material substance, tendencies of thinking in a given era. Here, architecture or an architectural idea is described not as the universal language 11 See cited text Základná filozofia Paláca kultúry a športu, in “Palác kultúry a športu Vítkovice. Architektonický koncept a projekt” (after 1989), in “Key” / → p. 468 /. of geometry, but rather as collective thinking that is concretized in its image and configured in its space. This makes the architect the one able to convey this in his or her works. So we have two variants of a single thesis on the preeminence of architectural idea, and two different architectural traditions brought into play: one of them Medieval, alive even today and even in Slovakia, but resonating as well, for instance, in the thinking of Philippe Boudon, with the licence that an abstract geometric idea only becomes architectural in application or introduction of appropriate scale or measure. The second tradition is modernist, Lecorbusian 12 12 ZERVAN, Marian. Epistemológia architektonického priestoru Philippa Boudona. Architektúra a urbanizmus, 30, 1996, 3, pp. 155–165. or Miesian, and operates with the spirit or will of the age (Zeitgeist). 13 13 “The Building art is always the spatially apprehended will of the epoch, nothing else.” In: MIES van der ROHE, Ludwig. Building Art and the Will of the Epoch!, Der Querschnitt, 4, no. 1, (1924), pp 31–32. Where the thesis' first variant puts forward a language timeless or transtemporal, the second advances a concrete historic version of representation in new morphological and spatial designs, where the starting point could be basic geometric shapes, but ends up changing into non-trivial, composite geometric formations. Vladimír Dedeček showed no express preference for either of these variants on the thesis of architectural idea preeminence. Having gotten to know his oeuvre, one could put forward a hypothesis (albeit one that can be supported or refuted only through interpreting the work) that he utilizes both variants, and these delimit their mutual relationship in each specific project. The first variant of his first working version doubtlessly relies on his interest in descriptive geometry, while the second fits his interest in the period's social problems. The second working version we can find in his writing is the delineation of architecture as an “artistic appearance”. Architecture is a spatial form, with both utilitarian goals and aesthetic agency. Vladimír Dedeček writes often of architecture's visual appearance, noting light, influence of colour and facade configurations, but above all when he speaks of arranging and configuring matter and volume, as well as when he employs one of his more frequent terms: “composition”. He understands composition as a decisive medium for placing and configuring buildings in a natural or urban setting according to axes: 30 | 31 01 1 Vladimír Dedeček, endless chain of rooms with various building modules before being cut into sections, undated; pen and colour-markers on tracing paper. Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG in Bratislava. 01 2 Vladimír Dedeček, diagram of design system (using example of university campus): I. Hungarian salami – endless chain of rooms with small module of 720 (750) cm (for administrative and instructor offices, laboratories…) and chain with large module (for lecture and meeting rooms); II. “Domino” – salami sliced into divisions (institutes, and departments); III. terrain (such as in Modra) with “Domino” composition; 2014, pen on ruled paper. Courtesy of architect. a 009 Vladimír Dedeček, diagram CCC – DDD, black-pencil drawing on paper, undated, front side. Collection of Architecture, CCC Basic schools contact coordination concentration DDD division delimitation dislocation word-picture light Applied Arts and Design SNG in Bratislava. compactness variability multifunctionality invariability ( barrack architecture ) Universities 010 Vladimír Dedeček, diagram CCC – DDD, black-pencil drawing on paper, undated, reverse side. Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG in Bratislava. Zvolen Mlynská dolina (Bratislava) specialization Light SNG Petržalka VVZ (Incheba) universality, polyfunctionality 32 | 33 of entry (circulation), of operations (functions), of view, of future growth and so on. However in Dedeček's thinking the circulation and operations axis is simultaneously also the cardo-decumanus crossing of the ancient Roman castrum. Here again, two grand traditions came into play in his basic compositional layouts. The first is Ancient Roman, and the second from the milieu of French polytechnics (see for instance Durand's “l'axe d'entrée” or “les deux axes principaux”), which made its way into Slovakia's architectural and urban composition textbooks. Yetin the rhetoric of the period and lingering up to the present, composition has been a compound of matter/volume and space; and though Dedeček himself rarely employed these terms (usually in the reduced form of “composition of matter”), as he worked with matter and volumes he would return to proven configurations or historically-verified volumetric and spatial or morphological types, including the amphitheatre, the forum, or the manor house cleansed of historic or pseudo-historic morphology, or he would draw on such types of wooden folk architecture and crafts in Slovakia: the wooden house (drevenica), the log cabin (zrub), the woven basket (prútený košík)... Yet overall this working version, like the beaux arts model, is inherited from the Enlightenment (beaux arts architecture), as continued in German architectural nomenclature (Baukunst). Although Dedeček is a disciple of the Enlightenment tradition, there is nothing in his writing that would formulate an idea of architecture as art, as we might find in the 1950s in connection with the Socialist Realism of his teacher Emil Belluš. 14 14 BELLUŠ, Emil. Teória architektonickej tvorby II. Stavby sociálne, kultúrne, zdravotnícke, telovýchovné a športové (course text). Bratislava : Štátne nakladateľstvo v Bratislave, 195, p. 19. Dedeček's nature was much nearer to the Czech architect Karel Honzík's and aesthetician Jan Mukařovský's conviction that the aesthetic function is merely auxiliary in architecture, and must never dominate. For this reason, the aesthetic 15 MUKAŘOVSKÝ, Jan. K problému funkcí v architektuře. In: Studie z estetiky. Prague : Odeon, 1971, p. 280. → m biblio 15 16 agency does not penetrate through all of his work's layers or phases, instead settling in its visual layers, where it converges with visual arts, literature or music. The architectural arrangement becomes aesthetically effectual when we find in it an alternation of uniform and contrasting themes or motifs. Dedeček's asymmetric 16 See text “Východiská a činitele architektonickej tvorby troch desaťročí” (1984), “Bibliography” / → p. 834 /. balance is a reformulation of this persuasion, which stood in contrast to the 17 a See the book MITÁŠOVÁ, Monika. Vladimír Dedeček. Stávanie sa architektom /→ cited in Note 3  /. 005—006 17 symmetric balance of classicizing tendencies, including that of Belluš. In this way, Dedeček is carrying on modernist asymmetry. However, asymmetric balance can take on yet another meaning, in the sense of balancing forces, though in this case the composition also becomes less traditional. To this thought we will return later. → m biblio 18 18 See text “Východiská a činitele architektonickej tvorby troch desaťročí” (1984), “Bibliography” / → p. 834 /. → m biblio i 19 His third working version of architecture might be called a speech or parole version (as per de Saussure). This is an analogy to one level of the linguistic model that is typically called syntagmatic. Vladimír Dedeček never explicitly formulated a paradigmatic model, though there is an observable hint of it in his works. There is mention of the syntagmatic analogy in the aforementioned text, where he writes of the preeminence of an architectural idea. In this case the syllable becomes a construction module of his buildings as an integrating part of a planar organization (plan layout or disposition) and a volumetric organization of particular sector (called also section) in the building, and the word is equal to this particular sector as a spatially and volumetrically expressed prevailing function or building program (such as sectors of a school: educational, accommodations, administrative, sports-recreational, canteen and circulation are the basic functional sectors of the former Regional Political School in Modra-Harmónia). Finally the compositional units (arrangement of sectors, buildings, building complexes...) are the sentences. A proto-form of the syntagmatic analogy appears in a passage from Dedeček's research study in the 1958 Typification (Typizácia), which he wrote together with his colleague architect Rudolf Miňovský. This text uses a different 19 See “Bibliography” / → p. 834 /. vocabulary, but the sense remains quite similar: a syllable is in a certain sense close to a type cell (a room), a word is represented by a building unit (later a sector), and finally a type object (a building) or its section is a sentence. It is even possible to see a row of sections or section series (authors' emphasis) of type objects as a compound sentence. This linguistic analogy indicates an association with the structuralist architecture of the Dutch architect and writer Aldo van Eyck. Though we might try to find the source of Dedeček's architectural thinking in van Eyck's Orphanage in Amsterdam (built 1959–1960), it is vital to realize that van Eyck arranged his complex using a paradigmatic analogy based on binary oppositions (such as open/closed). In contrast, Dedeček worked in a syntagmatic analogy, whose grammar can only be reconstructed in retrospect from his realized buildings and writings. Yet a syntagmatic analogy has the advantage of being drawn without grammar, for instance as a syntagmatic continuum of sectors that can be then cut in retrospect into sectors-sentences and ultimately assembled into propositions or units of discourse. Here we reach the boundary where a working version of architecture becomes a working method, which the aforementioned working versions do not make so directly possible. In conclusion, we must note that the speech or parole version of architecture does not automatically imply for Dedeček 34 | 35 0 13 TAC, Colliers' school with flexible cluster plan which can grow from a four-classroom unit reproduced in Dedeček's text Vývoj priestorovej koncepcie základnej školy (postgraduate dissertation), 1974. 014 Peter Denham Smithson, diagram of office cluster from 1957, published in Team 10 Primer (1968), edited by Alison Smithson. 0 15 Concept for cluster town by Alice and Peter Smithson from the article Cluster City, published in Architectural 01 6 Review in November 1957. Cover of Architectural Forum published in October 1953. a 01 7 Development 0 18 Examples of American of American school school plans I., II. / → Fig. 013 / plans according to reproduced in Dedeček's the exhibition of text Vývoj priestorovej American schools koncepcie základnej školy in Moscow in 1970. (postgraduate dissertation), Vladimír Dedeček, 1974. Vývoj priestorovej koncepcie základnej školy (postgraduate dissertation), 1974. 01 9 Vladimír Dedeček, sketch reconstruction of his checkerboard growable cluster school composition / → Fig. 008 / , 2014, pen on ruled paper. Courtesy of architect. 36 | 37 → m biblio a 20 With Rudolf Miňovský, see “Bibliography” / → p. 834 /. 007 — 008 20 that the architectural work is a proposition referring to the world; rather it is an expression of its own arrangement and composition, or the reconciliation of varying rules or grammars. In this, van Eyck's paradigmatic and Dedeček's syntagmatic analogies remarkably coincide. The fourth and last working version of architecture with which Vladimír Dedeček identifies is the factorial or agency version. It originates with Vitruvius and in the former Czechoslovakia Karel Honzík developed it into a multi-factorial (multiple-agent) matrix informing architectural work. Dedeček works with this version up to a certain point. For example in his 1960 study titled “The Issue of School Buildings in Relation to Developments in Teaching and to New Construction Systems, Compared to Similar Work Abroad [Problém školských stavieb vo vzťahu k vývoju výučby a nových konštruktívnych systémov s porovnaním obdobnej výstavby v zahraničí]” such a multi-agent matrix is included under the title “Premises and Components of a Hygienic School”. Dedeček names its eight factors or agents: the first is lighting, the second colour, the third acoustics, the fourth ventilation and heating, the fifth is furnishings and equipment, the sixth is inner (interior) organization, the seventh is connection to nature, and the eighth is hygiene. At first glance the factors/agents seem heterogeneously, with all efforts to assemble them into sub-groups – as Karel Honzík attempted – floundering (light and colour could be factors or agents of composition, but it is indoor organization that mostly represents composition; and hygiene could be a common denominator as indicated in the title, but could not then be one of the agents, and the remaining agents might be categorized into the sub-groups psychohygiene, physiohygiene and architectural hygiene). This suggests the agency version be read in a different way – as complementary to the speech or parole working version of architecture, understanding it as an effort to formulate a grammar: with organization standing for a vocabulary of possible sectors and the resuming of their historical utilizations, all other agents are conditions influencing the layout and arrangement of the individual sectors from a syntagmatic continuum. The hierarchy of rules corresponds to Dedeček's priorities, and lighting is the key agent for creating architectural sentences and compound sentences. Yet this is not as simple as it seems. Aside from these agents, the rules of architectural composition participate in the creation of a sentence, and these rules gradually also became a grammar for Dedeček's architectural thinking. So eight rules do not constitute the entire grammar; this comes from competing between natural, cultural and intra-architectural factors or agents. → m biblio 21 21 See text “Východiská a činitele architektonickej tvorby troch desaťročí” (1984), “Bibliography” / → p. 834 /. → k seg 11 11 22 Is it indeed possible to merge such diverging working versions of architecture into a single applicable whole, and interlink them with processes or a method of design? A filter (raster of thinking), which Dedeček calls a “philosophy”, might be employed to facilitate this. He uses the word in two senses. The first is defined in the aforementioned text, characteristically titled “Východiská a činitele architektonickej tvorby troch desaťročí [Points of Departure and Agents in the Architecture of Three Decades]” (here he intends the 1960s, 70s and 80s). He calls two design processes, to which he refers in this text as 3D and 3C, creative working methods as well as “‘philosophies’” in inverted commas. He most likely calls them methods because he intends not the individual creative process, but rather generally shareable procedures as indicated by three antithetical parameters: 3D stands for a deconcentration of volumes, a dislocation of programs into sectors, and distribution of social functions. 3C is in contrast stands for a concentration of volumes, coordination of plan layout sectors in a concentric whole, and even a confrontation of scales. Notwithstanding, neither method prescribes how these parameters are to be achieved: for instance volumes can be deconcentrated, i.e. divided or shifted out of their common centre by various processes, based on a variety of rules and using diverse rasters and diagrams. Dedeček would seem to have called these “‘philosophies’” in inverted commas because they are conditioned on socio-cultural bases, with each corresponding to a different socio-cultural climate: the 3D method or “‘philosophy’” related to the 1950s and 60s, and was associated with unification and universal application of typification. Conversely, the 3C method or “'philosophy'” related to the 1960s–80s period. We might grasp them as architectural world-views. But in any case, they are a facilitator between points of departure, i.e. the architect's versions of architecture, and agents, i.e. the objective and intersubjective factors that influenced the arrangement of architectural works in a given setting. The other meaning of Dedeček's use of the word “philosophy” can be read in a manuscript of the aforementioned text for the publication of the Multi-purpose Palace of Culture and Sports in Ostrava, published in an abridged version in 1991. The manuscript's first part is called “The Basic Philosophy of the Palace of Culture and Sports [Základná filozofia Paláca kultúry a športu]”. This 22 The entire text is titled “Palác kultúry a športu Vítkovice. Architektonický koncept a projekt” (after 1989). See “Key” / → p. 468 /. interpretation's diction and logic imply that it meant to explain the socio-cultural background of the architect's solution for this multi-purpose hall and observations of how this manifested itself in this specific architectural work. 38 | 39 On the one hand the meaning of the word philosophy approaches the expanded but hitherto undefined term of the architect's concept, and on the other it becomes even clearer in this context that basic philosophy mediates the relationships between concept and project. Yet in both of these basic meanings the word philosophy loses its original etymology, and in the form of architectural world-view or intersubjectivized concept takes the function of unifying the working versions of architecture into certain generally acceptable design processes. A unique feature of such philosophy is its “Janusian” nature: one of its faces is turned toward universal points of departure, and the other all but takes on the character of the steps of designing – if not of architectural methods directly, then certainly of solutions that were or could be taken, in a given time and culture, as “exemplary” forms of architecture. In the Vladimír Dedeček archives of the Slovak National Gallery's Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design, there is a diagram on both obverse and reverse sides of an A6-format paper, with Dedeček’s drawing and a verbal commentary related to the text “Points of Departure and Agents in the Architecture of Three Decades [Východiská a činitele architektonickej tvorby troch desaťročí]”. It may have predated the text, or been made in parallel (the building it depicts suggests a date between 1975 and 1985). In it, Dedeček uses the examples of his own schools and cultural buildings to demonstrate how he applied the 3D and 3C philosophy. In the diagram he uses the markings of both these philosophies or methods, which he places in parallel in columns titled CCC and DDD / → /. The two lines' parameter nomenclature differs from the texts', which supports the hypothesis that the diagram predated the text, but it might also have been a later version, modification or correction. The three Ds in the diagram are for division, delimitation and dislocation; the three Cs are for contact, coordination and concentration. This partial change in his vocabulary indicates that the 3D and 3C philosophies had no codified parameters or processes. Yet there are four most noteworthy aspects to the diagram. First is the fact that the philosophies are formulated in architectural images with words accompanying them, which shows the facilitating role of the philosophy. Pictorial schemes indicate the positive and negative spatial solutions for the CCC and DDD philosophies (variability and polyfunctionality vis-à-vis rigidity and that which Dedeček called “military barracks architecture”). Second is the explicit expression of agents: word or acoustics, image or visuality, and light, are formulated in words as well as vectors. This says something about the nature of the agents. Third are geometric shapes that stand for an architectural work's type or specific design solution. They include rightFig. 009 and 010 on p. 33 a 009— 01 0 angled rectangular forms, circular forms of ancient fora, and articulated shapes typical of Dedeček's architecture, as a sample of the vocabulary he was using. Fourth and most importantly, however, is the aforementioned parallel nature of the CCC and DDD lines. One might question the importance of this parallel nature by pointing out that this diagram was made in retrospect. There is however no doubt about the question evoked by this parallelity: how seriously shall we take the staging and chronological sequences that Vladimír Dedeček underscored in “Starting Points and Agents in the Architecture of three Decades”? Were we to completely deny this staging, both creative methods would lose the character of a socio-culturally conditioned architectural world-view. One other possibility remains: from the 1950s to the 1980s there were architects in Slovakia who could be seen as representative of one line (3C) or the other (3D); although they made their starts in different years, in some cases they coexisted in parallel. What makes Vladimír Dedeček's position special is both his embodying the oscillating parallelity of both these lines in himself and in his work, and his being a creator that (thanks to this very oscillating parallelity) initiated their stage and phase transitions. The final filter, however, is Dedeček's method. Architects are not always happy to reveal their work methods. And as far as we know Vladimír Dedeček never did so, at least not in writing. Yet he mentions it in some unpublished and published interviews, and in a recent videotaped discussion he even presented it visually (on his working cork model). The architect's personal 23 23 Video document to the exhibition Vladimír Dedeček: PRÁCA, Bratislava, Design Week, 2015. archives include series (or rows) of cells coordinated by module, drawn on paper and glued on thin stripes of cork; these represent sectors or sections whose span was dependent on the construction system chosen, with various spans of ferroconcrete structures to be arranged in regularly-repeating modules. There were two steps to the method of working with these. The first was to sequence all the sectors and sections into a continuous syntagmatic line, which might be potentially open-ended in length and/or width. Its cutting edge (enclosure) was determined by the building's location program (lokalizačný program) showing functions and their plan layout in square meters. Two basic rules come into play here: of typology/ function and of construction. Dedeček metaphorically termed this first step his salami method. The second step consisted of cutting this continuum of sectors and sections into compositional units (storeys, building wings, pavilions, etc). Dedeček sometimes termed this step domino, as to some extent he worked with these compositional units as with dominoes. He was playing a “game of family likenesses” 40 | 41 layout (disposition) system with corridor variation [ A ] two-tract variation [ B ] two-tract secondary lighting via corridor variation [ C ] three-tract 1 layout (disposition) arrangement: block school (b) A / IIL / AO A / IIL / AO pavilion school (p) A / AO A / 2 b p lighting system 3 b ML p ML / 4 b A / IIL A / IIL p A A / 5 b p 6 b A / IIL / AO A / IIL / AO p A / AO a 020 A / Vladimír Dedeček, Rudolf Miňovský, scheme of primary and secondary school types in text Problém školských stavieb vo vzťahu k vývoju výučby a nových konštruktívnych systémov s porovnaním obdobnej výstavby v zahraničí (ZSA research study), 1960. Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG in Bratislava. Diagram redrawn by Kristína Rypáková. Layout and typography by Kateřina Koňata Dolejšová. without corridor variation [ D ] single tract, 2 classrooms accessed from 1 circulation point ML / AO variation [ D ] single tract, 3-4 classrooms accessed from 1 circulation point variation [ D ] two-tract, 4 classrooms accessed from 1 circulation point variation [ D ] two-tract, 4 classrooms accessed from 1 circulation point ML / (AO) ML / ML / AO ML / AO IIL / AO A = addition / IIL = classrooms on second above-ground level / ML = multi-level / AO = absolute orientation / = almost not used 42 | 43 01 1 — 01 2 → a int II / → k seg 3 / → k nonseg 12 24 with domino combinations, allowing the aforementioned variations with repetition. Yet the rules of Dedeček's architectural game came from the interaction and designation of the given factors or agents and compositional rules. Such a paced-out method is in its first step a generalizable architectural heritage. However, in the next step it subjectivizes a selective approach to agents and compositional rules; and in this it reflects the period's discussion, which Dedeček joined as an advocate of architectural thinking in times of prevailing typification and prefabrication. And this is despite the fact that one of the steps is explicit and the next, in addition to the explicit cutting of the salami into Domino game building blocks, features multiple implicit rules, which to varying degrees repeat themselves and can be identified in interpretation. What makes this method noteworthy is not only its ability to significantly accelerate the design process, all while making provision for complex interrelations of construction/typology, agency and composition – above all it allows both the 3C and 3D philosophies, and on its basis can be designed mono-blocks, pavilion complexes and other experimental spatial configurations. It has a rigidity in that it can be divided into cells: sectors and sections, and an elasticity with regard to their arrangements. Interpretation ought to endeavour to give a name to this rigid/elastic grouping, which is able to consider the working versions of architectural designs, both philosophies (3C as well as 3D), and the two-step method (salami/continuum and domino/unit). The cluster as the key to interpreting Dedeček's architectural thinking Since the later 1950s, Vladimír Dedeček in his typified school projects 24 See “Keys” / → p. 376 /→ p. 484 /. engaged in polemics on the concept of the spatial organization and distribution (parti) of mono-block schools with corridors. In the context of the architectural tasks he was working on, this became representative of barracks architecture. Its characteristics included a rigidness of order, pan-typologism and pan-prefabrication. Ultimately, it corresponded to the one-way monologism present in ideology and education. Gradual finding and invention of new ways of dividing up the monoblock according to functional or programmatic sectors led first to the Schuster school type and atrium-based school type, and later to the pavilion school complexes. 25 25 See table of school types in the conclusion of this text. In: DEDEČEK, Vladimír – MIŇOVSKÝ, Rudolf. Problém školských stavieb vo vzťahu k vývoju výučby a nových konštruktívnych systémov s porovnaním obdobnej výstavby v zahraničí (research study). [Stavoprojekt – ZSA : Bratislava]. Typewritten, March 1960. 88 pages. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts a and Design SNG. Compare also Sekretariat der Kultusministerkonferenz. Typenschulbauten in den Neuen Ländern. Modernisierungsleitfaden. Berlin : ZNWB, 1999, p. 4. 01 4 — 01 6 There were differences in school designs, arising from new educational programs, varying alternatives of indoor-outdoor space relationships, differing experimental divergences from the petrified standard types and a variety of economizing solutions; however the design of individual pavilions was in principle defined only by their dominant functions (and students' ages), and so they remained delimited and dislocated mono-blocks. Surprisingly, the breaking down of barracks architecture was to occur indoors, i.e. inside the mono-blocks, dislocated as they were, because exterior breaking-down had not yielded what was expected: a complex variable space of many functions, and the infiltration of atypical design into pan-typologism and pan-prefabrication, as the basic prerequisites for rehabilitating the architectural profession and its differentiation, including originality in architectural thinking. Architects therefore waged their ideological battle at the level of their architectural tasks, and only in their polemics with architectural monologism were they to make effective attacks on political and ideological monologism. Vladimír Dedeček, too, fought such battles, and this led him to come up with new spatial solutions that approached the anticipated interior parameters of the decay of barracks architecture within a pavilion complex. This new arrangement took on the Old German and Old English word of clyster/cluster (bunch, array, clump, clot, with applications in biology, linguistics, music and astronomy). It appeared in architecture terminology – according to the critic and historian Rayne Banham – in 1954 in Kevin Lynch's “The Form of Cities”. From 26 26 LYNCH, Kevin. The Form of Cities. The Scientific American, 190, 1954, 4, pp. 58-61. there the architect Denys Lasdun took it to name his series of blocks of flats in the East London quarter of Bethnal Green, which he grouped around a central tower in “cluster blocks”. Yet the journal Architectural Forum, in its October 1953 issue on 27 27 BANHAM, Rayner. The New Brutalism. New York : Reinhold Publishing Corporation, 1966, p. 72. schools, compared various school buildings as “core plan”, “zone plan”, “loft plan” or “cluster plan” , writing that in school design the “cluster plan” was the emerging 28 28 See Architectural Forum, October 1953, p. 127. solution it had published in its October 1952 issue. From the educational perspective, it characterized the cluster plan as: preferring the scale of children, intimate and non-institutional, with an unregimented atmosphere that considered varying age groups. Even now it is associated with flexibility, economy, and a family atmosphere that at the same time afforded spatial experimentation fostering a new sensibility. Moreover, the introduction of cluster spatial configurations was 29 29 OGATA, F. Amy. Building for Learning in Postwar American Elementary Schools. Journal of Society of Architectural Historians, December 2008, p. 572. 44 | 45 not limited to residential and educational buildings. In 1957, Alison and Peter Smithson wrote about Cluster City, presenting it in comparison to a concentric ring arrangement intersected with radial streets. The cluster arrangement in their opinion was polycentric rather than monocentric, and capable of further growth. Thus clustering appeared in both European 30 30 SMITHSONS, Alison and Peter. Cluster City: A New Shape for the Community. The Architectural Review, November 1957, p. 334–336. and American Brutalist polemics, alongside traditional and modernist architectural ideas of the school, residence and city, in the years 1952–1957. In Dedeček's vocabulary, cluster layouts appear in his dissertation's second (illustrated) volume. In discussing the American exhibit of educational buildings in Moscow in 1970, he described five plan layouts: first the traditional three-tract* “tract”: here used in terms of Gebaudetrakt, i.e. a way of dividing a building into prevailing operational or construction zones or areas 0 17 — 0 1 8 01 3 * i a plan with corridor, second the U-shaped comb plan, third the concentric plan, for team teaching with interconnected rooms, and fourth the cluster plan. He characterized the fourth as a flexible interconnecting of classrooms, with a large space around a central cell. And finally as the fifth plan he mentions the large open spaces organized by teaching purpose; he dates the time of the cluster school's development as 1960–1966. However, when he describes individual types in detail, for the cluster school he cites several school projects by The Architects Collaborative (TAC): Massachusetts schools in Bridgewater, Attleboro and Waltham. Here he mentions horizontal or vertical clustering of four or more classrooms around a core (Dedeček himself translates “cluster” as “strapec”, the Slovak word applied for instance to bunches of grapes), i.e. the concentration of four or more classrooms around a pavilion core. He describes its characteristics as significant rationalization and flexible interconnection. One might say he was attempting a similar spatial configuration, even as one might point to many of the school types he designed before beginning work on his dissertation (1963–1973). Yet his consideration of clusters continued, not just before and during his dissertation work, but after he completed it too. If we read with care the 1991 “Architect's Statement” (Slovo autora) on the project for the former Regional Political School in Modra-Harmónia, there emerges a clear description of clustering at both the horizontal and vertical levels. The model of arranging accommodations cells and other upper level rooms into vertical rows with horizontal interconnections (circulation) that facilitate differentiated modes of their use while also bringing together various groups of people is a relatively precise characterization of cluster arrangement. Dedeček also applies it beyond ii 020 01 9 iii 31 the narrow framework of educational buildings. The National Archives and Supreme Court buildings unite within themselves what he called concentrated composition and an autonomy of individual units. The loss of a single centre and the constant renewing of the tension between integration and differentiation within concentrated compositions became an effective means for questioning both the rigid corridor-based symmetry of barracks architecture, as well as any over-asymmetrical and too-free pavilion arrangements; it was also an instrument for polemics with traditional classicizing and modernist forms. Yet Dedeček did not utilize clustering just to question and polemicize: it enabled him to harmonize his versions of architecture and his philosophies, without in any way going against his method. And last but not least, it made for a greater opportunity to understand his factors or agents as creative forces, and composition not just as an asymmetric balance of volumes and proportions, but as a lasting equilibration of forces with all attendant consequences. The question thus arises: might arrangement in clusters be the key to interpreting Dedeček's architectural thinking? It seems to provide ample space for linking generalized processes to individual solutions in specific works, thus making it possible to come to terms with this problem successfully: whether universal interpretation processes – such as formal analysis – can capture an architectural work's singularity. The cluster arrangement is sufficiently elastic and changeable, and thus capable of taking in even forms of the individual architectural figure. It can therefore provide a key to interpreting Dedeček's work. Such an interpretation could encompass steps starting with applying the architect's working versions, philosophies, processes and methods, and the mutual internal tensions among them, along with a potential for dialogue within contemporary architecture polemics. Yet we speak here not of the architect's intention or purpose, but rather of this intention as evident in a particular work itself – as an intra-architectural semantic gesture that can itself guide observation of Dedeček's architectural thinking, thus facilitating the uncovering and reading of intra-architectural meanings. It seems that such a reading could steer us clear of the hazards of methodological intentionalism and autonomism. In this way, interpreting the architectural thinking of Vladimír Dedeček can ally with the endeavour of building a theory of interpreting i­ ntra-architectural meanings. 31 See ZERVAN, Marian. Analýza interpretačných postupov v knihe Petra Eisenmana Ten Canonical Buildings. Architektúra a urbanizmus, 49, 2015, 1–2, pp. 105–119. 46 | 47 b Interpretations Keys to model interpretations k int I Institute for Employees of Regional National Committees, function changed to Regional Political School in Modra-Harmónia, currently Slovak Medical University teaching facility, Modra-Harmónia i ii k int II State Central Archives of the Slovak Socialist Republic Bratislava-Machnáč, currently Slovak National Archives in Bratislava 64 iii k int III The Supreme Court and Ministry of Justice of the Slovak Socialist Republic, currently the Supreme Court and the Ministry of Justice of the Slovak Republic iv b1 56 k int IV Renovation of and addition to Slovak National Gallery on Rázusovo nábrežie in Bratislava Model interpretations 74 88 b  ₁ i–iv Keys to model interpretations Monika Mitášová 54 | 55 k int i Institute for Employees of Regional National Committees, function changed to Regional Political School in Modra-Harmónia, currently Slovak Medical University teaching facility, Modra-Harmónia b1 Model interpretations i location project for building permission stage i stage ii Vladimír Dedeček, 1972 1 Main building and technical support pavilion Pavilion with conference space and teacher offices and study pavilions (unbuilt) structural engineering project interior architecture project execution project general contractor Investor construction stage i i Modra-Harmónia 3019, 900 01 Modra Otokar Pečený (steel structure) Jaroslav Nemec Vladimír Dedeček (chief architect), Rudolf Fresser (supervising architect) and Studio X/IV for university and cultural construction, from 1972 Stavoprojekt Bratislava Western Slovakia Regional National Committee, Bratislava, interior department Pozemné stavby, štátny podnik, Trnava, 1973–1978 2 Main building and technical support pavilion building volume (total built space) expenses 107 mil. 034 thou. Kčs building type 44,000 m3 Residential educational institute, with cultural-societal, sport and recreational functions * U  nverified dating is italicized. Dating verified using published 1–2 or unpublished literature is In: Životopis z 26. novembra 1987. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection given in plain text. Dating of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. Dating was confirmed verified using project and given using the unpublished text: [multiple authors.] documentation, photographs Technicko-ekonomické vyhodnotenie stavby [Krajská politická škola of project documentation, v Modre-Harmónii]. IPO Stavoinvesta, 28 June 1979, 16 pages. Architect's dating: 1974–1982. and documentation from reports Technicko-ekonomické vyhodnotenie stavby (TEV) 001 View of school's side facade from access road. is underlined and can at this Black and white photograph by Ľubo Stacho. Photo undated point be regarded as stable. (about 1982). Courtesy of the photographer. 56 | 57 k int i building(s) and its/their spatial relationships The institute's design consisted of two buildings (Stages I and II) along an access road. Stage I saw construction of the elongated pavilion with educational, sporting, canteen and accommodations spaces and a separate technical support pavilion. In 1989 the bust of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was removed from the foyer (sculptor and year unknown; the installation partition wall cladded with slate is currently vacant). Opposite the first main pavilion, a low-rise conference hall pavilion with a row of classrooms was planned (unbuilt). 002 building site (situation) b1 The institution is situated above the town of Modra in the Little Carpathians Protected Landscape Park, near the access to the Harmónia recreational area near the artificial lake of the same name. Harmónia and the adjacent Piesok (­featuring Zochova chata and Comenius University's Astronomy Observatory, built 1984–1989 3 ) are among western Slovakia's oldest hiking destinations, cultivated since the 18th century in a network of recuperative and recreational trails, ­ natural bathing sites and cottages through the hilly and rocky landscape. From the walkway galleries rimming the institute, views to the southwest face the historical centre of Modra, and to the southeast toward the village of Kráľová. The northwestern views are of the mountains Veľká homoľa, ­ Peprovec, Zámčisko and Dolinkovský vrch. Hiking trails in the area connect to the rock formations Medvedia skala, Tri kopce and the p ­ rotected Tisove skaly. The school's building site rises to the northwest over pine-covered hills, and through it to the southwest flowed an overgrown stream (currently regulated). Given these natural features, the architect oriented the institute diagonally, designing it as a compact but differentiated mono-block. Approached via the Okružná cesta road, the building's southern-most side gives way to a recessed ground level and four cantilever above-ground storeys of accommodations. The building's front at that point faces the access road diagonally with continuous loggia. On the ground level, the sports-recreation spaces (to the north) and classrooms (to the south) face the surrounding landscape. The lecture rooms connect to the landscape through terraces, and to the building through atria. In front of the institute building, along the access road, 002 003 i The other educational and cultural rooms/ cell spaces (medium large, small and smallest) are accessed through this asymmetricallyplaced entry hall. On the upper storeys the ­ bedrooms run along both sides of the zigzag ­ corridor. The most eloquent explanation of the reason and the rhythm behind the building's zigzag is seen from the side of the ground level facing the landscape: a row of atria, diagonally progressing by about one-third of each ­atrium's width. The atria bring light into 5 larger stepped lecture halls (with capacity of 50 seats) 6 and 4 smaller classrooms (with 25 seats) and an ­instructors' meeting room. Each larger lecture hall has its own summer study terrace. This regular shifting and zigzagging means each lecture hall had cross ventilation and daylight from both atrium and corridor or terrace, the latter designed for open-air summer lecturing. In this sense, this prototype is a further developed and more complex variation on the primary school in Bratislava's Februárka A/Račianska 004 005 programmatic and spatial solution The architect initially designed, on commission, an Institute for employees of Regional National Committees [Inštitút pre pracovníkov krajských národných výborov], i.e. to train the third and highest level of the socialist state's administration (municipality – district – region 4 ). During the design study phase the investor changed the building's function to a Regional Political School [Krajská politická škola],5 giving the calculation project a higher political and economic priority and a different budget source. Until then there was no type on which to base this kind of residential training institute for adults; the architect designed this school, as he had other types of primary and ­secondary schools, as a prototype. (DEDEČEK 1972, p. 36) In the localization program, which to a great extent the architect himself defined, he was already thinking of other potential functions of an “adult education and recreational centre” in a popular tourist area. The building has a longitudinal floor plan distribution or layout, but all its programmatic sections (training, sport, ­cultural-socializing, canteen and administration) are accessible from the entry hall at the northwest area of the site. This hall is an extensive two-­storey foyer with a staircase to a mezzanine 002–003 Dedeček's Training Institute for Union of Journalists was later built in Modra-Harmónia (­designed 1980, built 1982–1988). gallery the architect designed as art exhibit space and access to the main lecture/projection hall for 200 visitors (with a screen for both standard and wide-angle films projection). The gallery leads to the spectator mezzanine (balcony) in the gym, in fact a small, narrow “auditorium” for a group of viewers watching sporting events. From the foyer's ground floor, side staircases lead to the other parts of the institute, including the swimming pools and sauna under the gym. The open, two-storey high entry space is thus both a circulation core and the building's most important common gathering space for s­ ocializing and exhibitions. It is composed as variable (in contrast to the specialized “palaces” for sport, congresses and art built from the 1950s to the early 1980s). The concentric, and simultaneously eccentrically-placed, asymmetrical foyer with its three staircases can be operated in two main modes: for students, instructors and internal occupants (closed mode), and in an open mode (for the general public) as one of Modra-Harmónia's few ­focal points for local social and cultural life. In the latter open mode the foyer was never put to use (neither in the original sense of the word – focus – nor in the broader sense of space for small societal celebrations), though it was designed and equipped and its entrance organized (with a porter's station) to facilitate such operation. This educational building too was thus o ­ perated and utilized in a more uniform manner than the p ­ rototype architecture would have allowed. The first stage of construction 3 was completed in 1989. → [multiple editors from Comenius University in Bratislava; Fakulty matematiky, fyziky a informatiky; Katedry astronómie, fyziky Zeme a meteorológie.] Astronomické a geofyzikálne observatórium FMFI UK Modra Piesok. Modra : AGO, publication date not given. Unpaginated [p. 2]. The Constitutional act of the 4 Czechoslovak Federation [Ústavný zákon o československej federácii] (No. 143/1968, effective 1 Jan. 1969) set forth the rights for the public administration's organizational structure in Slovakia, including territorial questions. From this date, Slovakia's legislative body eliminated regions and their institutions (regional “National Committees”) but left districts in place. In the time of “consolidation” and “normalization” of political relations, as of 1 January 1971 regions and regional “national committees” were reinstated (Western Slovakia's seat was in Bratislava, Central Slovakia's in Banská Bystrica, and Eastern Slovakia's in Košice), and the capital city of the Slovak Republic also received the standing of a separate region. Interview with Vladimír Dedeček, 5 in Bratislava, summer of 2014. This is clear from the architect's 6 brief formulation: “... the educational part has five lecture rooms for fifty of a stepped type...” In: DEDEČEK, Vladimír. Krajská politická škola v Modre-Harmónii. Projekt. Revue slovenskej architektúry, 14, 1972, 9, p. 36; some criticism inferred fifty classrooms rather than five with fifty seats each. → “The environment of the 50 well-lit and well-ventillated classrooms is improved by the atria on one side and the terraces on the other”. In: KRIVOŠOVÁ, Janka – LUKÁČOVÁ, Elena. Premeny súčasnej architektúry Slovenska. Bratislava : Alfa, 1990, p. 159. Regional Political School Harmónia. Study. Signed by Dedeček. Undated. Scale 1:500. Black and white photograph unsigned. Undated. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 002 Plan of ±0 level (ground floor). 003 1st storey plan. 004 Elevation 3 (side). 005 Elevation 1 (rear). 58 | 59 k int i b1 i it could be said the architect designed a total of 6 different types of instruction spaces of various size for Modra-Harmónia. The diagonally-shifted atria with classrooms help differentiate the mono-block, in part thanks to a specifically located pattern. Many structuralist school areas in 1960s Europe formulated such specific location strategies of repetitive dispositions or layouts, such as in the ­compositions of Ruhr-Universität in Bochum where Dedeček visited in 1968, and in the Freie Universität Berlin that he never saw in person. The journal Projekt made mention of these in 1964.7 The smallest study rooms/cells Dedeček designed for this institution may reflect a new way of rational-consumption thinking, which the Czech modernist Karel Honzík's Necessism program formulated in Czechoslovakia in the first half of 20th century.8 Individual instructors' cells or “compartments/coupés” comprise both the necessary and sufficient space per individual studying/teaching. In the type of buildings exemplified by the Modra-Harmónia institute these spaces multiply, accumulate and line up into sequences that could potentially increase/decrease as required in other programs and on different land sites. The conceptual phasing of many of Dedeček's projects corresponds to this growth program. More research is needed to make more → m cv → m cv neighbourhood / → p. 366/. It also builds on the chemistry, biology and geology department's atrium pavilions at the Comenius University campus in Bratislava-Mlynská dolina / → p. 406/. In contrast to the Mlynská dolina campus, these atria are smaller and situated on the ground; in contrast to the Februárka A/Račianska school the ModraHarmónia terraces are accessible by a few stairs – and in Modra-Harmónia none of the occupants before or after the 1989 revolution has yet walled up the terrace doorways to the “window” height. Eight individual instructor offices with windows on the access road are accessible via the zigzag corridor from the lecture rooms and terraces facing the landscape. Thus the instruction spaces are scaled in size, offering a collective lecture hall (with 200 seats) by the entry, and three various sizes of spaces for instruction in groups (of 50 and 25) and individually. Each of the five group lecture rooms is accessed by a small additional staircase, one of five on this storey. This facilitates relatively uninhibited movement throughout the parts of the building, and different study groups need not disturb one another in “mass” circulation through the entire corridor and main staircase. So another benefit of the zigzag arrangement is how it differentiates the spaces while leaving them interconnected. Taking into consideration the “outdoor summer study areas”, → k int III → k seg 6 → k seg 1 006 precise analysis and substantiate whether these Necessist flexible, expanding or “growing” spaces in the Modra-Harmónia facility, and their scaling (with capacities of 1, 25, 50, and 200), should be evaluated after 1989 as megalomanic forms / → p. 775/ or schematic iteration / → p. 789/. ­Analogous workspaces that were both necessary and sufficient came in for much criticism after 1989 by the occupiers of Bratislava's Supreme Court SR, as the commissioning institution had i­ncreased its ­demand on the number of work­spaces for Court and Ministry employees / → p. 82 /. The accommodations section is located on the upper storeys, with a total of 270 beds. The bedrooms – like the classrooms under them – are triadically-arranged. By way of contrast they are not composed in rows, but in groups (one single and two double rooms). On these storeys staircases serve two groups of three rooms, or the last group of three at the end of the floor plan layout. Space was made for the four service staircases by leaving one bedroom out of each group. In this context the staircases can be seen as spatial analogy of “vertical room”, while the facade's continual loggias come across as a layer of “horizontal watchtowers”. Here, function was a necessary, if not sufficient, condition for composing the institution's organism, with its support and sleeping s­ paces → k seg 10 007 The span is differentiated by section. The accommodations have a module grid of 6,000 cm (large) and 3,000 cm (small). The girders are doubled over the pillars in the 6,000 cm module, and their cantilever forms the continuous loggia. The societal sector continues with this module grid, with girder 15,000 cm long; in the gym the module is 6,000 cm, and in the cinema 3,000 cm. The classroom section module grid is 6,000 × 9,000 cm. Two adjoining classrooms are connected by one common girder into a single construction unit. The building has a steel frame structure (skeleton) filled with brick masonry (on upper storeys) or profiled exposed concrete panels (ground level). The monumental sculptural relief (by the painter Ivan Vychlopen, variants proposed in 1978) is in exposed concrete, on the building front wall facing the access road. A horizontal “glassed caesura” of continuous ventilation windows separates the upper storeys from the ground level, differentiating the building into the upper- and lower-layers with their functions and programs. From outdoors, the classroom section including the outdoor terraces, the staircases and atria are cladded in light-coloured limestone (Bulgarian Vrachan, then available through the Comecon market). The accommodations section's loggia walls and ceilings are cladded in light-coloured wood. The loggia parapet features a continuous line of planters containing holes at the bottom to allow for adequate water drainage. The high parapet dimension alters one's ­perception of 008 007 module, construction, volume, surfacing 008 above the classrooms. The question is, what else – besides the number of people studying, and classroom technology and bedroom furnishing – makes for a sufficient condition for laying out this prototype residential school and training centre. Thus far, the architect's own architectural program progression seems to be such a condition: to expand the building's function to include social and cultural events. For this institution, cultivating the political culture is part of cultivating the societal, artistic and sporting culture – they cannot be totally separated – a ­ lthough the educational spaces are in a separate section. In this sense, the way this prototype approaches politics is close to the original meaning of the word: the art of taking care of public affairs. It can be taught in an environment that is open not just to society as a whole, but as here opens specifically to the local society's art, culture and sport. This prototype educational building offers the never-used possibility of decision-making: taking care of and operating an educational and cultural building in a mode open or closed to the public; cultivating relations not just among the “political elite” (the equal and the “more equal than others”), but also with the public that the trained political and ­economic elite should serve. It is noteworthy that the Regional ­National Committee, the regional authority that commissioned this small institute, growing as it did from the spirit of modern 1940s and 1960s educational and cultural buildings, proved unable in the 1970s to repress its Necessist and yet also multi-purpose and variable layout. Further, it only chose to focus on the closed mode of utilizing the foyer, which featured Lenin's portrait, allowing the deterioration of the building's public and social spaces and its evident possibilities for developing the local cultural scene, and neglecting its green atria, terraces and overall building maintenance. It was a telling signal: 1970s political culture had a clear problem with this art of taking care of public affairs, to be cultivated both publicly and together with the public. This institution served as a “training and recreation centre” and even after 1989 remained under the education ministry – in a closed and semi-closed mode of utilization, not as the cultural-societal and recreation centre in the spirit in which it was designed and built. This is one of the architect's last educational buildings. His only work to partly draw on thi­s was the concentric atrium-based Institute of the Interior Ministry of the Slovak Socialist Republic for Local N ­ ational Committee offices, currently Institute for Public administration in Bratislava-Dúbravka / → p. 462 /. the building's tectonics, particularly the ratio of its horizontal glassed vs brick/concrete ­ layers of walls, as on the front facade these do not correspond only to a storey's construction and function. As Dedeček himself said more than once, his architecture's tectonics come also from ­geometric relationships. The sport section, with pool and sauna, has a partly-glassed facade facing the landscape (the original painted black steel frames have been ­replaced by white plastic; the pool and sauna are presently out of order). Jaroslav Nemec designed the interior similarly to his other educational spaces, in light-­ colour wood with wooden, plaster and metal drop ceilings (the classrooms have been refurbished with current mass-produced furniture). The walls 7 LACKO, Jozef. Perspektíva tvorby prostredia vysokých škôl. Projekt. Časopis zväzu slovenských architektov, 5, 1964, 1, pp. 5–8. 8 HONZÍK, Karel. Necessismus: myšlenka rozumné spotřeby. Praha : Klub pro studium spotřeby, 1946, 21 pages. 006 Design of school institute with unbuilt sport venue. Black and white photograph of white laminate presentation model. Modelmaker: R. Fresser. Photographs by M. L. Mihalovič (Stavoprojekt) and unsigned. Model and photographs undated. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 007 School institute under construction. Black and white photograph by TASR/Štefan Petráš. Photo dated 18 May 1976. TASR archives in Bratislava. 60 | 61 k int i are plastered, partitions wallpapered or cladded in ceramic tiles or stone (including the foyer's cut black slate). The light-colour monochrome building (its ground-level exposed concrete currently painted over in grey) was given no other surface layers in Dedeček’s primary colour codes. characterization → m cv → m cv Formal-stylistic The press of the period did not review the Political School after its completion, as was the case with others of the architect's smaller projects (company offices, bank branches, family ­houses, renovation of historical monuments etc). In 1982 the architects and historians Tibor Zalčík and Matúš Dulla / → p. 757 / characterized this institute, along with the Comenius University atrium residence, as architectural work of a style they called horizontalism. Architects and historians Janka Krivošová and ­ Elena Lukáčová formulated the first evaluation of this building only in the late 1980s, in a book published in 1990, but they made no characterization in terms of style / → p. 773 /. One of their main points was the role of horizontality in optically scaling-down the building’s perceived scale: “Along the whole stepped mass run continual balconies that stress the building's horizontal line and trim the scale.” 9 Sign-symbolic 008 IV Relationship of form-stylistic and sign-symbolic characteristics The building is a noteworthy example of the radical turn in whether formal-stylistic or sign-symbolic charcterizations would predominate. Where the former predominated before 1991, afterwards it was the latter. [Regional Political School in Modra-Harmónia.] Black and white photographs of sculptural relief. Artist and photographer not specified, undated / Inv. č. A 1640/73, 74 /. Textual part of project There is no textual part in the SNG collection. → m cv → m cv literature In 1991 Martin Mašek and Henrieta Hammerová (Moravčíková) published a post-revolution review of this building, reinterpreting it as a symbol of loyalty to the policies of the Communist Party of Slovakia and the socialist regime / → p. 775 /. After 2002 Matúš Dulla and Henrieta Moravčíková recalled this interpretation in a footnote to their post-revolution history of 20th century architecture / → p. 788 /. Another architectural sign worthy of consideration is in the continual loggias, or as Alison and Peter Smithson thought of them “streets in the air”; in them they saw the sign of a new humanism and late modern architecture's ability to communicate, bringing “streets” around a building's ­perimeter back to public space (“Mies is great, but Corb communicates.” 10 ). documentation archived at the sng Project documentation/project model i Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. Published as DEDEČEK, Vladimír. [Krajská politická škola v Modre-Harmónii.] Architect's Statement. Projekt. I Regional Political School in Modra-Harmónia. Study. Black and white photographs of project documentation. Signed by Revue slovenskej architektúry, 33, 1991, 3, pp. 15–17. DEDEČEK, Vladimír. Krajská politická škola Dedeček, undated (plan of levels p±0, p+1, elevation p1 and p3, v Modre-Harmónii. Projekt. Revue slovenskej architektúry, scale 1:500). Photographs unsigned, undated / Inv. č. A 1640/1–12 /. 14, 1972, 9, p. 36. II [Regional Political School in Modra-Harmónia.] Black [multiple authors.] Technicko-ekonomické vyhodnotenie and white photographs of white laminate presentation model. stavby [Krajská politická škola v Modre-Harmónii]. Modelmaker: R. Fresser. Photographs by M. L. Mihalovič IPO Stavoinvesta Bratislava, 28 June 1979, 16 pages. (Stavoprojekt) and unsigned. Model and photographs undated /Inv. č. A 1640/14–60/. III [Regional Political School in Modra-Harmónia.] Black and white photographs of completed building: outdoor and indoor, b1 DEDEČEK, Vladimír. KPŠ – Modra-Harmónia. Architect's Statement. Typewritten, undated, 3 pages. In: Fond Vladimír DEDEČEK, Vladimír. Východiská a činitele architektonickej tvorby troch desaťročí. Projekt. Revue slovenskej architektúry, 26, 1984, 2, pp. 22–24. HAMMEROVÁ, Henrieta – MAŠEK, Martin. swimming pool and gym. Unsigned, undated (ex post dating Krajská politická škola v Modre-Harmónii (review). in pencil by Vladimír Dedeček: 1989), / Inv. č. A 1640/61–72 /. Projekt. Revue slovenskej architektúry, 33, 1991, 3, pp. 17–19. 9 KRIVOŠOVÁ, Janka – LUKÁČOVÁ, Elena. Premeny súčasnej architektúry Slovenska /cited in Note 6 /, p. 159. 10 In: FRAMPTON, Kenneth. The English Crucible. Team 10 – Keeping the Language of Modern Architecture Alive. Papers from the conference “Team 10 – Keeping the Language of Modern Architecture Alive” held at the Delft Faculty of Architecture, January 5–6, 2006, Delft : Faculty of Architecture, p. 126. 008 View of cinema interior. Black and white photograph unsigned. Undated. Archive of Jaroslav Nemec. 62 | 63 k int ii State Central Archives of the Slovak Socialist Republic Bratislava-Machnáč, currently Slovak National Archives in Bratislava b1 Model interpretations ii location project for building permission structural engineering project interior architecture project execution project general contractor ii Drotárska cesta 42, 840 05 Bratislava 45 Vladimír Dedeček, 1971–1972 1 Miloš Hartl (ferro-concrete construction) Jaroslav Nemec Vladimír Dedeček (chief architect), Mária Oravcová (supervising architect) and Studio X/IV for university and cultural construction, 1972 2 Stavoprojekt Bratislava Investor  inistry of the Interior of the Slovak Socialist Republic, M represented by State Central Archives of the Slovak Socialist Republic in Bratislava construction Staving, koncernový podnik, Bratislava (contractor), 1975–1983 3 building volume (total built space) 58,256 m3 expenses about 70 mil. Kčs not including interior furnishings; about 85 mil. Kčs including shelving; total expenses with landscaping about 100 mil. Kčs building type  rchives with film library A (in his list of works attached to his CV the architect categorized the Archives among his culture buildings, as did Prof. Emil Belluš with regard to schools, libraries and archives 4 ) Dated by the architect: 1–3 1972–1983. In: Životopis z 26. novembra 1987. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. Dating verified based in part on the Localization program sent to Stavoprojekt on 23 January 1971 with a letter from the economy department of the interior ministry. Project for building permission approved 11 May 1971. → [multiple authors.] Záverečné vyhodnotenie stavby Slovenský národný archív Bratislava. Ministerstvo vnútra SSR v Bratislave, undated, 23 numbered pages with addenda, p. 4. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Zbierka architektúry, úžitkového umenia a dizajnu SNG. All other dating has been verified based on this source. BELLUŠ, Emil. Teória 4 architektonickej tvorby. Stavby sociálne, kultúrne, zdravotnícke, telovýchovné a športové. Bratislava : Štátne nakladateľstvo v Bratislave, 1951, pp. 48–53. 001 View of Archives building. Black and white photograph unsigned. Undated. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 64 | 65 k int ii building(s) and its/their spatial relationships The single building on a grassy site is fenced by concrete panels (the size of the building parcel was reduced, with part of the original fencing removed). building site (situation) b1 The Archives were built in the Horský park recreational zone, on the western slopes of Bratislava's Machnáč area, high on the Holý vrch hill (aka Bubnovka). The land is bounded on the south by the road Drotárska cesta (formerly Motzengruntská), and on the north by the street Matúšova ulica. In the 1950s and 60s Bubnovka's steep meadows attracted Bratislava's inhabitants and visitors for day trips and relaxation, and in the wintertime for sleighing and skiing. Earlier there were vineyards in this area. For Slovakia's first central archives within what was then Czechoslovakia, in the 1960s the city of Bratislava's main architect’s office selected a site such that the Archives as a scholarly institution would relate to the Slovak Academy of Sciences at nearby Patrónka crosssing, while becoming a dominant feature in the western approach to the city (for the same reason, this site was also considered for the new Slovak Radio building). Thus for those travelling into Bratislava from the west via the roads Brnianska and Pražská, the central archives building became part of the city's silhouette, between the new Comenius University campus in Mlynská dolina, the hospital on Kramáre, the Slovak Academy of Sciences area, the Czechoslovak Television complex, and the group of new residential high-rise buildings. The Archives building was intended to contribute symbolically to the formation of a new “western city gate” of Bratislava, the same way the planned city block of state and government buildings at Staromestská ulica street were to form a symbolic new “southern gate” from Petržalka toward the wider town centre. The expanding capital city of the Slovak Socialist ­Republic was thus to take on new city, nation and state symbols. Alternative urban studies and plans for the Bubnovka hill were then considering construction of more family houses at the slope's foot. Additionally, schools and cultural and sporting facilities were to be built in the vicinity, particularly a group of school buildings along the Drotárska cesta road: a campus of the Academy of Fine Arts and Design (built with reduced program and size), with an arts and culture centre (House of Arts 002 003 004 ii 005 and Culture, unbuilt), and group of pavilions for special education schools and a grammar school with sporting fields. The city amphitheatre, built on Búdková cesta, was planned as part of this complex structure. Therefore the central archives building was intended as a punch line or pointe of the wider area's layout, as an integral part of this new socio-cultural district, with vistas of Mlynská dolina, Kramáre and Horský park. The fact that this city district was never built as planned was a setback for the town's citizens, the district's urban planning and the Archives building specifically, which lost its intended complex context and never received a new one. It gives the impression that a corresponding part of the city’s master plan ‘somehow got lost’ (or that the fire that took out Svetko and Džadoň's amphitheatre 5 took with it the corresponding sequence of the urban plan). programmatic and spatial solution 006 The process of building the Central Archives resembled the anabasis of the Comenius University Natural Sciences Faculty in Mlynská dolina. In 1949, historians from the Slovak Academy of Sciences and Arts prepared a resolution calling for the issuing of an archives law, with the establishment of a state or regional archive, to unite the confiscated and emerging archives of ministries, regions and other localities. In 1951, the interior ministry of the time established a State Archives Committee, chaired by the historian Prof. Miloš Gosiorovský. In 1952 this committee prepared the constitution of the Slovak Central Archives, with collections at the Červený Kameň Castle and offices in the Župný dom in Bratislava. In 1954 the Archives Administration spun off from the interior ministry committee, and an archives law was passed, legislating the origin of the State Slovak Central Archives in Bratislava. Because of other priorities, it was only in 1957 that the relevant ministry tasked the interior minister 5 → ČOMAJ, Ján. Architekt Svetko. Spomienky z nepokojných čias. Nepokojné úvahy o súčasnosti. Bratislava : Magma [2006], p. 23. Slovak National Archives. Study. Signed by Dedeček. Undated. Scale 1:500. Reproduction on paper. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 002 [Plans of levels] p +2 – +8. 003 [Plans of levels] p ±0 (ground floor). 004 [Plans of levels] p -1. 005 Section. 006 Front elevation. 007 Side elevation. 007 66 | 67 k int ii 009 b1 Oskár Jeleň to schedule the central archives building for construction during the third five-year plan, 1961–1965. (KUŠÍK 1983, pp. 16–22, 38) Even as the construction was postponed from the investment schedule, the Archives Administration selected a building site in 1958, i.e. at a time when it was led by Lieutenant Dr. Jozef Chreňo. After consulting with the archive’s board the interior minister approved a site from among four alternatives: 1. the corner of Radlinského and Legionárska streets, 2. part of the Protestant cemetery on the street of Ulica Februárového víťazstva, 3. Pekná cesta road in Krasňany, and 4. the former Farmstead [Mestský majer] area behind Gottwaldovo námestie square between Štefanovičova, Žilinská and Kýčerského streets. ­ The archive’s board preferred the fourth alternative. Dr. Chreňo formulated the initial suggestion for a future building program in a letter, recommending: “The building ought to have both archival equipment and exterior appearance sufficient to represent dignity similar to that of Matica slovenská [the scientific and cultural institution dedicated to the Slovak nation and culture].” 6 The new building was to preserve archive materials of significance to the nation and state from fire, water (moisture), theft, “... and insofar as ­possible protect from the effects of war”.7 Among other ­details, Chreňo requested separate operations for depots (depositories) and administration, and the design of specialized spaces for the archiving of maps, microfilms, and a top secret archive. Further, the Archives ­building was to include specialized laboratories for photograph conservation and a ­phonographic/ ii photographic/film archive. All storage areas were to be furnished with steel shelving. The commissioning institution confirmed that the building was to be situated at a district on the city's periphery, free of industry, and with good transportation connections to the city. Security regulations and the possibility for additions anticipated a single structure at least 15 m from the road and 20 m from the nearest building. Based on these and other requirements, in 1959 at Dr. Chreňo's request 8, Stavoprojekt prepared an initial localization program and “feasibility study”, by the architect Ján Zemko. The localization program notes: “It is appropriate that it [the Slovak National Archives] have, among other attributes, the kind of monumental structure customary for permanent cultural institutions.” 9 ­ With regards to the suggested building site, he believed it should be situated in an isolated ­location near the city centre. The location program further emphasized how the archival collections were to be placed in archive shelving: “The most economical system of organizing shelving, and moreover the most optimal system operationally, must arise from exhaustive study, principally through an analysis of examples built abroad [Ján Zemko explicitly mentioned the USSR and German Democratic Republic].” 10 In addition to the building's technical infrastructure (air conditioning, a central dust control system and fire control technology), the program focused on the research role: “The rooms in the public's service for study and research have the character of cultural facilities (studies and lecture halls), and → m cv 008 therefore their furnishing must be subject to these circumstances.” 11 The architectural designs were to be assigned to Stavoprojekt, and design selection was to occur through a competition within or between local/central state planning organizations (Stavoprojekt Bratislava and Stavoprojekt Banská Bystrica). In the subsequent process of obtaining necessary approval, the City Planning Commission concurred with the location by ­Štefanovičova, Žilinská and Kýčerského streets, but drew the investor's attention to the residential/agricultural buildings that would have to be demolished and the land that would have to be expro­priated as part of the new building's expenses. Some of the buildings were under conservation protection. The State Planning Commission communicated that it was planning to extend the park at the location. These decisions slowed the whole process, ultimately bringing it to a halt. In 1960 the ministries were restructured and the investment task shifted to the Slovak National Council (Slovak abbrev.: SNR), i.e. parliament. As occurred with the Comenius University campus in Mlynská dolina, the task of building the Archives was postponed until the following five-year plan (1966–1970). In 1968 SNR leadership made headway on the issue. A year later, the new Ministry of the Interior of the Slovak ­Republic became the investor, and an order was issued for a new building site on Bubnovka. Thus both Comenius University's Faculty of Natural ­Sciences complex and the State Central Archives of the ­ Slovak Socialist Republic building were the outcome of lengthy effort and a favourable ­moment during the reform-minded 1960s. In 1969 the architect Tibor Gebauer designed the first commissioned building study, working for the Iľja Skoček sr studio 12 in the briefly existing Partnership of Architectural Design Studios [Združenie projektových ateliérov (ZPAT)] / → p. 720 /. The written record indicates that the commissioning institution was unable to find a contractor able and willing to build Gebauer's project. An initiative arose to locate the Archives outside of Bratislava. 002–007 transportation). Each vertical circulation core contains two staircases, four elevator lifts, hygiene facilities and handling spaces. The central cuboid of depositories has a differentiated perimeter (the building's floor plan is almost 40 m × 40 m). From this central cuboid and its projections there is an overhang of 2 storeys, such that they surround the building above ground level while being differentiated horizontally into two levels and vertically into 5 avantcorps. The offices and workspaces placed in this overhanging administrative section expand into loggias. Their flat roofs hold balconies of the ­storey above, accessible from the depository. The research, reading and meeting rooms are accessible on the raised access floor, which besides the main entry contains cloak rooms, exhibition space and a lecture room (35 seats). The public program is thus concentrated on the raised level, one storey above and one b ­ elow (the conference hall), with entrance to the building through a small foyer then upwards or downwards from the access level. This is a vertical arrangement analogous to that in Dedeček's Comenius University Natural Sciences Faculty pavilions in Mlynská dolina, though in a different composition and scale of space. In contrast to his educational buildings in Modra-Harmónia, Zvolen and ­Bratislava-Dúbravka, the Archives' foyer was designed as a smaller and tighter building entrance with a controlled operations regimen. The concept of the archive spaces' planar distribution or layout is similar to those of the Comenius University Faculty of Natural Sciences pavilions, with its laboratories in an atrium. In place of laboratories, the Archives have a depository. In contrast to the university laboratories, surrounded by offices, the Archives' depository has a varying perimeter. Here again we can say the Archives is not a classic mono-block, but an articulated concentric space with peripheral cells of offices or longitudinal corridors, ­meandering at the edge. The Archives' canteen was designed subsequently and without a kitchen, from part of the depository on the first subterranean level that rises above the surface of the sloping terrain. This level also contains an entry to the conference hall (capacity of 176 seats). The second subterranean level contains rooms for receiving documents, disinfection (with disinfection chamber), workshops, two residential flats and garages. The two-story film library has independent entrances (this location was considered provisional). From the third storey upwards the ­Archives are not open to the public. The cantilever r­ isalits 006–007 In 1971, the Ministry of Interior commissioned a new study from Vladimír Dedeček at Stavoprojekt. Dr. Martin Kusý evaluated the architecture of both Gebauer's and Dedeček's studies favourably, preferring Dedeček's as economically reasonable. (KUŠÍK 1984, p. 21) The ministry's expert committee had stated “serious ­objections” ­regarding Gebauer's design: the archive's 8-storey atrium prism concluded in a protracted depository hall, with a stepped floor built into a terrain difference of 3-storeys. Gebauer's Brutalist hall with its Lecorbusian cylindrical skylights in a flat roof and sequence of sharply­jagged avant-corpses (Risaliten) concluded in two triangular halls to the northeast and northwest. The stated objections of both the commissioning institution and the contractor centred on construction and operation of the atypical three-­level depository hall with its “­non-standard ­design” of ferro-concrete structure. The ministry's expert committee, whose membership is presently unknown, did not recommend a ­ pproving ­Gebauer's solution. (KUŠÍK 1983, pp. 42–43) The commissioning institution preferred Dedeček's design of a compact yet differentiated building with depositories in the central position. The concentric layout is based on a spatial interpretation of the relationship between the central hall depository (open space) and the circumferential rooms for operational services and administration (central and longitudinal rooms/ cells). The open space and rooms’ modularity corresponds to the module of the archive shelves; at the same time, the depository has a different arrangement, volume and relationship to circumferential services depending on its location on different storeys. The commissioning institution increased the size of the Archives beyond the original study, adding two above-ground floors and an underground film library, enlarging the entire building from 9 to 12 storeys. In this particular case, as the building is concentric, the architect resolved the gradual building’s extension and addition to its program either thanks to multi-functional, variable depository halls on particular storeys, or subtraction of spaces with differing function from that of the depository halls. “The layout is concentric. It makes use of the terrain's incline, yielding an operational cycle of 9 storeys upwards and 2 storeys downwards from the ingress level [entry floor], which is very ­advantageous for operations.” (multiple authors 1987, p. 3) The depositories and their service rooms are accessible through two vertical circulation cores (the southeastern “tower” for personnel, and the northwestern ”tower” for archive ­material with administrative offices therefore is also in this sense a borderline space, separating the depository's internal operation from services for researchers and the general public underneath. As Dr. Martin Kusý wrote in his first review of the building, the transition from the archives' four vertical risalits to the administrative section's five horizontal risalits with loggias and balconies resulted from both the program's order and the scale of the building: “This regrouping successfully transformed the grand, landscape (urban) scale to the smaller scale of the city district interior, ­including a clearly articulated entry on the axis of the whole building’s composition.”(KUSÝ 1985, p. 28) This is one of a very few indications in the architectural writing from that period and today as to how Dedeček relates the urban dimensions to architectural dimensions, and vice versa. Looking at the side facades with their three vertical risalits/projections, extending from the surface of red glass mosaic and rectilinear structure of horizontal and vertical elements (“Homogenous, full mass would have been too massive. The crucial issue was to disembody and dematerialize the mass” [ V.D. ]  13 ), it becomes apparent that the linking of urban and architectural dimensions occurs in a “small grid” of floor cornices and segmented pilasters as well as in a “large grid” of risalits/projections and receding glass mosaic sequences between them. “Large grid” also refers to the envelope of depositories supported and articulated by columns: the circumferential offices/ service spaces thus have a column ­either in the Letter from Dr. Chreňo to 6–7 the oddelenie Povereníctva vnútra SVV/3, 25 July 1958, 2 typewritten pages, signed by Chreňo. In: Fond NVB 1955–1960 (3332/1579) 154 1958, P-Š 2579. MV SR, State Archives in Bratislava (originally Archív hlavného mesta SR Bratislavy). Zápisnica z 23. februára 1959 8 na Projektovom ústave pre výstavbu mesta Bratislavy v Bratislave. Odpis. Signed by Dr. Štítny and Lieutenant Dr. Chreňo. In: Fond NVB 1955–1960 (3332/1579) 154 1958, P-Š 2579. MV SR, State Archives in Bratislava (originally Archív hlavného mesta SR Bratislavy). Investičná úloha pre výstavbu 9–11 novej budovy Slovenského národného archívu v Bratislave. By Ing. arch. Ján Zemko, I. námestník povereníka, dated 15 December 1958. Povereníctvo vnútra – Slovenská archívna správa Bratislava. Ibid. This is the name given the studio 12 in the descriptive note of the drawn documentation stored in the Slovak National Archives in Bratislava. Interview with Vladimír Dedeček, 13 in Bratislava, summer of 2014. 008 009 Construction work on archives building. Black and white photographs by TASR/Štefan Petráš. Photos dated 22 July 1980. TASR archives in Bratislava. 68 | 69 k int ii b1 The construction is of monolithic ferro-concrete, with a construction module grid of 500 × 500 cm (built with standard IS NOE Combi formwork). The floors are of monolithic panels with no ribs; the construction height of the administrative floors and public spaces is 350 cm or more, while the construction height of the depositories is minimal: 250 cm. Up to the third above-ground storey, the external walls are of monolithic ferro-­ concrete, while those higher are of metric modular brickwork (50 cm, partition walls 25 cm and 12.5 cm wide). ii → k seg 6 005 module, construction, volume, surfacing Both the standard casement windows and atypically designed interior glass walls are steelframed; in the side wall-projections casement windows change to fixed light windows, intentionally throwing light just on the peripheral area of the depository spaces with regulated lighting and air conditioning. The building surface is cladded with Croatian Kanafar sandstone, with white, red and black glass mosaic in the facade's niches. The socle and part of the film library have grey-black slate cladding. Interior walls are plastered with Dikoplast, and the floors of the common areas have a marble facing in grey and white. The depositories are furnished with modular steel shelving (Kompakt), constructed to fit the size of archive box (module). Shelving was developed, manufactured and installed by the small local manufacturing cooperative (!) Spišský priemyslový podnik Levoča. The commissioning institution requested manually operated mobile shelving, mechanically moveable on a floor/ ceiling railing system; manual controls were preferred over the architect's proposal for computer-controlled electronics with automated delivery of archive materials to the research room. The Jaroslav Nemec interiors build on his designs for the Comenius University Natural Sciences Faculty / → p. 406/ and addition to the Slovak National 0 1 1– 0 1 2 midst of a risalit/projection or at its perimeter surface. Again, neither function nor construction alone determines the distribution or layout of mass-volume; the geometry of the mono-block's differentiation is a co-determinant. Projections/ risalits unite all circumferential office clusters into the smooth vertical and horizontal strips (bands) on the facade; thus they do not offer so deep spatial differentiation of clusters as Dedeček’s pavilion schools, the housing complex Habitat at the Expo ‘67 World’s Fair (Montreal) by Moshe Safdie, or buildings by Aldo van Eyck, ­Herman Hertzberger or Paul Rudolph. → k int IV 010 Gallery / → p. 88/. The austere nature of mechanically operated shelves and work with archival materials resulted in the austere or “spartan” depository environment. In contrast, the office and administrative spaces have built-in wooden furnishings, like the laboratories and offices of the Sciences Faculty and the Slovak National Gallery administration building: in fact these are variations of wholewall modular furniture that can be assembled and fixed along the offices' corridor partition walls. Besides the storage space, cloakrooms and running water basins, this gives the offices some acoustic insulation from the corridor's main circulation spaces. The furniture niches increase the office spaces within the building, while the loggias expand it outwards. The research room interior and its smoking area were furnished with an atypical research table (for 30 users), and equipped with individual cabins for reading microfilm. The research room design featured a closed-cable television circuit. The atypical tables are of light-colour wood, and open-stack shelving of study literature is white laminated wood. Like the conference hall of the SNG addition and the lecture hall/aula maxima of Dedeček's universities, the Archives' conference hall's original drop acoustic panels ceiling and lighting system, as well as acoustic wall panel facing, was wooden. In addition to air conditioning, the hall's interior featured interpreters' cabins, and cinema equipment, with a projection screen on the main wall. Along with basic ventilation, fire control and security standards, the Archives when built was equipped with high-quality laboratory technology for conservation, restoration and reproduction of archived documents, and technical apparatus for the film library and planned audio archive. characterization → m cv Formal-stylistic Dr. Martin Kusý was the first to formulate a characterization by style, in his review of the building: “... [in the Archives] a creative method was used that we sum up under the term Socialist Realism.” (KUSÝ 1985, p. 28) The review intended Socialist R ­ ealist method of architectural design, in the specific case of this official building, as a unity of the architecture's plastic relief and functional impact, achieved in the relation of its monumentality to the individual: “A unity in the desired monumental impact was successfully accomplished, but without individual perception being repressed or insecure, and this even when directly/personally occupying this eminently necessary representative of our statehood.” (KUSÝ 1985, p. 29) More recent stylistic characterizations range from socialist architecture to modern and/or totalitarian architecture /→ p. 802/. 0 11 Sign-symbolic In his working version of the text, published in the periodical Projekt as “Architect's Statement”, Dedeček wrote, “It is a safe-deposit of documents significant to Slovakia's history, our national fund, fostering the idea of statehood.” (DEDEČEK, undated manuscript, p. 1) The text of the reviewer Dr. Martin Kusý, published together with the “Architect's Statement”, used the same term: “The Central State ­Archives of the Slovak Socialist Republic is a safe-­deposit of significant documents in Slovakia's history, our ­national treasure.” (KUSÝ 1985, p. 28); therefore apparently either the architect or the journal’s editors replaced the key word in the published version of Dedeček’s text with “strongbox”. This is why the revised, published version of Dedeček's sentence cited above reads: “After all, it is a strongbox of our history's most significant documents, thus a national fund of the highest intellectual value, supporting the idea of statehood.” (DEDEČEK 1985, p. 31) Thus architect, reviewer and editors agreed that the archives is a hybrid sign – an iconic symbol: safe-depository/ 0 12 strongbox, with its architect referring to preserving the history of nation and state. He went on: “I tried to express this basic idea in the building's composition. The massive belt engirdles four units of plastic quality, evoking a sense of unification and the strength in their coming together. The contrast of red and white (a white stone wall facing and reddish glass mosaic), traditional Slavic colours, supports this impact.” (­DEDEČEK 1985, p. 31) Nowadays the architect goes beyond the implicit, explicitly speaking of a building with off-set storeys on its orbit as of the “bonding together” of Svätopluk's twigs.14 Interview with Vladimír Dedeček, 14 in Bratislava, summer of 2014. 01 0 Considered variant of Archives building designed as stepped mastaba. Drawing. Unsigned (Vladimír Dedeček). Undated (2014). Black marker on paper. Architect’s archive. 01 1 01 2 Interior views of the conference hall and its antechamber. Black and white photographs unsigned (Igor Bačík and unknown photographer). Undated. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 70 | 71 010 k int ii b1 This bonding of the archive's three/four vertical projections is an iconic symbol of unity, denoting Slovakia's newly-acquired “independence” as well as its binding connection to the federative structure of the joint Czechoslovak state from 1968. The fact that these signs of cultural significance, whether lived-in and experienced or newly negotiated, are open to interpretation is evident in a text by Michal Kušík, who voiced what was implied in the time of the people's government: “The composition of four masses, brought together and from the exterior looped with a massive belt... is an architectural expression of the building's contents, comprising the idea of a working people's unity.” (KUŠÍK 1983, p. 44) This “iconoclash”, or battle of images and iconic signs of architecture (as opposed to iconoclasm), also provoked indirect “accusations” that the new ­Archives was in competition with Slavín memorial and military cemetery of Soviet Army soldiers who died in Slovakia during World War II. (KUŠÍK 1984, p. 22) The committee, its membership not made public, convened by the Ministry of Construction and Technology on 17 September 1975, with all institutional “seriousness” made its determination regarding whether the Archives' height increased by two storeys put it in conflict with Slavín: “As has been shown, the Slovak National Archives building is not in conflict with the cultural monument at Slavín, and the Archives' weight [mass (?)] does not infringe on the city panorama.” of 2,000 pine trees.15 The a ­ rchive-“bin of books“ would rise up out of the greenery – with windows on both sides – like the villa suburbana [or Lustschloss (maison de plaisance)] Hvězda.” [ V.D. ] The stepped mastaba, expanding into two side wings, and Prague's star-shaped villa suburbana, are thus further morphological types behind the ­Bratislava prototype for the central a ­ rchives in what was then the western approach to Bratislava. (multiple authors 1987, p. 15) project. Signed by Dedeček, undated (plan of levels p-2, p±0, p+1, Even this conclusion by the committee was not enough to counterbalance the building's controversial reception. The newspaper survey, currently unrecovered, in which the Slovak ­Archives came in first among buildings constructed in 1983 in Slovakia, similarly did not resolve the controversy; nor did the international award for archives of the year, or the Légion d'honneur bestowed in Paris on a ministry functionary without the architect's participation. This is partly because of the localization, the enlargement over the original design, and the unresolved problem of the surroundings. Looking back, the architect also speaks of how he earlier considered a stepped mastaba form for the Archives building: “A mastaba to crown the hill. I loved that hill. Oľga and I used to go there for necking, and there I set competition projects for the radio and the economics university. I really knew that land. There were supposed to be other buildings around it: [the ­architect] ­Jendreják's cultural centre and recreational hotel and schools – up to the height of the belt; and greenery too, I had proposed planting trees all around. Glaus did the project of a ­planting p+2 – p+6, p+7, roof, section and front elevation, scale 1:200). ii VI [Economy department.] Localization program of the Slovak National Archives in Bratislava. Bratislava: Ministerstvo vnútra SSR. Undated typewritten document, 3 pages. literature KUŠÍK, Michal et al. Štátny ústredný archív Slovenskej socialistickej republiky. Bratislava : Osveta, 1983. KUŠÍK, Michal. Nová budova štátneho ústredného archívu SSR. Archivistika, 19, 1984, 1, pp. 16–28. Relationship of form-stylistic and sign-symbolic characteristics KARTOUS, Peter. Nová budova štátneho ústredného archívu SSR v Bratislave. Vlastivedný časopis, 33, 1984, 4, p. 190. KUSÝ, Martin. Štátny ústredný archív SSR (review). In addition to architectural values, symbols in this building came to the forefront; indeed this was somewhat at the expense of the style and form values that dominated in some of Dedeček's work. Projekt. Revue slovenskej architektúry, 27, 1985, 4–5, pp. 28–29. [DEDEČEK, Vladimír.] Undated. [Untitled], two typewritten pages. Published as [Štátny ústredný archív SSR.] Architect's Statement, → next item. DEDEČEK, Vladimír. [Štátny ústredný archív SSR.] Architect's Statement. Projekt. Revue slovenskej architektúry, documentation archived at the sng 27, 1985, 4–5, pp. 29–31. Project documentation/project model naším prvým archívom. Projekt. Revue slovenskej architektúry, VOJTKOVÁ, Viera. [Štátny ústredný archív SSR.] Zostane 27, 1985, 4–5, pp. 32–33. Ia Slovak National Archives (SNA) Bratislava-Machnáč. [multiple authors.] Záverečné vyhodnotenie stavby Calculations for Project for Planning Permit. Signed by Dedeček, Slovenský národný archív Bratislava. Bratislava : Ministerstvo undated [dated in textual section February/March 1971] (plan vnútra SSR, 27 October 1987, 2 numbered pages with attachments. of levels p-2 and p-1; p±0, p+1 and p+2 – p+8; sections of entry, film hall and building; front and side elevations, scale 1:500). Ozalid reproduction on paper / Inv. č. A 1636/3–10/. II Slovak National Archives (SNA in Bratislava). Overall Ozalid reproduction on paper / Inv. č. A 1637/1–8/. III [Slovak National Archives in Bratislava.] Unsigned, undated (sketch of shelving 250-00, scale not given). Ozalid reproduction on paper / Inv. č. A 1638/. IV [Slovak National Archives in Bratislava.] Black and white photographs of project documentation. Unsigned, undated (plans of levels: -350; ±0 and +455; longitudinal section with entrance area, conference hall and underground film library; cross section; side elevation, scale not given). Photographs unsigned, undated / Inv. č. A 1639/1–16/. V [Slovak National Archives in Bratislava.] Black and white photographs of completed building (views of entrance to site and front facade; view into conference hall antechamber, and into conference hall interior). Photographs unsigned (Igor Bačík and unknown photographer), undated. /Inv. č. A 1639/17–22/. Textual, not a part of project Ib Slovak National Archives, Bratislava-Machnáč. Project for building permission. Signed by Dedeček, dated February 1971. Typewritten, 52 numbered pages and attachments / Inv. č. A 1636/2/. 15 GLAUS, Alexander – ČEJKA, Gustáv – WAGNER, Bohdan – GALUSZKA, Eduard. Zazeleňovanie miest a dedín. Knižnica novej dediny. Part 2. Bratislava : Slovenské vydavateľstvo pôdohospodárskej literatúry, 1963, 541 pages. 72 | 73 k int iii The Supreme Court and Ministry of Justice of the Slovak Socialist Republic, currently the Supreme Court and the Ministry of Justice of the Slovak Republic b1 Model interpretations iii location Volumetric study and project for planning permission stage i stage ii stage iii iii Župné námestie 13, 814 90 Bratislava Vladimír Dedeček, 1977 1 Supreme Court and the Ministry of Justice building Ministry of Culture building with above-ground parking and pedestrian zone (unbuilt) International hotel and training facility building with underground garages (unbuilt) Structural engineering project interior architecture project Execution project general contractor Miloš Hartl, T.[?] Tončev, Mária Rothová (ferro-concrete construction) J aroslav Nemec Vladimír Dedeček (chief architect), Beata Juríková, Jaroslav Nemec, Eva Volková (d. 1988) (supervising architects for project and construction) and Studio IV/04, 1978–1988 2 Stavoprojekt Bratislava Investor Supreme Court of the Slovak Socialist Republic, Ministry of Justice of the SSR construction Stavoindustria Bratislava, 1984 – November 1989, approval of building January 1990 3 building volume (total built space) 84,232 m3 expenses 123 mil. 573 thou. Kčs building type Administrative building with public space and car park Architect's dating: 1984– 1 in process. In: Životopis z 26. novembra 1987. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. Dating verified by project documentation ( → Documentation archived at the SNG, item I in this chapter). Dated based on publication: 2 MRÁZEK, Pavol – SKALA, Jozef (eds.). Stavoprojekt, Bratislava 1949–1989. Bratislava : Alfa, 1989, unpaginated. [Chapter on Vyššia občianska vybavenosť.] 3 Dated based on introductory notes to the published text: DEDEČEK, Vladimír. [Budova Najvyššieho súdu Slovenskej republiky v Bratislave.] Architect's Note. Projekt. Revue slovenskej architektúry, 33, 1991, 7–8, p. 47. 001 View of the completed Court building. Black and white photograph unsigned. Undated. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 74 | 75 k int iii 024 – 026 building(s) and its/their spatial relationships The subject of the original design was an urban and architectural plan for three urban buildings in three construction stages. Only the central building was actually built: the Supreme Court and the Ministry of Justice (Stage I). The building to be situated in front of this (the Ministry of Culture and Historic Monuments Conservation Institute government building – Stage II) was not built, nor was the building beyond the Court (an international hotel with a training centre – Stage III). This new city “block” of state and government office buildings at Staromestská ulica street had been intended to form together a symbolic new “southern gate” to the “city on the Danube” from Petržalka toward the wider historical city centre. 002 building site (situation) b1 The building was constructed at the new borderline space between Bratislava's “old” (inner) town and “new” town (outside the fortification walls). A recent expressway and bridge, connecting Old Town on the Danube's right bank with the new Petržalka housing estate on the left, defined this convergence. The Court is situated so as to enclose a city block between the former Októbrové (now Župné) námestie square and Staromestská ulica street (formerly called Za Kapucínmi, and later Židovská). Corner building sites were defined after some Za Kapucínmi/Židovská street residential houses were demolished and the Most SNP bridge built (Jozef Lacko – Ladislav Kušnír – Ivan Slameň, project and construction 1968–1973). This new bridge connected the historical centre with the new panel housing estate Petržalka, paradoxically in the very space in between the Bratislava Castle on the hill with its extramural settlement and the fortified city centre. In conjunction with demolishing part of the extramural area and the Jewish quarter in the 1960s, because of a questionable location of the bridge and its access ramps above the surface rather than below it, an archaeological survey was made possible. This facilitated the uncovering and reconstruction of remnants of the medieval western fortification wall. The reconstruction took place in two phases, concluding in the 1990s. According to Bratislava's master plan [Smerný územný plán], by the city's chief architect Milan Beňuška and supervising architect Ján Steller with a group of architects of the City Architect of Bratislava office (approved by the government in 1963), these newly planned state 003 004 005 006 iii 007 008 and government buildings on Staromestská were to stand on the building sites that came about as a result of razed and converted parcels of Bratislava's wider centre: the city blocks between the streets of Šmeralova (now Kapucínska), Veterná and Suché mýto. This remains one of the most-­ debated urban and architectural interventions into the historical structure of an expanding Bratislava, which even now has its tenacious ­ antagonists, unyielding advocates, and nostalgic healers of untreatable wounds. The Court's triangular building site at this location was one of the most problematic in terms of urban planning and of geological survey results, particularly as concerned the Court's imposing city “block” and two ministries; paradoxically these were to stand adjacent, amid the tension between newly-uncovered layers of historical and contemporary Bratislava, some accentuated and others belittled. On the street corner, the architect located the building in the triangle of streets of Staromestská, Kapucínska and Župné námestie, such that the main entry faced the only newly-clear ground with a view of the Castle hill and the Bratislava ­Castle – toward the busy road to the bridge along ­Staromestská street. Following the site's triangularity, the building faces northwest, its long zigzag side facade with continuous loggia toward the front of what is now the City Administrative Building [Obvodný úrad Bratislava]. The shorter of the zigzag side facades faces the Capuchin Church and Friary area and the front of the Technický dom (now housing the journalists' organization Slovenský syndikát novinárov; designed by Emil Belluš in 1943 and completed during the war 4 ). Dated per DULLA, Matúš. 4 Architekt Emil Belluš. Bratislava : Slovart, 2010, p. 314. 002 003 Planned building complex, Court and Ministries, in relation to Bratislava Castle. Presentation model in laminate and black and white photographs unsigned. Undated. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. First project for Court building by Tibor Gebauer. Najvyšší súd SSR. Localization and volumetric study. Signed by Gebauer (Študijný projektový a typizačný ústav Bratislava). Undated. Scale 1:500. Reproduction and ozalid reproduction on paper. Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 004 Plan of level ±0 (ground floor) 005 1st storey plan. 006 2nd storey plan. 007 Section. 008 Western [front] elevation. 009 Southwestern [side] elevation. 009 76 | 77 k int iii 010 010 b1 To the southwest the new block is bounded by the Neo-Romanesque Capuchin Church of Saint Steven's (building process initiated around 1708, consecrated 1717,5 19th century neo-style facade rebuilt by Ignác F ­ eigler the younger in 1860–1861 and friary in 1708–1712). To the southeast the new block's fourth side is enclosed by the Trinitarian Monastery (1721–1739, refurbished from a military hospital by Ignác Feigler the younger to become the County House [Župný dom] in 1844). On the street corner, the Baroque Church of Saint John of Matha (by Franz Jänggl and Johann Lukas von Hildebrandt, building process initiated 1717, consecrated 1725) dynamizes the facades of Župné námestie square. In relation to the Church of Saint John of Matha historians often mention a reminiscence of Borromini (for example the ­ facade of Rome's Oratório San Filippo Neri, designed and built 1637–1650) and numerous Viennese exemplars, particularly the Church of Saint Peter's.6 All the Bratislava historical structures mentioned here, amongst which the new buildings were to stand subject to the preservation authority's approval, on 23 October 1963 were registered as historical monuments and became protected conservation sites (this was a Cultural Monuments conservation classification; they were reclassified as National Cultural Monuments in 1989). Dedeček set the height of all the buildings he designed to match the top of the County House [Župný dom] roof. Behind the former Župný dom (at the time the seat of Slovakia's parliament [Slovenská národná rada], now called Národná rada ­Slovenskej republiky) he planned an international hotel and training centre with underground garages, to continue all the way to Veterná ulica. An administrative building with ground-floor retail space was intended to complete the city block on Suché mýto (later, the Slovenská sporiteľňa, a.s. high-rise bank was built here, as designed by the Ivan Marko's studio; 1985–1994, now refurbished). Dedeček planned the new Ministry of Culture building with car park and pedestrian zone in the Court's foreground, on the building site 0 11 0 12 iii ­elonging to the former Capuchin Friary. His b project proposed refurbishing the church and the southeastern wing of the friary; the remaining three wings were to have been razed. This razing, and the associated construction of the Ministry of Culture and Historic Monuments Conservation Institute building with the pedestrian zone, were not built in the 1980s; nor did the planned refurbishment of the Capuchin Church and part of the Friary take place.7 004 – 009 programmatic and spatial solution During the design process, the localization program changed, and was never finalized before construction began. Architect Tibor Gebauer of Bratislava's State’s Institute for Design and Typification [Štátny projektový a typizačný ústav] designed the first study (though the year is not given in the documentation), as was the case of the central Archives. Gebauer proposed a ­triangular HOLČÍK, Štefan – RUSINA, 5 Ivan. Heslo Kostol a kláštor kapucínov (entry. In: Umenie Bratislavy. Tatran : Bratislava, 1987, pp. 353–354. → also Heslo Kostol a kláštor trinitárov on pp. 355–356. 013 FIDLER, Petr. Heslo 30–31. 6 Kostol a kláštor trinitárov. In: RUSINA, Ivan (ed.). Dejiny slovenského výtvarného umenia. Barok. SNG : Bratislava, 1998, p. 395. The state's conservation authority, 7 Štátny ústav pamiatkovej starostlivosti (ŠÚPS) in Bratislava, prepared a study for refurbishment of this site. Ing. arch. Hana Petraturová designed the project for Reconstruction of the Capuchin’s Friary in Bratislava (September 1983), and also prepared the project Bratislava. Former Capuchin’s Friary. Revitalization for the ÚŠPS (Ústredie štátnej pamiatkovej starostlivosti) and ŠÚPS (August 1984) in Planning Institute for Cultural Buildings [Projektový ústav kultúry (PÚK)] in Bratislava. In: Archives of Capuchin’s Friary in Bratislava [Kláštor kapucínov v Bratislave]. For the chance to read this project documentation, I thank doc. Mgr. Ladislav Tkáčik, Ph.D., OFMCap, among whose areas of interest is Capuchin architecture, and who recently published the book TKÁČIK, Ladislav. priestor, miesto, kláštor. Trnava, Pezinok: FF TU v Trnave a Kláštor Kapucínov v Pezinku, 2016. 01 0 Presentation model in laminate of Court and Ministry of Interior, with indication of placement of art works on facades. Model signed by Vladimír Dedeček, black and white photograph unsigned. Both undated. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. Supreme Court building – Bratislava. Najvyšší súd SSR. I. stavba. Project signed by Dedeček. Undated. Scale 1:200. Black and white photograph unsigned. Undated. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 01 1 Plan of level p+1. 01 2 Plan of ±0 level (ground floor). 01 3 Plan of level p+2. 01 4 [Section] r1. 014 78 | 79 iii 010 k int 015 0 1 1– 0 1 4 016 b1 017 iii building with a monumental entry staircase. The building was to have had a curved bi-focal atrium, and three subterranean/five above ground storeys. The ground floor featured a roofed arena under the atrium, devided into 8 courtrooms. Loggias (which in varying rhythms articulated all the court’s facades) formed the three-axis front facade with a monumental entrance designed as an analogy of classical Colossal Order. Commissioning ­institutions faced the problem – as they did with the Archives – of building an atypical space based on “... a solution of the main construction that was too irregular” and with a wide span. (FORRÓ 1991, p. 53) The construction firms addressed were neither able nor willing to build, within the planned timeframe and given budget, a non-prestressed ferro-concrete construction with three subterranean levels (span 20 m, construction height 3.20 m) on such a problematic substratum (the Capuchin friary and church had tackled similar problems: the foundations settled in a boggy soil, and the military engineer and master mason Donato ­Felice D’Allio 8 from Vienna had in 1736–1737 stabilized the foundations structurally, with fi ­ nancial ­support by Archbishop Imrich Esterházy). Under pressure from the contractors, the commissioning institution rejected Gebauer's study, and reached out to Stavoprojekt and Dedeček's Studio IV for educational and cultural buildings. Under the given circumstances, the architect took into consideration the building sites' characteristics, and the comments by the investors constantly expanding the Court’s building program. Though able to draw on construction solutions of his cultural and administrative projects that he continually developed and tested, under pressure from the construction contractors he had to redesign his original project twice. At one point, the investor terminated the contractor in dramatic negotiations. The ongoing problems this project faced in this demanding location make clear the prevailing conditions in a stagnating 1980–1990s construction industry unable to adapt, under increasing decline from previous periods. One result of this was the requirement of a “highly standardized construction” in a concentric floor plan. “Furthermore, we wanted the building’s ground floor not to be overly open and glassed, mainly for reasons of security, so as not to have to put bars around the whole perimeter, in respect of concerns prevailing at the time.” (FORRÓ 1991, p. 53) Like Peter Gebauer before him, for this cramped and noisy “corner” (not welcoming for pedestrians) Vladimír Dedeček opted for a compact mono-block with atrium; however, he gave it a somewhat more spacious foreground area, other of the architect's buildings, the ceremonially representational spaces are mostly the meeting halls, common areas and ground level entries. The entry is introduced by external stairway leading to an entry canopy, and continues through a modest vestibule with the two institutions' doorkeepers, into two circumferential branches of extensive and spatially differentiated common space [respírium] around the central courtrooms. A ­ cycle of large-scale stained glass walls by National Artist* [Národný umelec] Vincent Hložník and the painter Ľubomír Zelina (proposed 1984 (?), made and installed 1985 10/1986 11 ), depicting a ­llegoric figures and * National Artist – honorary title issued since 1945, by a special law since 1948 (amended in 1953 and 1963): “The President of the Republic, the government or its members may offer this recognition for outstanding activity in the public interest” (1945). Donato Felice D’Allio (b. 1677 in 8 Como, d. 1761 at Vienna), a master bricklayer, military engineer and Baroque builder. He apprenticed with Francesco Martinelli (1651–1708). His teachers and role models were probably Antonio Maria Niccolo Beduzzi (1675–1735) and Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach (1656– 1723). He became the royal builder of fortifications in Vienna in 1711. → k seg 6 From 1716 to 1721, he collaborated with Johann Lucas von Hildebrandt → k int I with a sparer staircase leading to the planned but unbuilt pedestrian zone. He aligned the Court’s front facade with the Capuchin church's rear facade, where Gebauer had situated it closer to the busy road, about halfway along the friary, with the staircase at the friary's edge. Dedeček differentiated the courtrooms on the Court's ground level into two groups, divided by a crosswise corridor with indoor entries. He faced the two large courtroom spaces (with about 180 seats, in an auditorium with dais for the members of the Court) and a smaller one (of about 50 seats) toward the main entry, and added 5 smaller courtrooms depth-wise. All of them receive light through the atrium, and are accessible such that they can also serve as meeting rooms for the Ministry or public conference space. Waiting areas and common spaces are arranged around these. Both institutions have administrative offices on the upper storeys around the atrium. The architect planned the canteen and kitchen, as well as the justice ministry's information and computer centre, for the sixth and highest above ground level with a view of the city. The single buildable subterranean level houses the archive, infrastructure spaces, garage, and temporary holding cells. The other subterranean levels went unbuilt because of the foundation problems. The zigzag facades correspond to the orthogonal sinuating indoor corridors. By reconsidering the standard linear corridor, the a ­ rchitect 0 1 5 –0 1 7 0 1 9 –0 2 2 018 achieved its sectioning into orthogonal meanders that in fact combine the longitudinal with the central space, thus combining motion paths with stasis. Without these, the side circumferential corridors within this triangular building site would take on overwhelming and unarticulated lengths. The corridors here are in fact variations on the orthogonal meanders the architect designed for the front pavilions of Bratislava's Comenius University Faculty of Natural Sciences in Bratislava-Mlynská dolina / → p. 406  /, and even more so in Modra-Harmónia's Regional Political School / → p. 56  /. Corridors on the Court’s perimeter correspond to the continuous loggia. As in Modra-Harmónia, they have a role in providing light and a view outside, but considering the parameters of available building insulation here they were also meant to function as partial noise diffusion and inhibitors.9 Whereas Gebauer had designed loggias for this purpose, Dedeček's preliminary solution was exterior walkway galleries/ loggias: for spatial reasons and also because soundproofing triple glassed windows were at the time not available as a solution to the problem of the noisy bridge overpass next to the Court building (FORRÓ 1991, p. 53) The interior is served by four main circulation towers (with elevator lifts and stair­cases) in the corners and five secondary staircases along the sides of the courtrooms. As in some in building the Piarist Church. In addition to many secular buildings, he had a hand from 1717 to 1728 in building Vienna's Salesianerinnenkirche und Kloster (Salesian Church and Convent). He was not to complete the complex refurbishment of the Abbey at Klosterneuburg under the influence of Joseph Bernhard Fischer von Erlach, which D‘Allio began in 1730 and was completed by Joseph Emmanuel Fischer von Erlach (1693–1742). D’Allio also worked in the service of Archbishop Imrich Esterházy, who invited him to Bratislava in 1735/6–37, to shore up the foundations and complete the Capuchin church. → BRÜCHER, Ginter. Barockarchitektur in Österreich. Köln: DuMont, 1983; Barock, Geschichte der bildenden Kunst in Österreich. Hrsg. von Hellmut Lorenz, Band 4. Barock. München; London; New York : Prestel, 1999. Dedeček was working on the 9 basis of both the acoustic expert’s opinion of the Stavoprojekt architect Ivan Kuhn and the book: LINDE, Horst (ed.). Hochschulplanung. Beiträge zur Struktur und Bauplanung. Bände 1–4. Düsseldorf : Werner Verlag, 1969–1971. Dated based on information given 10 on the stained glass. Dated based on publication 11 PETRÁNSKY, Ľudovít. Vincent Hložník. Bratislava : Tatran, 1997, 391 pages. 01 5 Courtroom interior design. Signed by Nemec. Dated ’81. Black and white photograph unsigned. Undated. Architect’s archive. 01 6 01 7 Interior design of Court and Ministry public entrance area, with stained glass window by Vincent Hložník. Perspective. Signed by Nemec. Dated ’86. Black and white photographs unsigned. Undated. Architect’s archive. 01 8 View of courtroom interior. Black and white photograph unsigned. Undated. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG 80 | 81 01 9 b1 Mutually complementary rhythmic articulation (wide or narrow) of plastic-relief fields prevail on the facades. In contrast to the Archives, on the Court building the change of scale occurs not in large vs small grids, but through a differentiation of vertical and horizontal elements on the sides and the front facade. The side verticals facing Old Town (with Hložník's stained glass walls) have a gentler, finer articulation. The facade's optical narrowing and heightening point contextually to Belluš' raised entry to Dom novinárov house and to the alteration of the urban and architectural context of the Court, aligned with the street line of both the Baroque Classicism of Župný dom house and the Dynamic Baroque of ­Trinitarian Church. 0 19 0 20 iii Six cantilever above-ground stories projecting over the Court's receding ground floor house the administrative offices of various court and ministry departments. In his sketches, the architect submitted this administrative section with a preliminary suggestion of partition walls, to allow the commissioner to adjust later the final partition arrangement. (FORRÓ 1991, p. 53) In the effort at fitting in all the necessary departments, and at providing employees with separate offices, the commissioning institution preferred some exceptionally small or narrow offices. After the building was open, the smallest of these came in for the greatest occupant criticism. (DZURILLA 1991, p. 54) It became clear that cutting a storey up into tiny offices did not make for satisfactory building occupancy. 01 1 –01 2 scenes from ­Bratislava and ­Slovakia's ­history, are set in the side zigzag ­facade.12 The stained glass walls colour the light of the secular interior, thus symbolically distancing it from the everyday time and space of the street and the city's rhythm. In Dedeček's words, Vincent Hložník (who was then working in religious themes) was permitted to make this monumental work of art in these key public court and justice ministry spaces thanks only to personal preferential treatment and guarantees 13 by the interior minister and professor JUDr. Ján Pjesčak, DrSc., who knew Hložník and Zelina's monumental stained glass walls (1984) on the first storey of the Košice II District Court, with the motif of building a new village and city, agriculture and industry – and these particular themes interested him. Ministry officials approached Hložník even though he had been ­removed from his teaching position at the Academy of Fine Arts and from public life in the 1970s because of his objections to the Warsaw Pact ­armies' incursion into Czechoslovakia. The bronze sculptural relief Will of the People [Vôľa ľudu] 14 (proposed alternatives 1984– 1989 (?), made 1989, installed 1990), by the sculptor Alexander Trizuljak, came about as a direct commission by the investor. It was placed on the wall next to the entry canopy. A further sculptural relief, Revolutionary Idea in Centuries [­Revolučná idea v storočiach] (proposed 1984–1989 (?), made 1989, installed 1990), by the sculptor Ludwik Korkoš, runs along the side facade toward the ­ Župné námestie square, facing Belluš' flag brackets and the “orator’s balcony” on the face of Technický dom/Dom novinárov house. Analogous “­Juliet's balconies” or “Juliet's windows”, as Dedeček euphemistically called them,15 characterize many of Belluš' classicizing buildings. For the Court, Dedeček reacted to these French windows with balconies on Belluš' Dom novinárov facade by employing atypical designs of vertical narrow “French windows without balconies” on the vertically articulated side facade. In other words, Dedeček was identifying less monumentally with the ­Belluš school than Tibor Gebauer had in his own design for the Court's front facade. It is noteworthy how Dedeček's Court front facade with the external walking galleries' extensive horizontals facing the Castle turns 90˚, to the dynamic tempo of narrow vertical walls with narrow windows in the zigzag stone facade toward Župné námestie square's modernized historical space. Thus the Court has two types of very different facades: one with external walking galleries (horizontal and smooth) and the other with walls and windows (vertical and striated). 019– 020 iii 021 k int 021 Interview with Vladimír 12 –13 Dedeček, in Bratislava, summer of 2014. Project documentation 14 –17 includes photographs of the ink drawing and three variations of the sculptural relief, all with a central female figure (an allegory of Freedom and Justice [?]) holding aloft the state symbol. The variations differ in how they render the flag over the figures' heads. The architect agreed with the artist on a variation with no flag. Undated. (Photographs of the works of art are collaged onto the building's physical model; the relief's first variations may have existed when the model was made, about 1984. A second presentation model was only made near the end of the building’s construction, but all the artists were selected and approached at once, the year construction began (1984). Hložník and Dedeček consulted the works' themes and motifs when work began, after which Hložník presented no variations. Korkoš did not consult, but worked with one variant that he then developed and delivered. Trizuljak 022 submitted variations, and as was agreed with the architect the two of them selected one final variant. This meant that the way the architect cooperated with individual artists differed for various buildings, based on the phase in which the artist's proposals entered into the architect's design, and on whether it became the subject of further artist-architect cooperation.) From an interview with Vladimír Dedeček, in Bratislava, summer of 2014. 01 9 020 Composition of side facade opposite Belluš' Technický dom/ Dom novinárov. Pencil drawing on whitened part of black and white photograph. Unsigned. Undated. Black and white photographs unsigned. Undated. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 021 Will of the People [Vôľa ľudu]. Ink drawing. Marked lower left: A. Trizuljak 1987. Three sculptural reliefs of the same name unmarked (A. Trizuljak). Undated. Black and white photographs unsigned. Undated. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 022 023 View of Court's front and side facades. Perspective. First unsigned (Nemec). Undated. Second signed by Nemec. Dated ’85. Black and white photographs unsigned. Undated. Architect’s archive. 023 82 | 83 The module is 500 × 500 cm and 500 × 750 cm. The construction system is monolithic industrial ferro-­ concrete. The ferro-concrete column construction is filled with brick walls or profiled c ­ oncrete panels and a layer of monolithic ­concrete coating with no colouring. The side facades and small entry canopy are cladded with light-colour Kanfanar sandstone from Croatia (analogous to the Slovak National Archives in Bratislava / → p. 64  / ). The architect had intended to clad the Court's side facade toward Župné námestie square – opposite to Belluš' travertine facade – with travertine from the Slovak region of Spiš. “There were no more large pieces to be cut from the Spiš quarry without threatening the stability of the Spiš Castle under which they lay. The stone cladding prepared from approachable parts of the quarry cracked at the granite veins abundant with travertine.” [ V.D. ] 16 Dedeček rejected a cladding of irregular stone fragments (alá pseudo-Cyclopean masonry), and ultimately the side facade was faced with the same stone panels of imported Kanafar as the other facades.17 As with the political school in ModraHarmónia and the Institute in Bratislava-­ Dúbravka, the architect's signature white/red/ black colour combination (as tested on schools, the Slovak National Gallery and the Slovak National Archives) is absent from the Court and Ministry of Justice building. The latter, as a stately government building, is essentially monochromatic, in shades of sand and exposed concrete colours, with dark brown detailing and bronze monumental artworks. The only other colouring comes from the glass walls, interiors and surrounding city. This is another indication that Dedeček's use of dynamizing white/red/black glass mosaic had more than just a “political” intent and the tenor of authoritative power, as is often ascribed to him. They also had an autonomous architectural program and function, beyond just representing the undifferentiated power of that period's “state-party rule”. White, black and red is more than just a symbol of “communist/totalitarian” and/or “modern” architecture. It is more than just a continuation of the tradition of using red and white as “Slavic colours” / → p. 71  /. The preference for these colours also refers to the architect's relating since his childhood and youth to work from the studios of the painters Benka, Bazovský and Kubínčan in Martin / → p. 666  /, and to drawing and painting study with František Kudláč and Ladislav Záborský.18 Indeed, Dedeček never used the basic code of red as offering a glaring → M cv → k int II → k int IV → k int II 011– 012 Module, construction, volume, surfacing b1 iii ­ontrast to the two elementary non-chromatic c colours (white/black) for government buildings or state administration employee training centres. For such buildings, the most typical colour was a monochrome shade of natural colour of material, the highest-quality and best-enduring that were available: natural and artificial stone, exposed concrete (béton brut), wood, polished metal, glass... He used all these for interiors and exteriors, combining them with temporary surfacing of the quality that was available: dry plastering (Neoponit), surface paintwork and PVC of higher or lower quality... Jaroslav Nemec designed the Court and Ministry of Justice interior as a complex work of interior design, made and installed at a much higher level of quality than that at which the building itself was built. Light-colour leather seating designed in basic geometrical forms with massive metal rectangular bases are paired with the wooden rectangles of low wooden tables. The tectonic and modular coordination of the furniture correspond to the building's tectonics and module and articulation of mass/volume. The drop ceiling rectangular panels optically heighten the interior, and the atypical lighting gives it articulation as well... White wooden dais pieces, the memorable design of the atypically-layered white and brown justices' tables, grey auditorium seating and variously oriented vertical panels of the illuminated wooden drop ceiling dominated the stepped main courtroom with its “inserted” and built-in interior. Some of the original furnishings have been replaced. The courtrooms, along with the offices and canteen, had more diverse colouring. The meticulous combination (and modular coordination) of the substantial, almost ­Miesian, and yet also Brutalist furnishings is Jaroslav Nemec's unique contribution to the qualities of the space, as was the case with the additions to the Slovak National Gallery. / → p. 88 / They were designed and built using commonly-available ­ materials, but with the same coherence of design and sense for expressing the building's differentiation and multi-dimensionality in the interior (some of the interiors were removed during refurbishment in the 1990s, and others during o ­ ngoing renovation of the SNG). In spite of the economic and political priorities entailed in constructing the new Court and Ministry building, the construction problems were inordinately greater than in the architect's previous projects. The investor put it aptly: “The building was built during a collapse in the local market for construction materials and ­technological products.” (FORRÓ 1991, p. 53) characterization Formal-stylistic → m cv → M cv iii 015– 017 k int The first reviews by Bohuslav Kraus and Ján K ­ odoň in 1991 did not include style characterizations, ­although they interpreted the building as formalist (they saw the continuous loggia as “formalistically nonsensical”. (KRAUS – KODOŇ 1991, p. 94) / → p. 775 / Another way of “stylistically” characterizing the building came from art historian Peter Szalay in 2005 in his thesis: “... in ignoring the nearby historical buildings, which [Dedeček] would just as soon have overlaid with a flat line of facades, there is a palpable modernist bias, but likewise an attempt to find an object for architectural dialogue.” This would imply that the Court building was modernist while also attempting dialogue with the surrounding architecture from other historical periods. The German critic and curator of the Deutsches Architekturmuseum Oliver Elser offered another stylistically embedded term, in the context of Dedeček's oeuvre and the work of his generational peers, in foreword to the book Eastmodern, where Elser characterized it as “Slovakian Eastmodernism” / → p. 792 /. Sign-symbolic Before the review came out by the architects Kraus and Kodoň, the architect and critic, Professor Štefan Šlachta published a 1990 article, “The Sins of Architecture”.19 He wrote: “Yet there is an error of luxury in the quantity of balconies on the facade of what is an office building. Likewise ­erroneous in light of the heavily-travelled pedestrian zone is the uninteresting dead-ended ground floor. The building's entryway from this zone ignores the public, and it was a lucky thing the seven-level underground garage originally proposed here was never built. Thank the Lord the architect's study for common garages in place of the Capuchin ­Friary was never built either... To be sure, some will find this criticism of the aforementioned buildings by Ing. architect Dedeček overly harsh and uncharitable. We were certainly unaccustomed to hearing it in the past. We have to recognize though that these buildings of his were more than once used as arguments against the quality of Slovak architects per se, as evident proof that Slovakia's architecture was poor and at a low level. We cannot respond lukewarmly to this, and we cannot go along with it. The aim of distancing ourselves from such construction and revealing the circumstances of its genesis is guided by an effort to prevent our having to ­forestall ­something similar happening tomorrow.” → M cv On the one hand Professor Šlachta was touching on formalism and form (the multiplication of “balconies” as proliferation, and the dead-end ground floor as loss of form and articulation), and on the other he sees Dedeček's buildings, including the Court, as the embodiment of sins and faults of “pro-regime” architecture. And he revisits them as “cautionary” signals or signs. His intent was apparently not semantic analysis of the Court building, nor did he use semiotic terminology. Moreover, if we were to probe the basis on which Dedeček's buildings are exemplary of faults and sins, and who so regards them, we arrive one way or another at questions of convention, i.e. to the elementary assumption of the symbol as such. Yet a defective or partial symbol is what is at issue. For the fact that certain buildings, in the opinion of critics of the age, are to be regarded as typical of the age or of the age's societal or political regime (an age considered an error of historic proportions, automatically implying that the buildings must themselves be the regime's errors and sins) is not usually guaranteed by general cultural custom, but rather by a convention applied by certain social, societal and political groups. At some point in the future, this convention may come to seem symptomatic of how these groups function as they punish the toppled regime, casting the "critic" in the role of someone using terms of political judgements. In this sense, what was considered a “symbol” b ­ ecomes motivated, and therefore ­indexical sign. Furthermore, the rhetoric of error, faults and falsehoods evokes the existence of “right” and truthful solutions; this is equally symptomatic, indicating among other things the modernist education of generations of Slovakia's architect/ critics. And using a building as a warning and caution regarding faults, or as an example of the kind of faults to be avoided, is a “hidden” instruction, i.e. an index indicating a way; it is veiled now by an unspoken, defective, partial symbol, now by an implied convention: of architectural error and historical error, or of a right expression of life in truth, which might indicate iconism. first suggests that what Dedeček emphasized in some “party-stately” buildings of the regime (e.g. symbolism in the case of Central Archives) is in fact suppressed in directly “political” or “disciplining” buildings (the Political School in ModraHarmónia, and the Supreme Court), according to critical reactions. The second inversion associated with criticism of the period is even more surprising: the process that Dedeček implied, which could be interpreted as an effort to “obscure” these buildings' plainly political impact (the external walking galleries around the building, the ground level with stained glass depicting historical themes and the allegorical figures hidden in the interior, the abstract geometry of curve of the entry canopy...) are either interpreted as faults and formalist meaninglessness, attributed to a “fallacious and truthless” era, or understood as a “fabricated”, partial and defective symbol, even as “artificial” iconism (the curves of the entry canopy as “contours of a guillotine with an ­oversized blade” ‹KRAUS – KODOŇ 1991, p. 94› / → p. 775 / ). of intended facade reliefs. Modelmaker and photographer not given, undated / Inv. č. A 1705/11–14 /. VIII courtrooms (positives and negatives). Unsigned, undated / Inv. č. A 1705/41–56, 61,64 /. IX central allegorical figure with no flag, with a waving flag, and with a waving flag in relief). Relief artist and photographer not given, photo undated / Inv. č. A 1705/57–60/. X [Supreme Court.] Album of black and white photographs of the project and construction (plan of level p ±0 with courtrooms, scale not given; typical storey plan, scale 1:200; lengthwise building section; front and side elevation of finished building, courtroom and office interiors, and staircase detail, scale not given). Project documentation signed by Dedeček and Volková, undated. Photographs unsigned, undated / Inv. č. A 1705/65–76/. Textual, not part of the project Supreme Court of the Slovak Socialist Republic. Building and volume study. Technical report. Signed by Gebauer, Študijný documentation archived at the sng projektový a typizačný ústav Bratislava, undated (project documentation: plan of levels -II and -I; ±0, +1, +2, +3 – +5, Project documentation/project model roof plan, western elevation, southwestern elevation, section, scale 1:500). Ozalid reproduction on paper / Inv. č. A 1704/1–20/. I Supreme Court – administrative building. Study. Signed by Dedeček, dated 1977 (plan of level p±0; side elevation p2 of Court building; front elevation p3 of Ministry of Culture building literature and Historic Monuments Conservation Institute, scale 1:500). Ozalid reproduction on paper / Inv. č. A 1706/1–4/. II [Supreme Court.] Outline. Unsigned, undated (plan of Budova Najvyššieho súdu Slovenskej republiky. Signed by Dedeček, dated 20 June 1990, 5 typewritten pages. level ±0, scale not given). Tracing paper, pencil / Inv. č. A 1707/1–3/. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, [Supreme Court.] Pencil drawing on whitened part of black Applied Arts and Design SNG. Published as DEDEČEK, III and white photograph. Corner elevations of administrative building Vladimír. [Budova Najvyššieho súdu Slovenskej republiky next to Capuchin Church and Friary [photographed from Belluš' v Bratislave.] Architect's Note. Projekt. Revue slovenskej Dom novinárov building]. Unsigned, undated. Positive, black pencil, architektúry, 33, 1991, 7–8, pp. 50–51. white tempera / Inv. č. A 1705/7/. IV [Supreme Court.] Black and white photographs of project ŠLACHTA, Štefan. Hriechy architektúry. Príroda a spoločnosť, 39, 1990, 20, pp. 18–20. documentation. Signed by Dedeček, Volková, undated (plan KRAUS, Bohuslav – KODOŇ, Ján. Budova Najvyššieho of level ±0, scale 1:500; plan of levels p+1, p+2, scale 1:200). súdu Slovenskej republiky v Bratislave (review). Projekt. Photographs signed by Igor Bačík and unsigned, undated Revue slovenskej architektúry, 33, 1991, 7–8, pp. 47–49. / Inv. č. A 1705/1–6 /. V [Supreme Court.] Black and white photographs FORRÓ, Július. [Budova Najvyššieho súdu Slovenskej republiky v Bratislave.] Investor's Statement. Projekt. Revue slovenskej architektúry, 33, 1991, 7–8, p. 53. of Culture and Historic Monuments Conservation Institute DZURILLA, Pavol. [Budova Najvyššieho súdu Slovenskej buildings. Modelmaker and photographer not given, undated republiky v Bratislave.] Occupiers' Statement. Projekt. / Inv. č. A 1705/21–40 /. Revue slovenskej architektúry, 33, 1991, 7–8, p. 54. VI In the case of the Court and Ministry of Justice building, writing during the period pointed to the difficulty of characterizing in terms of style and aesthetic. Judgments on it are characterized by a conspicuous double inversion: the [Supreme Court.] Black and white photographs of drawing and clay model of front sculptural relief (3 versions: XI of laminated presentation model of Supreme Court, Ministry Relationship of form-stylistic and sign-symbolic characteristics [Supreme Court.] Black and white photographs of building under construction, and interiors of small [Supreme Court.] Black and white photographs of early laminated presentation model, with locations of intended facade sculptural reliefs indicated (scale 1:200). Modelmaker and photographer not given, undated / Inv. č. A 1705/8–10, 15–20 /. VII [Supreme Court.] Black and white photographs of later white presentation model, with collaged photographs 16–17 → p. 83 → MITÁŠOVÁ, Monika. Vladimír Dedeček. Stávanie sa architektom. SNG : Bratislava, 2017. 18 19 ŠLACHTA, Štefan. Hriechy architektúry. Príroda a spoločnosť, 39, 1990, 20, p. 20. 84 | 85 k int iii 024 025 026 b1 iii 024 Reconstruction and addition to “Capuchins’”. [Church and Friary]. [Study]. Signed by Dedeček. Dated ‘79. [Elevation] P. [front of Court with Ministry of Culture and Historic Monuments Conservation Institute building at right]. Scale 1:500. Ozalid reproduction on paper. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 025 Information Centre – R, Hotel ***** – N. [Study]. Signed by Dedeček. Undated. [Building site (Situation)]. Scale 1:500. Ozalid reproduction on paper. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 026 IC – H5*. [Study]. Signed by Dedeček. Undated. View from Staromestská street. Scale 1:200. Ozalid reproduction on paper. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 86 | 87 k int iv Renovation of and addition to Slovak National Gallery on Rázusovo nábrežie in Bratislava b1 Model interpretations iv location iv Riečna 1, 815 13 Bratislava 1 Study for addition of southern/Danube SNG wing on pilotis Vladimír Dedeček, 1962 1 Research study for the Association of Slovak Architects (1st variant for complex with southern wing on pilotis) Vladimír Dedeček, 1963 2 project for building permission, and alternative project for building permission Vladimír Dedeček, 1967–1968 3 Overall project (2nd variant for building complex and southern wing – bridging alternative) at execution project level Vladimír Dedeček (chief architect) and Peter Mazanec, Mária Oravcová, Ján Piekert (supervising architects) and Studio X for school and cultural buildings, 1969 4 structural engineering project Otokar Pečený, B.[?] Zuzánek, Jindřich Trailin (steel construction), Miloš Hartl, Karol Mesík, Mária Rothová (ferro-concrete construction) interior architecture project Jaroslav Nemec stage i stage ii stage iii stage iv _ renovation of historical Water Barracks building _ depository, first part _ exhibit building, addition of front wing (bridging) _ heating plant _ research-administrative building – upper construction _ depository, second part _ restoration studios _ photo laboratory _ library, study and outdoor amphitheatre with cinema _ lecture hall _ studios _ corner building, with temporary exhibit space and main entry (unbuilt) _ garage with terraced walkable roof and outdoor sculpture gallery (unbuilt) general contractor Investor construction Stavoprojekt Bratislava  he Ministry of Education and Culture (after 1969 the Ministry of Culture of the Slovak Socialist Republic) T represented by the Slovak National Gallery in Bratislava Pamiatkostav, n. p., Žilina a Hydrostav, n. p., Bratislava, and also Priemstav, n. p., Bratislava; Mostáreň, n. p., Brezno and Stavoindustria, n. p., Bratislava stage i 1969,5 addition (bridging) and 1971,6 renovation of Water Barracks – completed 1976 7 stage ii 1972–1977 8 (preliminary permission of occupancy 1979,9 approval of construction work 1980 10 ) Architect's dating: 1969–1978. 1 In: Životopis z 26. novembra 1987. Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. Dating was confirmed using the unpublished text [multiple authors.] Záverečné technicko-ekonomické vyhodnotenie dokončenej stavby “Rekonštrukcia a prístavba Slovenskej národnej galérie”. [THS, SNG, Stavoprojekt], Bratislava 1980, 22 numbered pages building volume (total built space) 101,381 m3 expenses approx. 106 mil. 350 thou. Kčs and appendices. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. Dated based on the published 2 text VACULÍK, Karol: Nové priestory a expozície Slovenskej národnej building type  ultural building, a gallery complex with permanent C and short-term art exhibitions galérie. Výtvarný život, 22, 1977, 7, pp. 12–19. The investment was approved 3–10 in 1965. In: [unsigned.] Záverečné technicko-ekonomické vyhodnotenie dokončenej stavby “Rekonštrukcia a prístavba Slovenskej národnej galérie”. /Cited in Note 1 above. / 001 View of southern, Danube-facing wing – SNG bridging. Black and white photograph by TASR/Štefan Petráš. Photo dated 25 February 1977. TASR archives in Bratislava. 88 | 89 k int iv 004 building(s) and its/their spatial relationships b1 The new buildings of the gallery complex have been built around three public spaces, such that they in a checkerboard manner connect the r­ iver bank with two of the city centre's squares. The gallery's southern public space, facing the river, is a rectangular courtyard, bounded by the historical building's three wings and the new facing wing (bridging). The underground gallery depository is situated under the bridging. At the courtyard's centre is a raised “­podium” ­planted with grass and trees, designed for outdoor sculpture exhibitions and visitors’ public a ­ ccess (the installation of the historical fountain, with a system of cold water supply connected to the building's air conditioning, was not completed in the courtyard because the investor altered the air conditioning plan 11 ). Thus the river bank area has been related to the g ­ allery site via a “sculpture courtyard” and a view of the ­historical building. The gallery's second, western public space is an outdoor amphitheatre with cinema, west of the courtyard. It connects the southern facing wing (bridging) with the low-rise pavilion of the library and the lecture hall situated in the taller northwestern administrative building (which houses restoration studios, a photo lab and a guest apartment). The amphitheatre's side wall of hollowed concrete blocks allows a visual interrelation that parallels the river. This western side, adjacent to the Hotel Devín, also made allowance for outdoor sculpture installations (though art was never installed there). The gallery's third public space on the north, behind the historical building, was designed as a terraced walkable roof of garages and storage. The terraces' walkable roofs with lawn was meant to become an outdoor sculpture gallery (this building was not built; the ground area came to serve as a gallery car park). The northern gallery terraces were designed to visually connect the river bank and the gallery complex, on several varying heights, with the historic city centre to the north. The main entrance to the gallery site from the river promenade was placed at its south­west corner, near Belluš' Hotel Devín. A corner gallery of temporary exhibitions, or “Kunsthalle”, was designed to be on the floor above the entrance (the corner building was not built, and two apartment buildings from the 1940s ­remained). The central entryway via the courtyard and another entrance on the building’s side were ­operated as main entrances. 002 003 004 building site (situation) The group of gallery buildings with public spaces is situated in the centre of Bratislava on the Danube River bank (the street was previously known as Nábrežná ulica, and later as Dunajské nábrežie, nábrežie Batthányiho, Fadruszovo and ­Jiráskovo, and is currently called Rázusovo). In addition to the riverside road, the site is bordered by the streets Riečna to the west, Mostová to the east, and Paulinyho-Tótha to the north. The streets connect the site to the squares Štúrovo to the east and Hviezdoslavovo to the north. From the year 1700 a granary was located on what is now the SNG site, and later the town militia's Water Barracks [Vodné kasárne]. The four-wing Theresian militia barracks and their square courtyard (1759–1763) has been attributed iv to the Viennese architect Franz Anton Hillebrandt. Its southern wing and parts of the eastern and western wings were demolished in 1941 when the riverside road was widened.12 The remaining “three-wing” composition came to function as an arcaded palace with a “Cour d'honneur”. The ­renowned cafe and dance hall “Espresso Taranda” rented space in the building with the paved courtyard terrace until 1948. In the late 1940s or early 1950s, the historical barracks were first renovated to function as a space for preserving and presenting the Slovak National Gallery's historical art collections (František Florians and Karol Rozmány sr were responsible for the design, designed and renovated 1949–1955). In the early 1950s, Professor Emil Belluš and his architecture students at the Slovak Technical University took part in site selection for a new SNG pavilion or addition. In the 1957–1958 academic year, Belluš published his studio's student projects, suggesting two locations: the first was a new SNG pavilion at Gottwaldovo námestie square (currently Námestie slobody), with a detached pavilion gallery becoming part of the new “technical university city”(a new neighborhood around technical university buildings); the second was an addition to the historic Water Barracks, with the new building expanding exhibition space for the gallery's existing art collection spaces in the historic building, and becoming part of the river promenade. In 1952, Vladimír Dedeček graduated under Emil Belluš' supervision, specifically with a thesis project for the SNG exhibition pavilion [Výstavný pavilón SNG] located at a third possible site: Kamenné námestie square (the former Steinplatz, later Kiev Square) in Bratislava. After years of working with his students on this topic, Belluš made the following summary in the late 1950s: “[u]rban design, architectural, operational and financial studies proved that the most realistic location for the expanded construction of the Slovak National Gallery is the current site on Rázusovo nábrežie by the Danube, where a purposeful construction of a facing wing can well provide for the gallery's growing needs, as well as creating an expedient and sufficiently spacious environment for occasional special exhibits and exhibits of contemporary art.” (BELLUŠ 1957, pp. 93–94) This statement is in line with Belluš' effort to complete a modernized river area with a new skyline, i.e. his abiding endeavour to finish part of a Danube promenade between Harminc's building, currently housing the directorate of the Slovak National Museum (originally the agricultural museum), and the area of Park of culture and relaxation [Park kultúry a oddychu] (now being demolished). But, in Dedeček's words, the main “inspiration for the idea to expand the SNG with a modern facing wing that would enclose the yard in the spirit of Hillebrandt's original concept” always came from the SNG director Dr. Karol ­Vaculík. (DEDEČEK undated [1975], p. 1) The Regulations for Construction in the City of Bratislava, by a working group led by the city's chief architect Milan Hladký and chief archi­tect of the actual master plan Milan Beňuška in October 1963, states: “In terms of political administration, the commercial and social [city] centre should be developed in the context of the current centre, expanded to subsume the areas around the Danube at Podhradské nábrežie and near the harbour, reassessing the meaning of the Danube River area, building it up as the city's most frequented zone and thus emphasizing the highly societal function of these spaces... By 1970, a road bridge to be erected over the Danube in the Rybné námestie square space.” 13 Thus some of the riverbank's historical architecture was, in keeping with 1960s urban plans, demolished, in part in relation to the new Most SNP bridge construction. Among these were apartment buildings on Lodná ulica behind Belluš' Hotel Devín; some of the residences survived on Ulica Paulinyho-Tótha street, but the breadth and scale of the riverside had changed. In this spirit, in 1965 the Slovak Historic Monuments Conservation Institute [Slovenský ústav pamiatkovej starostlivosti] issued the following judgment on modernizing and refurbishing the riverside, and Dedeček's study for SNG renovation and construction: “In principle, the view of this comprehensive urban design solution for the entire block and the modernity of the architectural expression is correct; the historical buildings in this quarter are physically worn, and disruptive because of the new construction that gives the quarter a new scale and expression, and furthermore from the perspective of historical site significance they are of little value and not studied by preservationists.” (The institute's director at the time was Ing. arch. Ján Hraško.)14 Regarding ongoing preservation research, the statement goes on to identify just two historical buildings as a subject of further interest: the renovated “late Renaissance” Water ­Barracks and the dilapidated “neoclassical building” of the former horse railway terminus close to the Hotel Carlton Savoy. Dedeček had the latter documented (as part of the SNG reconstruction and addition project), but it was taken down because the floors' structural integrity was unsound. The apartment buildings on Ulica Paulinyho-Tótha were at the time considered additions “unworthy of preservationist study”, to be “clearedout” from both the Water Barracks building and Harminc's addition and interconnection of three of Bratislava's hotels, the Carlton, the Savoy and the National, into a single modern hotel (designed 1927, built 1928). With this intervention, Harminc fundamentally changed the scale of the Hviezdoslavovo námestie square. Thus it was not just Professor Belluš' Hotel Devín, but also his generational predecessor's triple hotel Carlton Savoy (National) that had greatly excelled the surrounding buildings in size and scale – indeed, by the 1930s a new urban and architectural dimension had been set forth on the modernized riverfront, which around 1950 Belluš affirmed and elaborated with his Hotel Devín. Bratislava's riverbank, touching its historical core, had taken on new significance as a city promenade, relocated to the river from Hviezdoslavovo námestie. This modernized riverfront took on a new street line, height and volume of buildings, but also a new ceremonial and recreational meaning for its citizens. It was another step toward the city's later expansion to the other bank of the river, into Petržalka. programmatic and spatial solution The genesis of the Slovak National Gallery as an institution drew, as many authors including Emil Belluš have noted, on the exhibition activities of Slovakia's first independent “centre” of Slovak and Czech artists in the Slovak Art Forum (designed by Alois Balán – Jiří Grossmann, competition project 1924, construction 1925–1926) on Šafárikovo námestie square near the Danube. Of it, Belluš wrote in 1957: “Though it had long been riven by political The gallery ventilation system, 11 by the French firm Tunzini, was to have been computer-controlled, with water pumped from a well. Based on expert analysis, the firm Strojexport Praha selected the Austrian company Weiss (which later changed its commercial name to ÖKG Grünbach), which planned a cheaper automatic/manual control system that pumped water from the adjacent Danube. The glass ceiling over the bridge's exhibit spaces was sealed with Weginplast permanent plastic silicon, produced for glass walls by the firm Wegscheider Farben from Austria. For more → Záverečné technickoekonomické vyhodnotenie dokončenej stavby “Rekonštrukcia a prístavba Slovenskej národnej galérie” /as cited in Note 1, pp 7–8 /. An expert appraisal in 1990 found air condition unit consumption to be higher than what corresponded to the stated period of operation. Thus the less expensive air conditioning purchased and installed was in fact used. HOLČÍK, Štefan. The gallery 12 building also housed the Múzeum hygieny. Staromestské noviny, 20 October 2007. “Concluding provisions: These 13 regulations are mandatory requirements for the construction, operation and organization activity of all ministries within Bratislava, and for the city planning activity of all National Commitees on this territory. Councils of the Western Slovakia Regional National Committee and the Local National Committee are responsible for enforcement.” BEŇUŠKA, Milan – HLADKÝ, Milan. Smernice pre výstavbu mesta Bratislavy. Bratislava : Útvar hlavného architekta mesta Bratislavy, October 1963, pp. 10, 15 and 22. Opinion of the director 14 (name not shown, signature illegible [possibly Ing. arch. Ján Hraško ‹?›]) of the Slovak Historic Monuments Conservation Institute, dated in Bratislava 11 January 1965 and sent to the SNG and Bratislava's chief architect's office. Typewritten, 2 pages. In: Fond Karol Vaculík, Archív výtvarného umenia SNG. 002 003 Views from the Danube river bank of the Water Barracks after the front wing was demolished. Black and white photographs unsigned. Undated. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 004 Aerial view of Bratislava before the Most SNP bridge was built, showing Belluš' Hotel Devín and the modern apartment houses shifting the street line at the riverfront further away from the river. Black and white photograph unsigned. Undated. Archive of Fine Art SNG. 90 | 91 006 courses, there was such an upsurge in the life of art in Slovakia under the new conditions that the auspicious exhibit pavilion within a few short years was insufficient.” (BELLUŠ 1957, p. 91) In 1933 the first permanent installation of Slovakia's 19th and 20th century painters came about, called The National Slovak Gallery, in Harminc's newly completed National Museum in Martin. Ten years later, a Slovak Gallery opened in the Slovak National Museum on the bank of the Danube in Bratislava. But as an independent institution, the SNG – founded in summer 1948 – received new tasks: “It was most disadvantageous that Slovakia started building its showpiece national collection so late. It was likewise disadvantageous that the SNG came about in a way opposite to most of Europe's galleries: preceded not by an accumulation of material that demanded the opening of a public collection, but rather by founding an institution with the aim of creating a coherent collection.” → a int II 007 (VACULÍK 1957, p. 78) b1 A secondary aspect of this late founding of the Slovak National Gallery institution was that, along with the national archive, there was no initial opportunity for this gallery to be ­located iv 008 → k int II 005 in a suitable historical palace or monastery complex, as had been the case with Slovakia's national and state institutions founded earlier. Therefore construction of a new gallery building brought with it the advantage of allowing formulation of a new architectural undertaking.15 The need was defined for a localization program for contemporary depository, restoration, study­research and exhibition spaces that would also provide sufficiently variable indoor and outdoor galleries, of a nature that refurbished buildings originally serving as residential and service wings in palaces, monasteries or barracks could not offer. For instance, the investor responsible for the new Slovak National Archives / → p. 64/ sought ­architecture in the spirit of the third contemporary building of the Matica ­slovenská institution in Martin (designed by Dušan ­ Kuzma – A ­ nton Cimmermann, competition project 1961–1962, construction 1963–1975) rather than complicat­ ed connection to or renovation of the capital's ­various historical structures. Years of preparations led to the government's proposal, through the Slovak parliament's schools and culture commission on 28 December 1962, to build onto the historical Water Barracks, directing the responsible minister Vasil Biľak to begin preparations and include the construction in the budget. Based on this the SNG's director, Dr. Karol Vaculík, directly asked Vladimír Dedeček for a preliminary proposal (comparison study) for a southern, Danube-oriented wing of the barracks. In 1962 Dedeček submitted a first variant for the wing, as a Lecorbusian flat-roof functionalist building on pilotis. Already in this very first proposal the individual exhibition floors were not aligned, but rather shifted either forward or backward, in a way allowing natural light to illuminate the interior from above / → p. 312 /. The Association of Slovak Architects (ASA), drawing on Bratislava's master plan guidelines, extended Vaculík's localization program to include building an entire city block; in 1963 they called for a study project for the gallery's addition and renovation. (THURZO 1978, p. 4) Four groups were invited to propose: headed by Jaroslav Fragner of Prague's Academy of Fine Arts architecture school; by Eugen Kramár of Stavoprojekt Košice; by Martin Beňuška and Štefánia Rosincová of Bratislava's chief architect's office in cooperation with Stavoprojekt Bratislava; and finally Vladimír Dedeček's Studio X for school and cultural buildings of ­Stavoprojekt Bratislava. The selection of design studies considered by the Association differed from the standard archi­tectural competition in that the ASA's jury 005– 007 k int iv was allowed to regularly consult the studies with the four competing groups during the design process, then make continuous comparisons and ultimately announce a winner. Thus there was ­ in fact a two-round consultative selection process ending in a vote. Vladimír Dedeček's study was announced as the winning design: it was a first variant for the site (in fact a second variant by Dedeček for the southern wing adjacent the ­Danube on pilotis), e ­ xpanded to include completion of a city block with an outdoor terraced sculpture gallery to the north, toward the historic core. The ASA jury was chaired by Štefan Svetko, then from Bratislava's chief architect's office; the other members were the architects Alojz Dařiček, Ján Steller, Ľubomír Titl and Milan Škorupa.16 In the sense of this “consultative selection by voting”, the architect Dedeček's introduction to the winning project's text distinctively noted: “This study's working method is discussion. The discussion's individual phases and arguments are present in the visual material...” (DEDEČEK 1963, p. 1) This formulation, and archived documents on the jury's work, make clear that the consultations yielded a first concept for the design, considered appropriate by both jury and investor for preparing the investment plan and an initial project. Vladimír Dedeček consulted the subsequent project for planning permit (approved in 1965) and project for building permit (approved in 1968) with the gallery director Dr. Vaculík, who considerably influenced the project's character. This was a long-term working discussion between the architect and those who commissioned and financed the construction, and also included other architects and city planners selected by the ASA. The next step in building this gradually-­ designed and -consulted national gallery project was inclusion in investment budget planning and allocation of finances. Dr. Vaculík and the Unions of Slovak and Czechoslovak artists – like other ­investors of prestigious buildings of national significance – several times requested government and state leaders for financial support to launch and maintain the gallery construction.17 Later the architect, in part responding to criticism, was to call the first variant with the second alternative for the Danube wing with ­pilotis, “... sober, and let us say to some extent conservative.” (DEDEČEK undated [1975], p. 3) In fact he located a lightweight construction with open ground floor area next to Belluš' 20th century classicized functionalist hotel, with its terrace oriented towards the Danube. The gallery’s floors “fore-and-aft” positioning, so as to benefit from top lighting, gave the front wing a differentiation of mass and volume: → k seg 4 → k seg 8 005–007 0 17 –0 1 8 “The technical purpose endows the volume with a plastic tone. The steel construction makes this solution possible.” (DEDEČEK 1967, p. 1) Dedeček related the new Danube wing to the architecture of the Hotel Devín to the west and the Esterházy palace to the east by means of several contextual decisions: through respecting the new street line, the height of Esterházy palace attic, the modernized scale of the Hotel Devín, and a design of an analogous ­facade cladding – for like Belluš' hotel, the gallery front wing was meant to be faced with travertine from the Spišské Podhradie quarry. The architect had first tested the differentiating and shifting of storeys in relation to top natural lighting of the classrooms and teacher rooms in the Secondary Political Economy school / 33-classroom Economics school on the street Ulica Februárového víťazstva ( now Business Academy on Račianska ulica street / → p. 382 / ). The arrangement of mass and volume in this school was thus a foretaste of the Danube wing gallery exhibition space and a turning point in the context of the architect's later work. The architect was to build on his work with designs based on bilateral or trilateral interior lighting that directly influenced the differentiation of a building's individual storeys in later university buildings and campuses. In interesting ways, he developed this idea further in the partially-built project of the University of Forestry and Wood Technology in Zvolen, predominantly in its unbuilt central university library design / → p. 442 /. Even in his first variants for the SNG addition, Dedeček emphasized a series of indoor and outdoor “gallery squares”, and their relation to nearby “town squares”. It was these urban “art exhibition environments” of Dedeček's, surrounding the individual gallery building wings, that opened up the compact barracks block, with its central square, to differentiated checkerboard fields with a variety of multilevel circulation spaces (paved ground floor walkways, passages, walkway galleries and loggias around the administrative building, staircases, ramps, podium, rooftop terraces, walkable roofs and so forth). Such urban interconnections at diverse heights made it possible to perceive the art, the site and the city from different perspectives: it even afforded views of adjacent riverfront buildings, the river, the streets of the historical city core, and the growing residential city areas on the other bank of the Danube. The meaning of the gallery complex thus designed was to provide indoor exhibition s­ paces in the gallery's buildings, but also to connect them to outdoor exhibitions “in between” buildings, on their flat or cascaded roof and ­under 008 their first storey, in passageways. So not only did Dedeček's buildings themselves enable and embody the exhibition space, but the converse was true as well: Dedeček's urban exhibition environments in the gallery's public space turned the gallery complex into a continuing indoor-­ outdoor art and architecture exhibit along the river. It could be said that the site inspired and stimulated the relationships between the outdoor modern sculpture art exhibits and the auto­ nomous plasticity of late modern architecture; it could also be said that the complex as it was designed took into consideration the exhibiting of historical and modern sculpture right in the city, even anticipating exhibition of new types and genres of contemporary art: environments and installations in situ alongside the serial art and the accumulation art of 1960s practices. The summer amphitheatre brought in the screening of the cinematic art for citizens. So this was a complex and innovative urban and architectural space, intended even for presentation of new audio-visual arts, accessible in a new urban-­ architectural situation. However, in the 1980s, after Dr. Vaculík was removed from the gallery's leadership and the construction was completed, the spaces were not utilized as multi-­functionally, variably and innovatively as intended. Through the gallery complex's system of indoor and outdoor walkways, ramps and staircases, the public could walk from and to the riverfront as well as the squares of Štúrovo or Hviezdoslavovo námestie in the city centre. The building complex thus designed, and its intermediary spaces, is an exquisitely urban gallery, a multifocal public space, with foci both interlinked and crisscrossed. Any effort by the gallery's administrators or renovators to “enclose” the gallery designed in such a way, to fill its “­gallery squares” with indoor exhibit spaces, would run An oft-cited text by Dr. Martin 15 Kusý stressed this: KUSÝ, Martin – GRÁCOVÁ, Genovéva. Slovenská národná galéria. Slovensko, 1, 1977, 3, pp. 4–5. 16 → ASA minutes Zápisnica z 1. konzultácie posudzovacieho sboru so spracovateľmi študijnej úlohy na doriešenie SNG v Bratislave, konanej dňa 17. septembra 1963 na sekretariáte SSA v Bratislave. Typewritten, p. 2. In: Fond Karol Vaculík. Archív výtvarného umenia SNG. → also Záverečný protokol from the assessment of studies, dated 16 December 1963, 3–4 and 6 January 1964, at the ASA secretariat. Typewritten, p. 9. In: Fond Karol Vaculík, Archív výtvarného umenia SNG. SNG archives have preserved 17 a letter from Dr. Vaculík to the culture minister Miroslav Válek dated 31 October 1969, in which he requests the minister to “... intervene energetically and assist in this matter”. Typewritten, 3 pages. In: Fond Karol Vaculík. Archív výtvarného umenia SNG. [In it, Vaculík explains to Válek the crisis of the threatening halt of the incomplete construction, and the disproportion between the actual costs and the underestimated first phase budget (thus calculated so the investment could be held to under 40 mil., meaning the Slovak Ministry of Culture – back before the Federation was established – would not have to get approval from the “Prague government”). He also informed the minister that Comrades Peter Colotka and Július Hanus had promised to arrange for the project to be included at the soonest government cabinet meeting. Similarly, Comrade Štefan Šebesta, minister for construction and technology, promised to help Vaculík. At the same time, it was noted a delegation of functionaries from the Union of Czech and Slovak artists had “some time ago” discussed the issue with the President of the Republic. The President (Antonín Novotný until March 1968, then Jozef Lenárt as Acting President from 22–30 March, and Ludvík Svoboda from March 1968) proposed linking the construction of the national gallery in Prague and in Bratislava in one nationwide undertaking, so as to finance it from the Republic Fund. Vaculík considered this unfeasible. By then the steel bridging construction had been commissioned and mostly built (cost 10 mil. Kčs), with a planned delivery to the building site of early 1970. Vaculík was appealing to Válek that construction not be halted, as this would be a waste of what had already been invested, and the painstakingly organized network of contractors would collapse.] 005 007 Design for addition of southern wing on pilotis, outdoor sculpture gallery on terraced garage roof and viewing bridge facing the Danube. Unsigned. Undated. Water colour. Blue ink (?) on paper. In: DEDEČEK, Vladimír. Dostavba SNG in Bratislava. Študijná úloha SSA, 1963. Fond Karol Vaculík, Archive of Fine Art SNG. 008 Variant with main entry from corner toward river bank. Working model and black and white photograph unsigned. Undated. Archive of Fine Art SNG. 92 | 93 009–01 6 → k seg 6 k int iv b1 counter to the concept of a gallery of intervals and crossroads – in Aldo van Eyck's words, counter to the “labyrinthine clarity” of its relation of indoor and outdoor paths and spaces. Seen in this light, the gallery building complex and its public spaces constitute a high point in Dedeček's program to dislocate the ­ urban mono-­ block (both in urban and architectural terms) into a cluster that he had begun to formulate and test as a counterpoint to well-tried compositional approaches in primary and secondary schools, and continued in later university areas. The irregular grid of SNG spaces is one – and the meandering pavilions of the Comenius University Natural Science Faculty in Mlynská dolina / → p. 406 / another – of these interpretations: another of Dedeček's solutions to his self-assigned task of rethinking relations between urban and architectural openness and enclosure. Ultimately, the interconnection of the gallery and city public space in the SNG project was not to change, from its earliest proposed variants through a fragmentary realization, despite the turbulent metamorphosis of the whole. A group of experts of the culture and information ministry gave approval to the project for building permit as prepared (the first variant for the area and the second alternative for the southern wing) in 1967: Professors Emil Belluš and Vladimír Karfík, the architect and urban planner Štefan Svetko, the construction engineer Jozef Harvančík and the architect Anton Cimmerman (Jozef Lacko excused himself).18 Of their decision, Vladimír Dedeček wrote: “In scale and material we accommodated primarily to the principles applied in building Hotel Devín. The technical and financial council of the culture ministry, which included [H]otel Devín's architect Prof. Belluš, opposed this as something that had been outlived in the current rapid developments in architecture.” (DEDEČEK undated, p. 4) In other words, this expert group in July 1967 was already considering Dedeček's five-yearold conception project for the SNG front wing on pilotis to be outdated, and calling for its redesign. This refers to the dynamic changes in architectural thinking in 1960s Slovakia, too. In his expert opinion on construction of the SNG addition, Jozef Harvančík stated: “... from the perspective of construction, the project features a desirable unity between technological conception and a noteworthy architectural expression of our age. On these grounds I advocate project approval.” 19 In his opinion, Marián Marcinka commented critically mainly on the tall research-­ administrative building: “The effort at freeing up the ground level is a worthy aspect of the design: 009 0 10 iv 011 detaching the volume from the infrastructure, and the effort to gain inclusion of indoor and outdoor spaces at ground level; and the liberating carrying out of the gallery's individuality and retaining of the spatial interconnection of the current gallery, courtyard and the river bank... Interesting and resourceful, too, is the conception of volume of the exhibition part from the bank of the Danube, with a calming, dignified and monumental impact. However, I cannot rid myself of the feeling that there is still a detail missing in the overall design of spaces, a common scale that would bring everything together... The administration building's volumetric solution, and its indoor spatial-planar disposition or layout, is not convincing, seeming not to attain the quality of the other parts, and fails to come up to the solution of the whole. There is a kind of incongruity of ­architectural ­emphasis on the height 012 18 → enclosures to Dr. Karol Vaculík's letter to Vladimír Dedeček of 4 September 1967, typewritten, 19 pages. It features the expert opinions of Jozef Harvančík and Marián Marcinka, and a third opinion from an unspecified institution with an unidentified signature. It also includes the opinion of the Slovak Historic Monuments Conservation Institute with an unidentified director's signature [at the time, the director was Ing. arch. Ján Lichner, CSc.]. All these documents are contemporary copies of originals. In: Fond Karol Vaculík. Archív výtvarného umenia SNG. Because this was a new project for a building permit, the group of experts recommended a new 013 appraisal of the second variant, which was to take place at the ministry's administrative-technical committee on 1 August 1967. They additionally requested an expert’s opinion from the construction concern Pozemné stavby, národný podnik Bratislava, and the chief architect's office in Bratislava. Neither Dedeček nor the experts participated in these proceedings. Those present were: Dr. Karol Vaculík, František Baláž, and Ján Matúšek on behalf of the investor; Viktor Faktor, operations manager and representative of Dedeček's Studio X; Jozef Vaňko for Slovakia's construction commission; and Ing. arch. Marcinková, Ing. Šurinová, Ing. Magdalík, Ing. Ján Fišer and Milan Jankovský, for the culture and information ministry. The committee recommended 014 approval of the redesigned project for building permit. In: Fond Karol Vaculík. Archív výtvarného umenia SNG. HARVANČÍK, Jozef. Posudok 19 konštrukcií v Úvodnom projekte Slovenskej národnej galérie v Bratislave pre Povereníctvo kultúry a informácií. 10 July 1967, typewritten, 3 pages. In: Príloha listu Karola Vaculíka Vladimírovi Dedečkovi, 4 September 1967, typewritten, 19 pages. Ibid. Slovak National Gallery – Bratislava. Project for building permit. Signed by Dedeček. Dated 1967. Scale 1:200. Reproduction on paper. 015 In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG 009 1st storey plan. 01 0 2nd storey plan. 01 1 [Cross] section no. 2. 01 2 Section [Water Barracks] no. 3. 01 3 Section of garages [with sculpture garden on walkable roof]. 01 4 Elevation from the Devín [hotel by Belluš]. 01 5 Elevation from Danube. 01 6 Elevation of garage [with outdoor sculpture garden on walkable roof]. 016 94 | 95 019–020 k int iv b1 of something that in its content is less essential (administration, photo lab, residences and the like). I do not think the gallery should show its architectural sovereignty by emphasizing its height.” 20 Marcinka's assessment recommended approval, along with setting interim deadlines for reacting to such suggestions. A third assessment of an unidentified institution, with unidentified signature, expressed similar reservations: “The construction overall is logical in terms of operations and layout, as it builds on the existing structure and in a fitting manner places the individual functional units (­ exhibition spaces, so-called administrative block, and ­garages). Road and pedestrian transport is optimally resolved, as are the proposed entrances to each unit. The garage's location and its architectural concept is especially good. What is debatable is the material solution of the 'administrative' building. The architectural and material unification of Phase I of construction remains an unresolved problem – i.e. that which is the subject of actual building work, and its relations to existing well-preserved apartment houses on the corner by Hotel Devín. It is not possible to agree with the potential cut-off of [bridging wing] volume by the side walls [of adjacent buildings].” 21 This third opinion's conclusion included no final evaluation as to approval. The committee discussed these expert opinions with the architect on 1 July, and 14 July 1967 was set as deadline for checking on project adjustments. Dedeček, responding to the opinions and the discussion, prepared over these 14 days a new alternative design (second area variant, with third alternative for the Danube wing). In his newly-written Technical report he stated: “Comrade Ing. arch. Svetko expressed reservations to the 4 m-high passage under the volume of exhibit spaces [i.e. to the height of the pilotis area], which in his opinion did not sufficiently visually connect the Taranda spaces with the riverbank's; further, compared to the architectural solution of enclosing the SNG atrium with the new building, which per se was not sufficiently organic.” 22 Dedeček reacted by raising the space under the Danube wing, designing: “... a 3-level bridge in front of the current [historical building's] SNG, enabling visual connection between viewers by the Danube and the entire SNG space, which would then be visible up to the cornice (if the courtyard vegetation so allows). The height of the opening [under the bridging is now] approximately 7.80 m. There are no supports in this space, enhancing the perception of the courtyard... From the courtyard, the spectator sees the new and old roofs under almost the same angle. This also improves the access of sunlight to the atrium; at 0 17 the same time, this change reduces the total floor space, and one level is eliminated by increasing the opening... Though the experts' suggestions are at odds with the opinion of the jury and the research projects advisory body [of the ASA], I accept them because they reduce expenses, which in this situation will surely seem beneficial. I believe this has led me to a more interesting conception, with an analogous volume composition for all sections.” 23 Thus the Danube wing's new mass and volume was designed by omitting both the ground and first above-ground levels, and a new conception of exposition spaces (the 3-storey wing became one open space with a 3-level gallery). This new design also called for a new steel construction free of central supports. The articulation of the “bridging” towards the riverfront, on the one hand, is the result of earlier variants of alternating storeys, and on the other its new diagonal beveling resulted from the contours of sunlight reaching the space under the “bridging”. I.e., this was not just a matter of keeping to the diagram of the lighting, which might be architecturally i­nterpreted in iv 023 0 18 various ways. The diagonal bevelled form is moreover an indication of the steel bridge structure's ability to carry the projecting upper stories with no central supports, such that the ground levels are open with no shadowing and no blocking of pedestrians from the street, all while providing a new layer – above ground and “in the air” – of urban functions, in the historical centre, with all its traditional density of habitation and construction... In other words, the SNG bridging, frequently regarded as no more than an “­expressive” or even “aggressive” form, is in fact exquisitely urban, in that it offers the unwalled entry area and the courtyard space at ground level, and in this sense a form that is publicly shared, “social-societal” and cultured. And this is the cultural and civilizational sense of the word ­urbanity – i.e. the cultural and social emancipation of both citizens and city from the nature-bound inevitability of respecting the impact of natural forces. But this bridging quality can be seen and appreciated only if the citizens look not just at what the gallery bridge dismantled and halted, but also at what it did not halt, at what it 021– 027 carries and adds to the Bratislava riverfront. The quality of the modern bridging of the historical structure comes to the forefront if we consider the very nature of the public space it helps to shape and supplement, and not just the bridging itself with its demolished predecessors. Based on the expert opinions, the architect lowered the administrative building from the requested 8 storeys to the current 6, and covered the structure with a flat walkable roof with skylights for the restoration studios and a tall attic wall with a Lecorbusian “window” toward the Bratislava Castle and the ­opposite river bank. In late 1969, i.e. after Czechoslovakia's occupation by Warsaw Pact armies, a newly-named expert committee evaluated the resulting variant based on project documentation. A new opinion from the preservation institute, with an unreadable signature (Ing. arch. Ján Lichner, Csc. was then the new director), reproached the lack of consultation with that institute on the new design, created in 14 days. For this reason the institute refused to give an overall position, expressing itself only “... from the limited perspective of preserving cultural heritage sites as registered by the state. Referring to the opinion of 11 January 1965 we have no objections in principle to the solution of the new addition's integration into the historical cultural site, though we are not expressing any opinion on the proposed architecture. Because of generally known technical circumstances, and the fact that the historical part's interior disposition and vaulting system had already been disturbed, we do not demand a strict preservation of vaulting on the west wing's upper floor. However we ask that the courtyard's facade with its central avant-corps or risalit (chapel) 24 be preserved, and the vaulting system of the arcaded corridors. In conclusion, we hold that from the perspective of preserving cultural heritage monuments there are no objections in principle to the project submitted, and we agree with the given request.” 25 As in the previous assessment, there was no request here that there be a higher view through the courtyard to the historical building arcades. Interestingly, Dedeček's study from back in 1963 included a view into the courtyard, at the height of one storey; the first ASA jury chairman Štefan Svetko consistently advocated for two things throughout the evaluation: a view through to the historical building and eventually an enlarged view – along with a newer, more contemporary expression of the facing wing (!), design that by the late 1960s corresponded not just to Belluš' classicized functionalist hotel, or to Le Corbusier's five points of modern architecture, or to Dedeček's own program of the mono-block displacement, but also to the dynamic of transformations in late 1960s architecture in Europe and the world. The second group of experts thus late in 1969 essentially merely confirmed the discussion between Dedeček, Cimmermann, Harvančík, ­Marcinka, Svetko, Karfík and Belluš on extension of the SNG, of which only partial records have been archived. These discussions played a formative role in the later 1960s in the project's meta­ morphosis. Thanks in part to them, during the design phase the construction departed from one MARCINKA, Marián. 20 019 Vyjadrenie k úvodnému projektu na prístavbu Slovenskej národnej galérie v Bratislave. Undated, typewritten, 3 pages. Ibid. [unspecified institution.] 21 30 June 1967, typewritten, 4 pages. Ibid. DEDEČEK, Vladimír. 22 Technická správa k alternatívnemu riešeniu ÚP SNG. 11 June 1967. Typewritten, 2 pages. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 23 Ibid, p. 1. 24 Other historians, such as Dr. Štefan Holčík, opine that this “chapel” was in fact a small tower with balcony. [SUPSOP.] Vyjadrenie 25 k vykonávaciemu projektu na prístavbu a rekonštrukciu budovy SNG v Bratislave. 21 November 1969, typewritten, 2 pages /cited in Note 14 /. 01 7 01 8 Extension of SNG – Rázusovo nábrežie. Variant 2 and Variant 2a. Study. Black and white photographs of project documentation. Signed by Dedeček. Dated 1968. Plan of level p±0 and front elevation. Scale 1:500). Photographs unsigned, undated /Inv. č. A 1631/1–3, 7–9/. 01 9 020 SNG complex with bridging. Presentation model in laminate, unsigned. Undated (1969 and later). Black and white photographs unsigned, undated (1969 and later). In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 020 96 | 97 → t / a / p int IV k int iv stage of late modern architecture in Slovakia, and moved into another: some would now call it communistic, totalitarian and “normalizing”, while others consider it a variation or even derivation of what was happening in architecture internationally, especially in Europe. For the former group, it is most particularly a mirror image of the politics of the socialistic “normalization” of the city and the state; for the latter, it is reaction to the étalons of 1960s architecture internationally, on the other side of the iron curtain – usually without considering Dedeček's long-term, systematic development of his notion of architecture /→ pp. 291–297 / 298–328/ 330–359/. → k seg 11 021 –027 module, construction, volume, surfacing b1 The subterranean construction of additions to the historical building are of ferro-concrete, and those above ground are an atypical steel structure. Regarding the bridging, “... this is a kind of three-level steel bridge of parallel chord truss girders, laid on 2 supporting bearings, fixed and expansion”. (­DEDEČEK – PIEKERT 1968, p. 2) The administrative building was designed as “... a steel, five-floored [i.e. six-storeyed] frame with cantilever shifting of the front toward ­Hotel Devín, with a brickwork filling”. (DEDEČEK – PIEKERT – ORAVCOVÁ 1971, p. 1) Floors are of wave corrugated steel sheets, and the staircase is of steel faced with marble. The ceiling is covered by an aluminium FEAL soffit. The construction is founded on compact gravel fill; the ground water level was lowered using two wells. Otokar Pečený of Mostáreň Brezno plant designed the structural engineering of all above-ground, i.e. steel construction. Based on this contract, he became an employee of Dedeček's Studio X, and took the main role in designing construction of Dedeček's later steel structures, especially the culture and sports hall in Ostrava /→ p. 468/. He also designed the structure of the gallery depository shelving and “racking storage system of steel construction” (DEDEČEK 1968, p. 2) , again manufactured by Mostáreň Brezno. The main load-bearing structure of the bridging is composed of four truss girders on two 30 cm-wide supports at a distance of 54.5 m. One of the support bearings is fixed, the other expansion, allowing the construction to dilate. The lowest of the three cascading levels in the bridging is suspended from a bottom chord of the lowest-situated truss girders. The upper two levels are placed on the top chord of the truss girders. Thus the main construction is a combination of supported and suspended elements. The roofing, including the glassed roof, is supported by a cranked beam on the top chord 0 21 0 22 iv of the top truss girder (toward the river) and on the bottom chord of the lowest truss girder (toward the courtyard). This means the individual levels are each supported by a single girder, with the second securing stability in case of asymmetrical loading. 023 024 025 The bridging's floors are of ribbed metal plates 6 mm thick, reinforced on top with braces poured over with a 6 cm layer of concrete. These solid flat elements are able to take both vertical axial load and the entire horizontal force in the support’s bracing, while stabilizing the pressed chords of the truss. Auxiliary staircases and an elevator are situated to the sides of the supports. The topmost truss girder cantilevers on both of its sides. To the east, toward the former House of Czechoslovak-Soviet Friendship (now ­Esterházy palace of the SNG), the cantilever of the girder is about 11 m (11.06 m), and to the west, toward Belluš' Hotel Devín the cantilever is about 8 m (7.6 m). On both of these cantilevered ends are placed hinges of framed walls supporting the gallery floors (­DEDEČEK undated, pp. 5–6). In addition to the cantilever construction, there are further auxiliary supporting constructions (staircase “construction towers”) situated at both ends. The total length of the bridging construction is therefore 73.5 m. The steel bridge thus designed bears the three levels of the terraced gallery (receding upwards by more than half of the floor plan surface) allowing a view of the entire height of exhibition space toward the roof daylight from the north. White artificial lighting using halogen bulbs is built into the ceiling of each level. Artworks can be installed flexibly in the open three-level longitudinal space, thanks to a system of partitions tracked on the ceiling and floor rails. It is possible to stack moveable partitions by the bridging's western side wall. The exhibition white space, tall and rising, cascading, is 54.5 m long, with diffused top daylight as well as artificial halogen lighting. It was designed mainly for expositions of Modern art works. An unbuilt gallery of temporary exhibitions, over the main entry by the Hotel Devín, was intended to exhibit contemporary art. In the variable space of the differentiated “white cascading prism”, art works of the Modern period can be installed without frames and pedestals, in cycles or accumulations, such that – as intended – the gallery space is their continuation. It does not form unchangeable spatial fields, whether hierarchized or not (the SNG is presently under renovation, including its bridging wing). Extension of the SNG complex. From Rázusovho nábrežie and Paulínyho 026 ulica street. Study. Signed by Dedeček. Dated 1979. Scale 1:200. Ozalid reproduction on paper. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 021 Plan of level ±0 (ground floor). 022 Plan of level +1. 023 Section r1. 024 Section r2 [with garages redesigned as exhibition spaces 025 Elevation P3. with outdoor sculpture gallery on walkable roof]. 026 Elevation P1. 027 Elevation P2. 027 98 | 99 k int iv The architect's second alternative for the southern wing anticipated cladding, for the administrative and bridging buildings, in white and red glass mosaic (from the firm Jablonecká bižuterie: white no. 937 and red no. 1561) and a facing of black-gray slate (from Moravské štěrkovny a pískovny Olomouc); for the third alternative, Dedeček designed a facing of anodized steel from Hunter Douglas (with “golden”, → m cv In addition to the exhibition spaces in the bridging, and the small depositories in the historical building's attic spaces, the main depositories were situated underground – there are two storeys of depositories under the administrative wing, and one under the bridging; diaphragm walls protect against ground water leakage (anchored by steel cables in the ground along the external perimeter), using sealed internal surfaces.26 030 028 b1 029 iv or more precisely bronze light reflexions). However for reasons of time and finances the facade was installed in the winter using “dry assembly” of aerated concrete Siporex panels, quickly finished with enameled ribbed aluminium sheets (in white and red enamel). The bridging's supports and the administration's ground level are faced with gray-black slate (the design intended facing the supports at ground level with black marble; unrealized). Thus the architect had to adjust to rapid “winter assembly” of the facades and their surfaces, so the first stage of construction (the Danube gallery wing) could be ceremonially ready for occupation on the occasion of the 29th anniversary of the events of February (1948) / → p. 674 / and the 29th anniversary of the SNG's founding. This is why he chose the “temporary” installation of a metal facing, in part because the material corresponded to the architectural character of the building's facing wing: “Itmay seem unusual to use such surfacing materials, but they are the expression of the current material and technological circumstances, and reflect the current progress and condition of industrial manufacturing. So there is no reason they ought not to become significant media for modern architecture. This is especially so if it is architecture that in no way reminds us of preceding developmental phases of architecture in our country. Interiors, too, use equally new ­materials 27.” (DEDEČEK undated [1975], p. 7) The indoor white cement plaster was designed to have a surface layer of crushed white marble (supplied by Umelecké remeslá; unrealized). The atypically designed glass windows, doors and partitions were supplied by the firm Sklounion Teplice, ZUKOV in Prague and the Umelecké remeslá artisans’ collective. The atypical parts of the interior, in particular the raised auditorium seating of light-­ colour wood, the profiled acoustic wooden wall cladding and the acoustic ceiling's wooden triangular inclined panels, with the cinema hall lighting and sound system, were installed according to the design of Jaroslav Nemec. He also designed the offices' built-in wooden furniture (with cabinets fixed under the windows to the spandrel wall, and office full-wall cabinets including water basins and wardrobe space). He designed low seating for the ­exhibit halls (square upholstered stools, almost in a “­Loosian” manner covered in black leather, on a central metal leg and a ­solid square base) and square wooden tables with laminated surface on an analogous metal base (the Umelecké remeslá artisan’s collective also participated in making this furniture). characterization A short review by Jozef Liščák did not characterize the building in style or form. The review concerned itself roughly equally with the 1st and 2nd stages of the construction, as well as the 3rd and 4th stages. The (future) SNG renovation and addition was regarded as inseparable unity of all four stages. Liščák even regarded the facade facing as provisional, and stressed the stone cover design of the facing wing and the administrative building: “The colouring of the temporary metal outside cladding is problematic... The final facade treatment – a stone facing with a cultivated structure and colouring anticipated – will favourably round out the architectural aspect of the SNG complex. It will unify and underline the rich architectural plasticity, with maximum effectuation of ­monumentality.” (LIŠČÁK 1981, pp. 4–5) Another reviewer was the new gallery director Štefan Mruškovič (who served 1975–1990; the founding director Dr. Karol Vaculík was not allowed to remain in his position even for the opening of the structure he had worked so vitally to bring about). In his mid-1970s review, this successor to Vaculík recounted critical voices from among gallery visitors and employees: criticism ranging from how the historical barracks building was supplemented, through the construction's architectural resolution and the bridging's outdoor appearance, even to the atrium's platform, the incongruity of the building's indoor entry spaces (too small), and the inconvenience of the (undersized) staircases, along with the construction's technical shortcomings. ­Similarly to → m cv Formal-stylistic Liščák, Mruškovič noted that this was just a fragment of the overall building complex design, recapitulating one of Dedeček's design phases; he did not note the contributions of individuals to decision-making (he nowhere mentioned Dr. Vaculík) or the changes forced onto the project. Finally he concluded: “Our ­experience has shown that the opinions and impressions of everyday SNG visitors often differ quite diametrically. The critical voices that at first absolutely r­ ejected the addition's design and its surfacing are no longer so strong, now that the SNG has been built and opened... although much of the public still has not accepted the building's most basic construction and architecture... But there are also some who praise the uniqueness of the building's modernity and construction...” As the incoming director, he valued the possibility to install artworks in the open halls, and in a cascaded space with diffused lighting. (MRUŠKOVIČ 1981, pp. 6–7) In 1982, in an article summarizing the state of Slovakia's architecture, Dr. Martin Kusý publicly addressed the discussion on the SNG: “The stump of the Slovak National Gallery in ­Bratislava that was built on the riverbank was, without regard to how much was known of the overall aim, quite sharply condemned. Few would then acknowledge that the solution of the exhibition spaces was optimal, with excellent technical parameters and a smooth connection to the old building, which is entirely visible from the riverbank. The artistic comprehension that irritates the public is focused on the large coloured surfaces that modulate to the scale and vital pulsing betokened by the neighbouring bridge and the heavy traffic. Most importantly, it is still to be completed.” (KUSÝ 1982 ‹?›, p.?) The same year, Tibor Zalčík and Matúš Dulla included the building in the book Slovak Architecture 1976–1980 [Slovenská architektúra 1976–1980], in the “Massiveness of form and shape” chapter. More recent reviews and books reconsider the SNG mainly in connection with discussion on monumentality in modern and/ or totalitarian architecture / → p. 802 /. In 2001, the architect Imro Vaško attempted to emancipate the SNG building complex from locally entrenched characterizations, citing Breuer's Whitney Museum in New York and characterizing the SNG with his own term of “sculpturalism”: “The aggressive expression in both of these architectures is no accident, it corresponds to the sculptural tendencies of the sixties. There is no question of the period's Brutalism here, as both buildings are cladded and there is no use of the exposed construction materials of [Le] Corbusier and Rudolph's handling of béton brut.” 28 → m cv Nemec's design for the secretariat interior, meeting rooms, offices and director's suite underwent major changes. For the offices and director's suite he designed atypical white painted wooden built-in wall shelving carried by metal legs, with white cantilever desks and shelves of various dimensions and heights, which with the white surfacing and lighting panels formed a “single whole, in construction and architecture”, accented with black and light-colour wood surfaces; it was to be an atypical, partly “inserted interior” of the 1960s, modified in the late 1970s (it was not constructed). His atypical “diagram table” (NEMEC 1978, p. 3) was likewise not constructed. These spaces were furnished with atypical office furniture of light-­ colour wood, and manufactured seating from the ALFA series, by the state firm Turčan in Martin. Foreign architects and reviewers joined the discussion on the character of the SNG bridging only in the new century and millennium. The Austrian reviewer M. Hötzl – as cited in the thesis by Tatiana Krasňanská – refers to the coarse, raw quality of the bridging as transcending the modern period architecture: “And by this very instrumentality of this brachial encasement, the large structure impresses, and represents a masterpiece that has far outgrown the modern”.29 In 2005 the Dutch architect Willem Jan Neutellings, together with members of the Academy of Fine Arts architecture department, symbolically founded the Slovak Institute for the Preservation of Communist Monumental Architecture Heritage. Dedeček's extension of the SNG building complex is one of three initial architectural works he includes / → p. 790 /. He thereby symbolically places this construction in the context of European communist monumental architecture. Sign-symbolic Any place the gallery's Danube wing is discussed as bridging or a bridge, it is being treated as an ostension, i.e. the process of showing it as a bridge, or a bridge-building, and ­simultaneously as an ­ elementary sign (based on the external Waterproof expanding mortar 26 Waterplug with cement-based Thoroseal coating. The architect was mainly 27 referring to panelling (Izomín), sprayed-on surfacing (Dikoplast) and floor surfaces (Izofloor), and the stone flooring of public gallery spaces. IZOMÍN came from the IZOMAT plant in Nová Baňa; these are high-scale and hard insulation panels of mineral fibre with strong fireproofing resistance. The Swedish firm Junkers supplied the technology; they started producing in Slovakia in 1973. VAŠKO, Imro. Paralely. New Ends 28 alebo čo nového v New Yorských chrámoch umenia... a na Slovensku (Boom galerijného Disneylandu). Projekt. Revue slovenskej architektúry, 43, 2001, 2, p. 25. 29 “Doch gerade durch diese brachiale Verkleidung wirkt die große Struktur und stellt ein Meisterwerk dar, das längst über die Moderne hinausgewachsen ist.” In: HÖTZL, M. Bratislava im Porträt. Forum, 2003, 23, p. 2. → also KRASŇANSKÁ, Tatiana. Kompozičné princípy v tvorbe architekta Vladimíra Dedečka (thesis). Supervised by Marian Zervan. FF Trnavská univerzita v Trnave, 2008, 70 pages. 028 Construction of SNG's research-administration pavilion. Black and white photograph unsigned, undated. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 029 Interior of gallery bridging. Black and white photographs by Anna Červená (Photographic Studio of SNG) and unsigned. Photos undated. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 100 | 101 k int iv Thus the bridging could become a “red monstrosity” mainly for a pedestrian or viewer who looked at it from the side, or from a “worm's-eye view” that ignored the white and black surfaces. The SNG's extra-architectural symbolism is, compared to other Dedeček’s works, restrained. The building complex mainly takes on intra-archi­ tectural semantic meanings by means of ­iconic signs of a variety of historical architectural forms. The public often reads extra-architectural symbols, or iconic symbols, into this complex. Relationship of form-stylistic and sign-symbolic characteristics → m cv 030 031 b1 s­ imilarities to bridge structure, and on the causal link of the structure with building form). Indeed “bridging” is a technical term, which has come to stand for the whole gallery building complex and expresses one of its main architectural themes. The current gallery director Alexandra Kusá gave an interview in association with “various symbols” with a visitor (with a cameraman of a documentary film about the gallery) who still sees the SNG bridging, now temporarily painted gray, as a “red monstrosity”.30 This “red monstrosity” stands for the bridging because of the period's ideas of a huge, amorphous and frightful object, which might serve as an allegorical epithet for the post1968 regime with “no human face”. After the bridging was opened for occupation, the side walls as well as the facets of bevelled facade (visible from underneath) were red. The facing surfaces were white, as in many of Dedeček's educational buildings before and after. The roof was partly glassed. iv The individual abstract, non-figural forms of the SNG addition formulate typical figures, which is one of its characteristic features. This means it oscillates between characterizations that are related to sign and those that are not, that are both stylistic and extra-stylistic. The signs that come to the forefront here are mainly indexical, while the iconic and symbolic remain more opaque or covered over with the aforementioned pseudo-symbols. There are many hybrids of symbols and invectives in circulation. One of these analogized the bridging as the Old Testament’s “red cow” to be sacrificed for the sin of adoring the golden calf; at the time the red cow of sin (of collapsing communism) was transforming into the white colour of innocence (oncoming democracy)... It could also be a reference to the “Uncensored newspaper You Red Cow” [Necenzurované noviny Ty rudá krávo],31 which the Brno political commentator Petr Cibulka published starting in 1991, in a rhyme parody of the Communist Party's Rudé právo [Red Right] newspaper. In 1992 he published a list of secret police counter-intelligence collaborationists (“­Cibulka's list”) / regarding information on secret police files on SNG extension's architect → pp. 738, 770 / ). In 2008 in her text “The Museum as Architecture of Time and Reception” [“Múzeum ako časová a receptívna architektúra”], the historian of architecture Jarmila Bencová pondered the SNG addition and the associated project of reconstruction and completion, using Michel Foucault's terminology – in the context of his thoughts on any archives as being the modernistic will to enclose, in one place, all times, all epochs, all the alterations in taste, and then to situate them out of reach of time and its ravages. She characterized the gallery and its addition as “... heterotopy and heterochrony in a compressed form”.32 She thus formulated an interpretation basis that is so far unique, from which she views the structure as a relationship of various architectural and artistic times and spaces, without categorizing it in formal-stylistic and sign-symbolic terms. front elevation, side elevation, rear elevation, scale 1:200). Dated 15 December 1968, typewritten, 3 pages. In: Oddelenie Ozalid reproduction on paper / Inv. č. A 1630/2–27/. správy budov SNG. VIII projektu. Vedecko-hospodársky objekt. Signed by Dedeček, / Inv. č. A 1631/24–26/. Piekert, Oravcová. Dated May 1971, typewritten, 5 pages. Black and white photograph of riverfront under X Black and white photograph of Danube riverfront. Unsigned, undated / Inv. č. A 1631/33/. I [Renovation and addition to Slovak National Gallery in In: Oddelenie správy budov SNG. the Castle, with Zuckermandel area ruins. Photograph unsigned, undated / Inv. č. A 1631/32/. Project documentation/project model DEDEČEK, Vladimír. C1 Technická správa k realizačnému in front of the addition. Photographs unsigned, undated IX documentation archived at the sng Black and white photographs of Water Barracks XI [New building and refurbishment of SNG in Bratislava.] DEDEČEK, Vladimír. Poznámky k otázkam výstavby areálu SNG v Bratislave. Typewritten, 8 pages. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. Part of this text was published as: DEDEČEK, Vladimír. Zaujímavý objekt na dunajskom nábreží v Bratislave. Nová tvár Slovenskej národnej Bratislava.] Project for building permit. Unsigned, undated Black and white photographs of project documentation. Unsigned, (building site ‹situation›), floor plans, section, elevations, scale undated (execution project [section detail], scale not given). not stated). Ozalid reproduction on paper / Inv. č. A 1625/1–7/. Photographs signed by Ľudmila Mišurová, SNG photographic (zmena projektu). Signed by Nemec, Zvada, Krpala, dated February studio, undated /Inv. č. A 1631/4-6/. 1978, typewritten, 7 pages. In: Oddelenie správy budov SNG. II Slovak National Gallery – Bratislava. Project for building permit. Signed by Dedeček, dated February 1967 (plans of XII levels p-2, p-1; p+1 – p+7; longitudinal section; cross section; Black and white photographs of the laminated presentation section elevation through amphitheatre on the administrative model (positives and negatives). Modelmakers not specified, building; section elevation through administrative building with undated. Signed by the SNG photographic studio as well as alternative sculpture gallery at ground level; section of garages unsigned, undated / Inv. č. A 1631/10–23, 110–113/. galérie. Technické noviny, 23, 1975, 14, p. (?). NEMEC, Jaroslav. Technická správa. Interiéry SNG – Bratislava [New building and refurbishment of SNG in Bratislava.] VACULÍK, Karol. Nové priestory a expozície Slovenskej národnej galérie. Výtvarný život, 22, 7, pp. 12–19. [multiple authors.] Záverečné technicko-ekonomické with rooftop outdoor terrace sculpture gallery; front elevation, XIII side elevation; elevation from courtyard; elevation toward Black and white photographs of building: indoors and outdoors Slovenskej národnej galérie«. Bratislava 1980, [THS, SNG, garages with terrace gallery, scale 1:200). Ozalid reproduction (positives and negatives). Signed by the SNG photographic studio Stavoprojekt], 22 numbered pages and appendices. on paper / Inv. č. A 1626/1–18/. (Anna Červená, Jarmila Učníková and Elena Trokanová) III Slovak National Gallery. Building site (Situation) sketch of construction. Project for building permit. Signed by Dedeček, [New building and refurbishment of SNG in Bratislava.] THURZO, Igor. Budova Slovenskej národnej galérie a jej história. Československý architekt, 24, 1978, 7, pp. 4–5. vyhodnotenie dokončenej stavby »Rekonštrukcia a prístavba LIŠČÁK, Jozef. Areál Slovenskej národnej galérie as well as unsigned, undated / Inv. č. A 1631/27–29, 34–106, v Bratislave (za Komisiu pre kultúrne a školské stavby ÚV ZSA). 107–109, 114–120/. Projekt. Revue slovenskej architektúry, 23, 1981, 1–2, pp. 4–5. Blažej, dated March 1967 (scale 1:10,000). Ozalid reproduction MRUŠKOVIČ, Štefan. [Areál Slovenskej národnej galérie on paper / Inv. č. A 1627/3/. IV [New building and refurbishment of SNG in Bratislava.] v Bratislave.] Slovo užívateľa – i v mene návštevníkov. Projekt. Textual part of project Revue slovenskej architektúry, 23, 1981, 1–2, pp. 5–9. Project for building permit (variant). Signed by Dedeček, DEDEČEK, Vladimír. [Areál Slovenskej národnej galérie undated [based on the Technická správa, it was July 1967] Technical report on Project for building permit, IIb (plans of levels p±0; p+1 – p+5; section through bridging; section ÚP SNG – Bratislava. Signed by Dedeček, dated 15 March 1967 through administrative; side elevation of administrative with / Inv. č. A 1627/2 /. Water Barracks wing; front elevation of entrance from Danube New Construction and Reconstruction of SNG in IIc embankment with cleared apartment buildings adjacent to Bratislava. Project for building permit (variant). Technical report. Hotel Devín; front elevation of entrance without buildings Unsigned, dated July 1967 / Inv. č. A 1627/2,3 /. cleared; side elevation of garages with rooftop outdoor terrace VIIb sculpture gallery, scale not given). Ozalid reproduction on paper on Rázusovo nábrežie, Riečna ulica and Ulica V. Paulinyiho-Tótha. / Inv. č. A 1628/5–17/. 3rd and 4th stage of SNG. Signed by Dedeček, undated V Completion of SNG – Rázusovo nábrežie. Variant 2 and Report accompanying Study of SNG building complex v Bratislave.] Architect's Statement. Projekt. Revue slovenskej architektúry, 23, 1981, 1–2, p. 9–11. KUSÝ, Martin. Architektúra v službe človeka. Pravda, (?). In: Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. DEDEČEK, Vladimír. Východiská a činitele architektonickej tvorby troch desaťročí. Projekt. Revue slovenskej architektúry, 26, 1984, 2, pp. 22–24. / Inv. č. A 1630/1 /. Variant 2a. Study. Black and white photographs of project undated (plans of levels p±0; p+1, p+2 and p+3; cross section; literature front elevation; side elevation with garages and outdoor terrace sculpture gallery on stepped roof, scale 1:500). Photographs unsigned, undated / Inv. č. A 1631/1-3, 7-9/. VI Research-administrative building – steel construction. Project. Signed by Dedeček, Pečený, dated January 1971 (main load-bearing system; storey plans; staircases and railings; Výzva za červenú. Úvaha nad obkladovým materiálom budovy SNG. Arch, 13, 2008, 5, pp. 34–37. Výtvarný život, 2, 1957, 3, pp. 76–82. BELLUŠ, Emil. Budovať slovenskú národnú galériu. Výtvarný život, 2, 1957, 3, pp. 91–94. Libri Prohibiti in Prague. 32 architektonická revue, 50, 2008, 5, p. 29. DEDEČEK, Vladimír. Dostavba SNG v Bratislave. 030 scale not given; detail of facing profiles; driven piles plan, scale Archív výtvarného umenia SNG. 031 VIIa a Paulínyho ul. [Study of building complex]. Signed by Dedeček, dated August 1979 (plans of levels p-1, p±0, p+1 to p+4, bridging section, garages section with outdoor sculpture gallery on roof, BENCOVÁ, Jarmila. Múzeum ako časová a receptívna architektúra. Projekt. Slovenská Študijná úloha SSA, 1963. Textová časť. In: Fond Karol Vaculík, Dostavba areálu SNG zo strany Rázusovho nábrežia → also the library collection 31 VACULÍK, Karol. Skutočnosť Slovenskej národnej Galérie. building facing; detail of facing; elevations: partition edging, 1:20). Ozalid reproduction on paper / Inv. č. A 1629/1-8/. KUSÁ, Alexandra. 30 documentation. Signed by Dedeček, dated 30 March 1968 and DEDEČEK, Vladimír. Technická správa k ÚP SNG – Bratislava. Signed by Dedeček, dated 15 March 1967, typewritten, 1 page. In: Oddelenie správy budov SNG. DEDEČEK, Vladimír. C1 Technická správa k realizačnému projektu. Výstavná časť. Signed by Dedeček, Piekert. Interior of cinema. Black and white photographs by Anna Červená (Photographic Studio of SNG) and unsigned. Photos undated. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. View from river bank into Water Barracks courtyard under bridging. Black and white photograph unsigned (Jarmila Učníková, Fotografická dielňa SNG). Undated. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 102 | 103 i Slovak Medical University teaching facility, Modra-Harmónia t int I T  extual interpretation: Stepped cluster on pilasters, or horizontal and vertical cluster above/behind pilasters a int I Architectural interpretation Benjamín Brádňanský _ co-authors Vít Halada / Monika Mitášová / Marian Zervan 114 _ in cooperation with Andrej Strieženec / Mária Novotná / Filip Hodulík p int I Photographic interpretation b1 Model interpretations Hertha Hurnaus 146 Marian Zervan / Monika Mitášová 109 b  ₁ i Model interpretations Slovak Medical University teaching facility, Modra-Harmónia 108 | 109 t int I Textual interpretation Marian Zervan / Monika Mitášová Stepped cluster on pilasters, or horizontal and vertical cluster above/behind pilasters From the start it was clear to me that it would be short-sighted or worse to plan this undertaking as just an educational building, with the limited function of a political institute – not just because the time was ripe for upcoming political developments, but also because there were ample graduates of universities of social sciences and economics. For these reasons I tried to expand what was originally a very lean educational building program to include areas for cultural-societal, 1 sports and recreation functions. [ V.D.] It was a somewhat small building site with great topographical variation, and a rise covered in pines to be maintained at all cost. A stream ran along the western boundary, surrounded by greenery. These givens led me to a concentrated composition, with functional units directly linked while also making for autonomous operations activity. 2 [ V.D.] This model of vertical interconnection in combination with horizontal interconnection enables the dividing up of those present into study or interest groups, with differentiated schedules... b1 Model interpretations i Slovak Medical University teaching facility, Modra-Harmónia 3 [ V.D.] He placed two main sectors in the mono-block, on top of one another: lasted almost the entire 1970s / for more details → p. 56/. The architect was working educational and accommodations. This differentiated mono-block thus in parallel on designing and planning such major projects as the University became a three-tract school on the entry floor, and a three-level, three-tract of Forestry and Wood Technology in Zvolen, Multi-purpose exhibition facility hotel above it. This was the first hint of a block differentiated vertically Incheba in Bratislava, Palace of Culture and Sports in Ostrava, and National into possible pavilions following the logic of sectors. The second was to Archives in Bratislava. be a functional continuum of the two sections, separated into syllables in → a → k int I Design and realization of this, Dedeček's penultimate educational project keeping with the architect's linguistic working version of architecture / → p. 35/. From its early phases the project fought to integrate two ostensibly The division of the continuum, which the architect sometimes termed for the public, and seeing the same as a centre for culture, community salami, provided more opportunities for working with the mono-block functions, sports and recreation open to the wider public. The former than just vertical segmentation into storeys. It gave him more alternatives suggested more of a closed mono-block with controlled access, the later for what he called playing domino / → p. 41/. Here Dedeček chose the game a pavilion arrangement enabling the interconnection of various functions – that best allowed him to place effectively the institute's expanded program featuring a cultural-societal centre. In terms of geometry, mid-1950s. In choosing from among well-known forms, he might – as he expanding the program on a small parcel would best entail a mono-block wrote later on, in the early 1990s – have simply favoured his second situated diagonally. Dedeček designed this not as a single mono-block variant of the first working version of architecture: the changed societal placed within the site, but rather as in a series of steps that shifted each idea, embodied in spatial forms, would have been the decisive factor. That storey forward and to the side, by syllables, according to an orthogonal would have implied a rejection of the mono-block and a clear preference modular unit / → pp. 33–35, 41/, toward the axis of circulation and right-angled building site and program, closely bound up in the architect's agency working version of architecture / → p. 38/. → a i.e. forms that Vladimír Dedeček had been testing practically since the for a freer arrangement. Yet against this stood the characteristics of the → a → a incompatible tasks: designing an educational facility that was closed programmatic axis. We could say he proceeded on the one hand asserting a cardo-decumanus layout, and on the other questioning it: with the result a zigzag diagonal of corridors and syllable sections. The relatively small building site, bordered on one side by the access road Here the architect's visual or compositional version of architecture is put to the town of Modra-Harmónia and on the other by a stream – i.e. what forward; he was to develop it much further. The tactic of a zigzag shift the architect marked in principle as unbuildable space (on a rise of pine of the differentiated mono-block also suited the complex terrain. It was trees) – rendered questionable any open and loose arrangement. Here was in these steps that Vladimír Dedeček may have come nearest to the ideas a possible reason to return to the mono-block form; but this would only of structuralism. However in contrast to the Dutch architect Aldo van Eyck, correspond to the original lean and spare program, not to the updated, who had to take into account age groups among Amsterdam's Municipal expanded and much more complex program envisaged. Yet this latter could Orphanage child residents, Dedeček's focus was on enabling a large not fit into a single building on a small parcel. Unfortunately we do not collective of adults to differentiate into smaller groups according to their have the sketched variants to bear out the visual forms and phases of this interests. That is why Dedeček's syllable sections unit in Modra-Harmónia conceptual conflict. It can only be reconstructed; and from this it seems is more or less constant, replicating itself on both sides of the indoor zigzag clear that Vladimír Dedeček resolved the mono-block/pavilion, program/ corridor in each sector. Moreover, Dedeček proposed a cantilever outdoor land dilemma such that he considered the mono-block point of departure corridor in the form of exterior walkways on each storey, all around without completely discarding the pavilion. the three-storey accommodations sector (van Eyck's Orphanage did not 110 | 111 → p int I t int I use cantilever outdoor corridors; the British architects Alison and Peter In the educational sector we see a regular arrangement of lecturers' Smithson designed them as a solution on many residential buildings). This offices on the east side, countered on the west by clusters of smaller and gave the education and accommodations sectors relative autonomy, even larger lecture rooms with terraces, around an atrium. The accommodations as they were affiliated by a common point of departure, embodied in the sector has no comparable clusters, though we might read each zigzag repeating zigzag form in both sectors. The autonomy was further affirmed as a cluster of “interior or exterior streets” around the core of bedrooms. by the vertical off-setting of both sectors through the use of a Lecorbusian We might call these cluster arrangements horizontal. They appear when continuous horizontal window and the facade material: the education we allow a separating reading of both sectors. Once we change our point sector is of vertically-profiled béton brut resembling “pilasters", and the of view to reading the whole plan layout (planar disposition), there appears accommodations have stone and wood cladding / → pp. 147–151/. a relation of individual syllable sections to the stairways surrounded by classrooms, atria and terraces, which are prerequisite for many divisions The western facade can thus be read in the traditional sense as of participant collective into smaller collectives as Vladimír Dedeček a “pilastered socle” with a “sill” and upper storeys delineated by imaginary proposed. This is his architectural contribution to the debate on possible “band cornices", terminating in a crown cornice. Such delineation is differentiation of 1970s normalized collectivity. This type of cluster can another development in the architect's visual or compositional working be described as vertical. Only connection of the vertical and horizontal version of creating architecture. It is a nontrivial oscillation between cluster fully expresses the complexity of his dialogue with the mono-block, the figural and abstract-geometric form. However, above all else it is with the abstract and figural form having a very societal orientation, also a strategy for reinventing both the unification and the division without utilizing extra-architectural iconography. of the mono-block. In the end, the education sector's west side expands into the landscape, through a replicated shift of the following chain Thus far we have considered the mono-block's two main sectors that configuration: small classroom – atrium – large lecture hall – terrace with together formed the residential political institute's program. Yet the staircase; and its east side is partially closed off by concrete cladding expanded program anticipated opening it up. One such opening process and lecturer office windows. was in the exterior walkways, atria and terraces of the accommodations → k int I → k seg 1 / → m cv and education sectors. This was an intra-architectural opening of the It was as if Dedeček was recapitulating solutions for typified schools, closed, mono-block corridor type of school. However the expanded both internationally and in his own repertoire, from the corridor plan type, program intended even a possible full transformation into a recreation through pavilion and atrium plan types, to the school with both indoor and training centre, offering short- or long-term stays. The recreation and outdoor classrooms (Freiflachenschule) / → p. 369/→ p. 698/. Conversely, and training centre with main entrance appears from outside to be cantilevering allows the accommodations sector on the east to extend an individually conceived mono-block attached to the zigzag horizontal/ beyond the “concrete pilaster” walls of the school sector underneath it; vertical cluster form of the residential institute. This impression is the imaginary pilasters are not load bearing, as the cantilever is anchored supported by the fact that the form of this “added” mono-block is prismatic in the steel construction / → p. 61/. Then on the west side the cantilever and unsegmented. However, the floor plan does not quite make it possible is considerably reduced. It becomes apparent that the ­mono-block's to read the centre as an “added” new wing, as it grows into the overall plan differentiating, questioning movement constantly posits a new basis for layout with greater intensity. Moreover, even the centre takes on some dividing, only to immediately question it – and this antithetical unity of the elements in the residential institute's arrangement: it is seemingly is a characteristic, calm dynamic of Dedeček's design solutions. It is the horizontally divided; it has its own exterior terrace connecting it with cluster arrangement that is the crucial expression of tension between nature as well as its own atrium. Vladimír Dedeček achieved this effect the mono-block's separation and re-unification. of inserted volumes in two ways: based on similarities and differences b1 i between the residential institute and the cultural centre, and by literally → k int I / → a int I embedding the new horizontal-vertical cluster in the existing cluster of the institute/residential arrangement. He spread the cultural centre around the two-storey entry foyer with the three staircases / → p. 58/ → pp. 131, 139/ that connect the two (hotel and school) clusters. The resulting cluster is equally horizontal and vertical, but in a different variation from that of the residential institute. All around the foyer, which itself contains the potential for transformation, the clusters are grouping: the lecture hall, gym, swimming pool and two-storey library. While the first cluster of the residential institute is expanding, criss-crossing, and manifesting itself on the west side as rising and on the east as a pilastered cluster, the second cluster is layered and bunched. It is this joining of two clusters that forms the signature of this work of Dedeček's. 1 DEDEČEK, Vladimír. Krajská politická škola v Modre-Harmónii. Architect's Statement. Projekt. Revue slovenskej architektúry, 33, 1991, 3, pp. 15–16. 2 Ibid, p. 16. 3 Ibid. 112 | 113 a int I  Architectural interpretation B enjamín Brádňanský Spoluautori Vít Halada / Monika Mitášová / Marian Zervan in cooperation with Andrej Strieženec / Mária Novotná / Filip Hodulík 10 10 0 10 0 0 10 0 50 50 10 10 50 0 100 10 10 10 50 0 Model interpretations 50 b1 10 Slovak Medical University teaching facility, Modra-Harmónia 50 i 10 0 100 0 100 50 50 50 10 0 10 10 1 01 0 0 10 0 100 50 50 10 10 10 0 10 50 100 10 0 114 | 115 a int I → b1 001 Site plan: building in broad urban context of Modra-Harmónia and Modra-Kráľová neighbourhoods – parts of the town of Modra. i 116 | 117 b1 i 10 m 002 Site plan: building in relation to site context and its orientation with regard to terrain configuration: hillside – stream – access road. 118 | 119 a int I 1 2 A B A B 3 003 Axonometric view: selection of sector from endless continuum (“salami") and its first possible differentiation into small cell module of hygiene facilities {A, red hatching} and large cell module of accommodation cells (B, light red), on both sides of central circulation tract. Four phases of domino game: 1. Game's point of departure: differentiation into large and small modules 2. Shift of large and small modules along the central circulation tract {grey} 3. Shift of large and small modules to the side and zigzagging the corridor – forming of a horizontal cluster b1 /→ a | p. 33, 41/ i 10 m 4 004 Axonometric view: 4th phase of domino game applying large and small modules {B = 2A} by adding phases 1 and 2. Their plan layout (planar disposition) is a result of the domino game. 120 | 121 a int I 2 1 A +A +A A B 3 005 Axonometric view: a second possible differentiation into three small modules on both sides of central circulation tract, and four phases of domino game: b1 1. Game's point of departure: differentiation into small modules 2. Shift of three times the small module {3 × A = A + B} along the central circulation tract 3. Shift of three times the small module to the side and zigzagging the corridor – forming of a horizontal cluster i 10 m 4 006 Axonometric view: 4th phase of domino game by three times the small module, adding phases 1 and 2. Their plan layout (planar disposition) is a result of the domino game. /→ t int I | p. 112/ 122 | 123 a int I 1 2 C C A B A C 3 B B 4 007 Axonometric view: a third possible differentiation into two new modules of accommodations cell C, then into corridor, large accommodations cell module B and small hygiene facilities cell module A with staircase in first tract. Differentiation into one new accommodations cell module C in the second tract {A = 3m, B = 6m and C = A + B}. Five phases of domino game: b1 1. Game's point of departure: differentiation and... 2. … shift of two new C modules along the central circulation tract of the corridor 3. Shift of two new C modules to the side, zigzagging the corridor, and indicating possible connections 4. Shift of two new C modules to the side and zigzagging the corridor, with indication of newly-formed vertical cluster. i 10 m 5 008 Axonometric view: 5th phase of domino game with module of two accommodations cells, corridor and staircase. Addition of phases 1, 2, 3 and 4. Their plan layout (planar disposition) is result of the domino game. 124 | 125 a int I 009 b1 Axonometric section: clustering of building programs/functions, of accommodations {red = large module, red hatching = small module}, educational, societal-cultural and sport {grey = no unified module}. i 10 m B 10 m C 01 0 Axonometric view: formation of horizontal and vertical cluster units by grouping cells around staircase towers. Possible repetition and shifts (together the accommodations cluster {red} and educational-societal cluster {grey} form a single unit). 126 | 127 a int I A B C D 01 1 Axonometric view: A. clusters with no modular coordination: entry hall {red} allocated in relation to matter and space distribution in the building; b1 B. sport section with societal spaces in relation to accommodations, C. skipped columns in the hall {structural change, shift of construction within cluster}, D. carved-out atria {change of matter and space distribution in cluster}. i B C D 10 m A 01 2 Axonometric view: A. indoor “streets”; B. outdoor “streets” = peripheral galleries: walkways in the air; C. differentiation of building programs/functions and perforation of the mono-block changes the single building into an architectural-urban design cluster: complex-cluster of cells, “streets”, “towers”, and atria with the program of a cultural centre, an educational facility and short-term accommodations; D. staircase towers. /→ t int I | p. 112–113/ 128 | 129 a int I b1 i 10 m 10 m 01 3 Axonometric view: the horizontal glassed caesura separates, on the ground floor level, the “load-bearing” base {of béton brut with pilasters} from the “carried” cantilevered accommodations storeys and forms a continuous horizontal strip window all around the building {light red}. The ground floor is pilastered {red}. The pilasters mark the rhythm as well as the support of cantilevers. The horizontal window line comes in two versions: 1. “transparent” and 2. “blind” {4 cm from the window, the interior wall blinds it}. In addition to these windows, the building has 3. skylight windows-periscopes in secondary, suspended ceilings and 4. “blind skylight” windows – as in point 3, but there is no opening in secondary ceilings through which light can come. /→ t int I | p. 112/ 130 | 131 a int I m le u od id gr e ur ct ru st A B A B A A B × 28 A × B 20 A B B × 10 A A B A st A ru ct m ur B e od ul e A gr id B B A b1 01 4 Axonometric view: relationship of structural module grid and form on 2nd and 3rd above-ground level: variance 20A × 28A {B = A + A, A = 3 m}. i 10 m 01 5 Axonometric view: relationship of structure and module grid and zigzag proportion: variance. 132 | 133 10 m a int I 01 6 Axonometric view: relationship of module and form: variance. Longitudinal zigzag: the width of the shifted volume is 3 × module, which is also two axial column fields. b1 The longitudinal zigzag faces (tight-fits) the module as well as the column structure {the column axis-field grid}. Perpendicular zigzag to the side: shift = 2 × module, which is one wider load-bearing cross tract. Side zigzag proportion is without modular coordination. i m A u od le A id gr A re tu A c ru st B A rm fo B A A A B c A A B rm 10 m A A B A D A B A fo A B A B A rm fo B A A A ul ru ct od m ur e A fo e ur rm ct ru A st A e st gr ul e gr id id m od st ru ct ur e m od ul e gr id B A A D B A A A C B A 01 7 Axonometric view: relationships of module, construction and form: variance {B = A + A, C = A + B, D = no modular coordination}. 134 | 135 a int I m le u od id gr re tu c ru st B A A B B A A A A A A A × A 30 A A A A A A A B A × 27 A A B A A A B A A A A B A A A id st ru ct m ur e od ul e A gr B A A A b1 01 8 Axonometric view: proportional relationships of module and construction on 1st subterranean level and 1st above-ground level. i 10 m 136 | 137 a int I 01 9 b1 Axonometric view: typical building storey with circulation paths marked. i 10 m 020 Axonometric view: 1 above-ground level with circulation paths marked. st 138 | 139 a int I b1 i 10 m 021 Axonometric section: cross sections of accommodations with sport sector, and accommodations with classroom sector, with atria and exterior study terraces. 140 | 141 a int I b1 022 Elevation: rastering of rear and side facades with continuous horizontal strip window/glassed caesura {dark red}. i 10 m 023 Elevation: rastering of side and front facades with continuous horizontal strip window/glassed caesura {dark red}. 142 | 143 a int I 024 b1 Axonometric view of building. i 10 m p int I  Photographic interpretation b1 H ertha Hurnaus Model interpretations i Slovak Medical University teaching facility, Modra-Harmónia 146 | 147 b1 i → k int I / p. 56/ → t int I / p. 109/ → a int I / p. 114/ 148 | 149 b1 i → k int I / p. 56/ → t int I / p. 109/ → a int I / p. 114/ 150 | 151 b1 i → k int I / p. 56/ → t int I / p. 109/ → a int I / p. 114/ 152 | 153 b1 i → k int I / p. 56/ → t int I / p. 109/ → a int I / p. 114/ 154 | 155 b1 i → k int I / p. 56/ → t int I / p. 109/ → a int I / p. 114/ 156 | 157 b1 i → k int I / p. 56/ → t int I / p. 109/ → a int I / p. 114/ 158 | 159 i b1 Slovak Medical University teaching facility, Modra-Harmónia _ photographed : 2005 (pp. 147, 148, 151) / 2014 (pp. 149,152–159) 160 | 161 ii Slovak National Archives in Bratislava t int II T  extual interpretation: Clusters of a bonding of forms and flowing atrium a int II Architectural interpretation Benjamín Brádňanský / Vít Halada _ co-authors Monika Mitášová / Marian Zervan _ in cooperation with Mária Novotná p int II Photographic interpretation b1 Model interpretations Marian Zervan / Monika Mitášová Hertha Hurnaus 170 206 163 b  ₁ ii Model interpretations Slovak National Archives in Bratislava 162 | 163 t int II Textual interpretation Marian Zervan / Monika Mitášová Clusters of a bonding of forms and flowing atrium The massive belt engirdles four plastically-profiled units, 1 evoking a sense of unification and the strength in their interrelation. [ V.D.] The plan layout is concentric. The core of the planar disposition is the depository, and the tract for administration, study rooms, archivists' offices and laboratories is situated on the perimeter. The lower floors are taken up with technical equipment. Entry to the building is from the highest point on the terrain on the third above-ground level, in fact on the roof of the large conference hall 2 and the underground film library. [ V.D.] The building site is on the dominating height in relation to Pražská cesta road. This is why we opted for a very compact form of building, which results in an object with 3 a character of a dominant point. Such a form suits the function of a national archives. b1 Model interpretations ii Slovak National Archives in Bratislava [ V.D.] → m cv building took place through the 1970s and into the 1980s, at the same time Dedeček was completing as well as contemplating his most → a → k int II The design, project plan and realization of the Slovak National Archives interpreters: the bond or cluster – with the bonding-together linked to the national origin myth of Svätopluk's twigs /→ p. 71/ and the cluster tied to the interpretational key proposed in this book /→ pp. 44–47/. The bonding significant works /→pp. 724–771/. In this constellation of buildings the Slovak together of architectural forms as iconic/symbolic representation, and this National Archives holds a particular place. The building has a compact bond as one of the cluster's meanings, stating its presence in this building, form differentiated on the outside into three niches and four masses never came this close to each other in any other of Dedeček's buildings. → a in the belt. Its tenor of growing manifests itself in the layout of interior space. It is also a building having an extra-architectural significance However, what interests us in this text is the building's intra-architectural according to the period's reviews and the architect himself. Three years meanings, i.e. a reconstruction of Dedeček's architectural thinking while after the Czechoslovak Federation was proclaimed (1968), construction designing the Slovak National Archives. So let us attempt finding the of the Archives was seen as not just the erecting of a “... strongbox of semantic gesture of this piece, in the hope that it can help us choose from significant documents in Slovakia's history, our national treasure”, but also within the spectrum of his basic idea. This task of building a national as the building of an architectural work representing “... the socialist archives was new in Slovakia's architecture, as documented in the state's relationship to its own past's cultural heritage" 4 (Dr. Martin Kusý). extensive Political and Economic Justification in the 1972 Textual part of Vladimír Dedeček said almost the same thing in different words: the project for planning permission, in which both archivists and architect “...a depository of our history's most significant documents, thus a national participated. This material also contained research into historical and fund of the highest intellectual value, supporting the idea of statehood.” 5 contemporary state archives in various European countries. All this Clearly, from this building's earliest design phases there were two shows how this brief brought together the considerable number of working versions of Dedeček's notion of architecture coming into play: decisions Dedeček had to make. It is decisions during the design process the conceptual version, reflecting the period's social and national breadth that become nexus points in architectural thinking. In this case they can and creating the conditions for a new monumentality; and the visual/ be described as decisions between building above- and below-ground; compositional version, which for all its “concentration” also reflects between a contextual and autonomous edifice; between the dominant a differentiation of form /→ pp. 30, 31–34/. feature being figurative, representational or abstract non-representational; and finally between the exterior appearance of a cluster as a bonding It was what Vladimír Dedeček called his basic idea that was to connect together and its interior space of a polycentric, expanding, “flowing” cluster these two versions. From his formulations at the time, there are at of various sectors. least three different ways, and several combinations of these ways, to understand this basic idea. The first is that the basic idea is a building The architect himself sees the Slovak National Archives as a dominant or representing a safe or safety vault. The second is that the Archives should imposing building, whose form of four plastically-profiled units engirdled express national unity or unity of statehood; this would express itself in in a massive belt is meant to call up the idea of strength in unity.6 the antinomy of the vertical monolith and the horizontal belt. The third In reading the building, the reviewer Dr. Martin Kusý noticed that Dedeček is that this architectural work at once embodies a national differentiation utilized the recipe, esteemed at the time, of moderating the effect of [of Czechs and Slovaks] and the unity of their common state, in the form of the dominant compact mass-volume by differentiating its compactness. a bonding together of forms. In fact it is in essence meaningful to combine Dedeček and Kusý spoke as with one voice on the Archives from the the first with the second and third, given that the second includes two visual/compositional perspective; however the former gave priority distinct variants. Besides this virtual core of architect intentions, another to the above-ground figurative building, while the latter (though also can be added in retrospect, of projected meanings from architect and referring to the same part) saw the contextual dimension, and ultimately 164 | 165 t int II also the figurative. Vladimír Dedeček wrote of the Archives form as suiting partly outside the Archives' main body while also connected to it: its utilization; Martin Kusý is convinced that the transition in scale from the projection and meeting hall and the film library, which was shifted the four vertical units to the five horizontal units in the belt comes not just underground from the belt, replaced by the study room. This is the first from change of function, but also the changeover from the landscape and indication that here again Dedeček was playing dominoes with different urban scale to the scale of architecture.7 sectors, matching by using the rule of placing the servant spaces outside the core: either in direct contact with it all around, or in additions parallel We can see from their words – even despite Kusý's resolution not to to the entry axis. Thus the architect's visual-compositional working version address solutions of plan or construction (because he believes that of architecture meets the indicated linguistic version and the determinants/ in architecture of quality such things are a matter of course) and focus agency-based version, which takes into account the modes of daylight on the artistic aspect – their functionalist training coming through, forcing and topography of terrain. All three influenced the design procedure. them to consider the conformity of function and form. Dedeček however, in contrast to Dr. Martin Kusý, comments on the plan (planar disposition). This also holds true of the second polarity: of the contextual and He does not use a linguistic vocabulary, and instead of using the word autonomous edifice. The Archives' dominant figure seems to have “sectors” talks of the depository’s functional core and the band-circling tract interacted with the terrain in a way unusual in Dedeček's oeuvre. of the sectors and their sections on perimeter: administration, research/ Compared to the institute in Modra-Harmónia, for the localization of study, laboratory/technical, and support, and we might add the sectors archives he did not used not repeating or terraced shifts, and instead opted of canteen, presentation and film library. The fact that according to the for the highest altitude. Compared to the Campus of Comenius University architect's formulation the Archives' central function becomes the core and Natural Sciences Faculty in Mlynská dolina in Bratislava, the architect the other functions the periphery indicates that in thinking about the planar chose not to use a pavilion arrangement, instead utilizing approaches layout (distribution) of functions he brought in Kahn's thoughts on served that tied together the spaces above- and below-ground. The Archives as and servant spaces. It is difficult to determine whether this syntagmatic a whole is part underground and placed on the hill, rather than splitting change was the consequence of the choice of form, or whether to the according to geographical contour lines, and therefore the terrain frames contrary it acted in concert with this choice, but many indications point the visible areas of the facade. Thus the Archives' reaction to the terrain to the former. If this is the case, it would also mean that Vladimír Dedeček is an overall change. The choice of the site was meant only to support was interrelating functional type and morphological type as distinguished the building's dominance – yet the Archives is sensitive to its architectural and proposed since the 1960s by the Norwegian architect and theoretician surroundings. There is an oversimplified assessment of many Dedeček Christian Norberg-Schulz , and the Italian architect Aldo Rossi. buildings (like the Slovak National Gallery or Supreme Court) as being 8 9 acontextual; yet the Archives' localization shows he used (alongside Let us attempt, in our intra-architectural interpretation, to show that citations and allusions of contexts) forms of communicating with the the Slovak National Archives building is more complex than revealed surroundings that were finer and less visible than simple likening. by the hitherto polarity of reading the architect's choices. Right away, The architectural form of the Archives resulted as the unifying of four the first polarity of above- and below-ground shows itself to be an differentiate building masses-volumes; this can be seen as an effort at oversimplification. Although Vladimír Dedeček chose a “building, which building, at the highest altitude, a tight cluster of pavilions alluding to the takes on a dominant character” that is clearly readable from the entry axis four-towered Bratislava castle silhouette, but also as the aforementioned as well as other viewing axes, part of it is partially sunk into the ground interconnection of the landscape-urban scale and scale of architecture, while others are fully underground. While the form above ground is expressed in the transition from the Archives' differentiation from four “very compact", underground it is less so; for two new units are added, to five units. The third polarity is likewise no exception. The compositional b1 ii → a int II whole of the Archives can be read as a bonding or unification of four units, questionable whether they can at all be called separate units, as they never and this polarity of the four verticals and the belt's horizontals forms the become independent spaces – they are actually “pseudo-wall-projections”. figure to the extent that it all but smothers other readings. The architect What brings them together with the four wall projections is that these are himself to some extent gave it precedence. Vis-à-vis the northeast and also spatial embayments or baysinuses around a pair of columns, as on the southeast plastic figurative elevations, the elevations facing “east-south” northwest and southeast, though they run only from the 1st to 8th levels and “west-north” can be considered planar, pictorial and abstract /→ pp. 176–177/. above ground and not continually along the building's entire “body”. In this Indeed there is a sketched version showing these facades without any case the only indication of unity is the continuous two-storey high walkway, three-dimensional wall-projections. Yet even this polarity is not exhaustive, another variant of Dedeček's outdoor streets transferred into a house, as almost all the four facades differ in appearance, even though the two albeit one with rhythmic window opening perforations. This ­two-storey pairs are related. Four plastic wall-projections on the front, southeast street “in the air", together with the continual strip unbroken band of stone facade rise to the heights like an archive storage bin, and are perforated cladding (in the role of a crowning cornice) creates an imaginary “frame”. at the belt level by windows. On the northwest facade the wall-projections Inside this frame the three stone-cladded vertical wall-projections over the continue in parallel right down to the terrain level, though the window continuum of a solid wall – split by band cornices and mini-pilasters or semi- perforations are repeated. In contrast on the southwest facade the columns – create a planar and visual relief. We might say the only figure in expanding element is, under ground level, shifted outwards by the inserted this case is the architectural figure of the external street transferred inside; meeting and projection room. Thus the figure of the four wall-projections this was not incorporated into the building, but rather in front of the “blind” is, setting aside the perforating windows, visually uninterrupted only windowless facade, which only at the level of the 1st subterranean level from the northwest. interrupts the rhythmic line of individual window openings. These four plastic wall-projections are not separated up to the 9th level This play of unification and multiplication, of differentiation and above ground; they are stone-cladded extensions over the coloured mosaic integration, ultimately pervade the Archives' entire operational and spatial wall with repeating rhythmic window apertures. In appearance they structure. Here again, concerning the exterior, polarity dominates: between disrupt the visual unity, but only from the 9 level upwards become four the depository core and the two-level belt with administration, research- truly independent, autonomous towers. Indeed, even the embracing belt study, and laboratory-technical and exhibition sectors open to the public. on the facades is not a single continuing horizontal piece, but rather splits On the northwest and southeast sides of the building, two symmetrically- into two trios of differentiated spatial units above each other (loggias turned sectors of vertical circulation surround the core. Here Vladimír and balconies), on both sides punctuated by two pairs of wall niches. Dedeček further developed the pavilion arrangement of the Comenius The jutting clusters of balconies and loggias have shapes analogous University campus in Bratislava-Mlynská dolina, although in this case he to the clustered forms designed by the architects Herman Hertzberger partly shifted the peripheral spaces placed around the core to the fore of the or Paul Rudolf, though without becoming distinctly spatially independent. building's mass. Yet such an “ideal” polarity occurs only in the wrapping Thus both ­extra-architectural and architectural figures come into play. belt, i.e. on the 1st and 2nd levels above ground. From the 3rd to 8th levels the So even the belt is in the given instance not an uninterrupted consoled situation changes radically, with the depository core extending through mass-volume. the entire storey – including the wall-projection embayments – that flow th around the lone core of vertical circulation. The 9th level is a variation Compared to the aforementioned facades, on the “east-south” and on the preceding six levels, except that stairways impinge on the expanding “west-north” side the figure of four wall-projections and the belt almost does archives in some of the embayments in the wall-projections. Finally, not appear. Here, instead of four wall-projections there are three, and it is the 10th level presents another radical transformation. The depository core, 166 | 167 t int II break into smaller sections and separate units, subject to the rules four independent archives units for the most important written documents, of classical atrium arrangement; or they go against such rules, as happens isolated for security purposes. with the photographic studio and darkrooms, regularly though subtly → a int II which spreads from the 3rd to 9th levels, on the 10th level condenses into decentralizing the atrium /→ pp. 182–183/. Still, they can be attached to the The changes occurring below the belt resemble those above. Two opposing atrium form, or inserted into it like the projection-meeting hall. Finally, expansions influenced the first subterranean level. From the one side as with the canteen, they can expand like the depository sector, and collide the Archives expanded as on the 3rd to 9th levels, but this expansion came with the depository's reverse reactive expansion. It becomes apparent up against the extending canteen sector (which, like many other sectors that this very pulsating movement between alternatives and polarities is in Dedeček's later buildings, was inserted as an afterthought). On the the Slovak National Archives' semantic gesture; it indicates that, in the case 2nd subterranean level the Archives depository disappears completely, of extra-architectural meaning polarities, this is no one-time act of national replaced by technical support spaces and apartment residence. The polarity differentiation and backward affirmation of statehood. Rather, by intra- of the depository core as the main sector vis-à-vis the other perimeter architectural means there is confirmation that, with the Slovak National sectors indicates the possibility of seeing, in the operational-spatial Archives, Vladimír Dedeček was endeavouring to show among other things structure of the archives, the historical form of the atrium, which Vladimír the historic changeability and instability of these processes. Yet how Dedeček often utilized in combination with other historical forms – such should the energy of this semantic gesture be named? as versions of the amphitheatre. For instance in the Archives the projectionmeeting hall is such an “amphitheatre", referring as it always does to the We suggest this too is the energy of cluster arrangements. Where the architect's visual/compositional working version of architecture. residential institution in Modra-Harmónia featured horizontal and vertical clusters of spaces and inserted spaces, in Bratislava's National However, in the Archives case there is no atrium in the sense of a natural Archives the cluster energy comes across in a continuous pulsation of space inside the building's spatial arrangement, but rather an enclosed decentralization and polycentralization as attributive qualities of the operational hollow filled with specially-designed and manufactured archive clustering arrangement, which can encompass both classical spatial forms shelving, i.e. a “pseudo-atrium”. Clearly, the arrangement of spaces around and fragmentary clusters of spatial forms. The visual appearance of the the depository core is another version of the centrifugal composition. Both cluster as a bonding together of sedimented, hardened masses-volumes, the atrium and the centrifugal composition around it refer to their centres. and the cluster as a polycentric, flowing sector of archived materials, Yet Dedeček's pseudo-atrium has an unexpected action. It transforms represent the limits of this semantic gesture. into a vertically pulsing sector, at once classical and modernistic, only to change into a polycentric arrangement of expanded depository through the whole storey, or to divide into separate units with their own centres. With this movement, the architect endows the pseudo-atrium with the sense of an atrium in the true sense at the very moment he questions its classical appearance – and it seems to become a driving force (živel) which is thus natural. For the other sectors he seems to have drawn on the syntagmatic continuum, as if they were the result of playing dominoes. Some sectors, situated in large units in the belt, functionally support the individuality of the wall projections; this individuality manifests itself in construction terms only on the 10th level above ground. Other sectors b1 ii 1–2 1 DEDEČEK, Vladimír. [Štátny ústredný archív SSR.] Architect's Statement. Projekt. Revue slovenskej architektúry, 27, 1985, 4–5, p. 31. 3 III. Súhrnná správa k investičnej štúdii. In: Slovenský národný archív Bratislava-Machnáč (project for planning permission). Signed by Vladimír Dedeček, dated February 1971. Typewritten, p. 41. 4 KUSÝ, Martin. Štátny ústredný archív SSR (review). Projekt. Revue slovenskej architektúry, 27, 1985, 4–5, p. 28. 5–6 DEDEČEK, Vladimír. [Štátny ústredný archív SSR.] Architect's Statement. /→ Cited in Note 1 /, p. 31. 7 KUSÝ, Martin. Štátny ústredný archív SSR (review). /→ Cited in Note 4 /, p. 28. 8 NORBERG-SCHULZ, Christian. Intentions in Architecture. Cambridge, MA : MIT Press, 1965. The author wrote the book in 1961 in Rome. 9 ROSSI, Aldo. L‘Architettura della cittá. Padova : Marsilio, 1966. English version: IDEM. The Architecture of the City. Opposition Books. Cambridge, MA : The MIT Press, 1984. 168 | 169 a int II  Architectural interpretation B enjamín Brádňanský / Vít Halada Co-authors Monika Mitášová / Marian Zervan in cooperation with Mária Novotná 10 10 0 10 0 0 10 0 50 50 10 10 50 0 100 10 10 10 50 0 Model interpretations 50 b1 10 Slovak National Archives in Bratislava 50 ii 10 0 100 0 100 50 50 50 10 0 10 10 1 01 0 0 10 0 100 50 50 10 10 10 0 10 50 100 10 0 170 | 171 a int II → 001 b1 Site plan: building in broad and narrow urban contexts, with I. Bratislava Castle and 1. the Ľudovít Štúr's Atrium residence buildings designed by Dedeček for Comenius University, both building complexes marked in light red. ii a int II b1 ii 10 m 002 Site plan – axonometric view: building in relation to site context, showing access road and ground floor level of entry (±0.00). 174 | 175 a int II b1 003 Axonometric view: two possible approaches to differentiating the mono-block – by adding {red} or removing {grey} segments. ii 10 m 004 Axonometric view: two scales for differentiating form – 1. scale of city: cuboid/mono-block with 4 “towers” engirdled with segmented “belt”; 2. scale of building: cuboid/mono-block with belt segmented into 4 “towers” or 3 “wall projections” and 5 double segments of the belt {change of scale}. /→ p int II | p. 207–209/ 176 | 177 a int II 005 b1 Axonometric view: one possible vertical differentiation of the mono-block into 4 “towers”. ii 10 m 006 Axonometric view: arranging the 4 vertical cuboids-“towers” and 3 vertical segments and the horizontal belt as if playing dominoes. 178 | 179 a int II b1 ii 10 m 007 Axonometric view: indoor clusters on various storeys – archive hall concentrated in “atrium” {grey} and workspaces at periphery {red hatching}; or “atrium” poured around building periphery {grey}; or concentration into 4 separate archive spaces on upper stories {light red}. /→ t int II | p. 167–168/ 180 | 181 a int II 008 Axonometric view and axonometric section: relationship of publicly-accessible spaces {lower blue storeys} b1 and archives with operations spaces inaccessible to public {upper red storeys}. Vertically pulsing cluster. /→ p int ii II | p. 211–221/ 10 m 009 Axonometric section: relationship of served spaces of archive {red} and servant administrative spaces and public spaces {grey}. 182 | 183 a int II A 10 m B 01 0 b1 Axonometric view of cladding: relationships of column structure and side facade with “wall projections”: A. columns at one-third of “wall projection” length; B. columns at the “wall projection” edge. Fenestration for natural light in the blind facade {blue}. ii 10 m 01 1 Axonometric view: clustering of column and wall structure enabling the archives' flow (extension and concentration of its expanse) and side facade rastering. /→ t int II | p. 167–168/ 184 | 185 a int II b1 ii 10 m B A 01 2 Axonometric views: A. pouring the archive sector above the belt – connecting the vertical circulation core and the relief of the facade; B. concentration of archives in the centre and offices on the periphery, i.e. in the belt: separating the vertical circulation core and the flat facade. 186 | 187 a int II m le u od id gr × 7 B rm fo B A B A × B 8 rm fo m od ul e gr B id B B 01 3 b1 Axonometric view of archive storey: relationship between basic module grid {Module A = 5 m} and form {7A × 8A} with entry stairs, two circulation cores/towers and the archive sector, that flow out to the facade. Clustering of load-bearing and non-load-bearing, off-set facade. ii m le u od id gr l ra tu c ru st A × 7 id gr A × 10 m st ru ct ur al gr m id od ul e gr id 8 01 4 Axonometric view of archive storey: shifts and changes in structural grid – relationship of column grid field and “wall projections”, or column grid field and circulation towers. Columns on periphery reestablish grid field module. 188 | 189 a int II m le u od id gr A A × 9 /2 rm fo A × 8 A rm fo m od ul e gr id /2 01 5 b1 Axonometric view of administrative-archive storey: with the horizontal belt, the cuboid comes closest to a cubic form {dimension including belt is almost 9A × 9A, A = 5 m}. Because of variances in the interior, the building does not form an ideal cube in any dimension. ii m le u od id gr × 7 re tu c ru st A A × 10 m st ru ct m ur e od ul e gr id 8 01 6 Axonometric view of entry level: relationships between building program and structure led to leaving out columns in belt spaces {red}. The columns left out are replaced by a binding joist. The columns above and below continue through the building. The joist height corresponds to the belt's horizontal caesura: it indicates a change in construction as well as a continuation of space. 190 | 191 a int II b1 ii 10 m 01 7 Axonometric view: 2 subterranean level with circulation paths. nd 192 | 193 a int II 01 8 b1 Axonometric view: 1 subterranean level with circulation paths. st ii 10 m 01 9 Axonometric view: 1 above-ground level with circulation paths. st 194 | 195 a int II 020 b1 Axonometric view: 2 above-ground level with circulation paths. nd ii 10 m 021 Axonometric view: 3 to 8 above-ground level with circulation paths. rd th 196 | 197 a int II 022 b1 Axonometric view: 9 above-ground level with circulation paths. th ii 10 m 023 Axonometric view: segmentation of plan into 4 “towers” on 10th above-ground level, with vertical circulation marked. 198 | 199 a int II 024 b1 “Cross” and “longitudinal” section of mono-block. ii 10 m 025 Axonometric section: clustering of subterranean spaces {hall and film library} and above-ground spaces. 200 | 201 a int II b1 026 Elevations: rastering of side facade with 3 facade “wall projections” and 4 “towers” and “belt” segmentation. ii 10 m 027 Elevations: side and rear facade with analogous segmentation. Reaction of facade to terrain. 202 | 203 a int II 028 b1 Axonometric view of building. ii 10 m 204 | 205 p int II  Photographic interpretation b1 H ertha Hurnaus Model interpretations ii Slovak National Archives in Bratislava 206 | 207 b1 ii → k int II / p. 64/ → t int II / p. 163/ → a int II / p. 170/ 208 | 209 b1 ii → k int II / p. 64/ → t int II / p. 163/ → a int II / p. 170/ 210 | 211 b1 ii → k int II / p. 64/ → t int II / p. 163/ → a int II / p. 170/ 212 | 213 b1 ii → k int II / p. 64/ → t int II / p. 163/ → a int II / p. 170/ 214 | 215 b1 ii → k int II / p. 64/ → t int II / p. 163/ → a int II / p. 170/ 216 | 217 b1 ii → k int II / p. 64/ → t int II / p. 163/ → a int II / p. 170/ 218 | 219 b1 ii → k int II / p. 64/ → t int II / p. 163/ → a int II / p. 170/ 220 | 221 b1 ii → k int II / p. 64/ → t int II / p. 163/ → a int II / p. 170/ 222 | 223 ii b1 Slovak National Archives in Bratislava _ photographed : 2005 (pp. 207–209, 212, 215, 217, 222, 223) / 2015 (pp. 211, 213, 216, 219, 221) 224 | 225 iii Supreme Court and Ministry of Justice of the Slovak Republic in Bratislava t int III T  extual interpretation: Clusters in the intermediary spaces between castle and palace a int III Architectural interpretation Vít Halada _ co-authors Benjamín Brádňanský / Monika Mitášová / Marian Zervan _ in cooperation with Matúš Novanský / Monika Netryová p int III Photographic interpretation b1 Model interpretations Marian Zervan / Monika Mitášová Hertha Hurnaus 234 270 227 b  ₁ iii Model interpretations Supreme Court and Ministry of Justice of the Slovak Republic in Bratislava 226 | 227 t int III Textual interpretation Marian Zervan / Monika Mitášová Clusters in the intermediary spaces between castle and palace The shape of the building site and construction system became another determinant of the Supreme Court building composition... The Supreme Court building has a central composition, we tended to free-up the pedestrian in whose core are concentrated courtrooms on the ground floor. 1 [ V.D.] movement level to the maximum by decreasing the ground floor's The plan layout (disposition) allows 2 built-up area. [ V.D.] the differentiating of the building into the separate sectors of justice housed in the shared building of the Supreme 3 Court and Ministry of Justice. b1 [ V.D.] Model interpretations iii Supreme Court and Ministry of Justice of the Slovak Republic in Bratislava almost “ad hocist”. Still, even in this phase it had a clearly articulated form, being from the late 1970s to the late 1980s /→ pp. 74–78/. If we set aside which from the first had yet another way of working with the context. reconstructions, this was the architect's last large-scale administrative In formulating how this functioned, Rossi's term analogy will be helpful. building realization. Afterwards he only did project studies, and When Vladimír Dedeček's original, more complex intention was not After the Slovak National Gallery, the Supreme Court was his second realized, the work with context in terms of analogy came to the forefront. contribution to the modern centre of Bratislava, albeit outside its Let us set aside for a moment detailed explanation of how and what historical walls. Whereas the SNG building complex was a reconstruction context was taken into consideration. In any case it is clear that of and addition to the historical Water Barracks building, the Supreme when deciding on forms and processes (and the working versions Court was a new building design and realization in a problematic of architecture behind them) in designing and realizing the Supreme spot of the Nový most bridge's termination, intended as a new gate Court and Ministry of Justice building, Vladimír Dedeček prioritized to the city from the south / for details → p. 76/. Vladimír Dedeček's reaction contextuality and the related visual and compositional working version to this place was like neither that of Eugen Kramár and Štefan of architecture /→ pp. 31–34/, as was manifested at multiple levels. Indeed Lukačovič of the previous generation's architects, on the opposite side, his own text supports this. His Architect's Statement on the project with a modernist single building, nor Ivan Marko's later post-modern says he was responding to the urban situation at Suché mýto, the analysis of the context. His position could be called in between. This former Októbrové námestie square and the friary building complex.4 interpretation of Dedeček's architectural thinking is an attempt to This response was not limited to setting the new profile level analogously clarify what this in between means. From the drawing documentation → k int III → a ultimately a competition project for the Slovak National Bank /→ p. 780/. → k int III → k int III → m cv → k int III The building of the Supreme Court and Ministry of Justice came into to the height of the historical Slovak parliament building / for details → p. 78/, preserved, we can find phases of his thinking and notions of their as the architect explicitly mentions. We can derive from his design final embodiment /→ pp. 78–79/. Based on these points of departure it plans and the realization that he was connecting to the southeast wing is possible to reconstruct the decision processes in creating the building a separate terraced building with a side entrance, cut into the outline of the Supreme Court and Ministry of Justice. The Architect's Statement, shape (silhouette) of its immediate neighbour. While in the vertical in which Dedeček in retrospect describes his starting points, is just one direction his contextualism works with generalized parameters of the corrective to this interpretation. The basic correctives remain, as in urban environment, in the adjusting or “adaptation” of a shape there other cases, the scale of coherence of his working versions, processes are signs of adhocism. However in this case Vladimír Dedeček was and consequential arragement. not taking contextualism literally, and did not introduce it in the front The available drawing documentation shows that in the Supreme Court building's atrium. This would confirm that Dedeček was not giving and Ministry of Justice Vladimír Dedeček proceeded not in terms of a single in even to the idea of creating a context of buildings designed by him. building, but rather a building that was to be included in its own ­newlycreated context /→ pp. 76, 86/. Part of Dedeček's design for this government The architect took into consideration the friary building complex, building in the new context was a modernist intervention in the Capuchin and the Capuchin church, and implemented this in the Supreme Friary area, and an attempt at repeating some of his design forms and → a int III → k int III facade – which corresponds more to the terraces of the Supreme Court Court's proportions /→ pp. 239–240/. Yet he was not reconsidering just processes – loggias, terraces, atria, cascaded facades, upper storeys the height, scale and shapes of the historical edifices, but also those cantilevered over the ground floor – to enclose a heterogeneous space of the modernist buildings: on both side facades he paraphrased of modernist and historical buildings in one contradictory whole. The Belluš' French window with profiled chambranle, and uses the interrelation of the Supreme Court to these newly designed buildings was contrast of a stone cladding and wood-tone coloured concrete as had 228 | 229 t int III It is quite probable that this co-instrumentality is supported by with context; such work was formulated mainly when the architect's visual the architect's conceptual version of architecture, and particularly and compositional working version of architecture comes into conflict with → a Eugen Kramár and Štefan Lukačovič. But this is not yet analogous work his visual-compositional and agency versions /→ pp. 31–34, 38/. In his Architect's Statement, Dedeček emphasizes three determinants it), as came into play with the National Archives. The question was: should of composition in this case: the shape of the building site, construction, the Supreme Court and Ministry of Justice be a visually representative, and the building's function (program). We can hardly regard the industrial figurative or formally abstract-geometric building? Here was another monolithic frame construction as the main agent of contextualization building, like the National Archives, that when conceived had claims of and figurativity; rather, it is a generally usable system that refers to representing the period's idea of building a state and power – traditionally modernist buildings in this context: to the Dom novinárov by Emil Belluš separated from political power in democracies, but not always so under and the Central Forestry Office [Ústredné riaditeľstvo lesov] by Eugen socialism. It was no simple task to represent, in spatial forms, both power and independence from power. → a int III another alternative (and the conceptual working version that lies behind Kramár and Štefan Lukačovič /→ p. 239/. Yet Dedeček's construction system is hybridized, which becomes apparent when we examine the load-bearing → k int III elements of the cantilevered storeys. The triangular building site also The visual notion of the front façade, divided by an asymmetric crossing, occurs frequently in Bratislava, often offering actualization of a corner with its horizontal marking the main entrance and its vertical passing house theme. In Dedeček's case it became a triggering and correcting in front of all above-ground storeys – and Alexander Trizuljak's The Will mechanism for considering the task, of how to place two separate of the People [Vôľa ľudu] sculptural relief hanging on the right side of programs in a single building on triangular site – programs that shared the divided front /→ p. 83/ together with the The Idea of Revolution across the common denominator of justice, but diverge with regard to their Centuries/Revolučná idea v storočiach by sculptor Ludwik Korkoš specific functional and figurative needs. hung by the side entrance – might indicate that for the building of the Supreme Court and Ministry of Justice Vladimír Dedeček opted for extra- Vladimír Dedeček approached the problem by building a structure with architectural representation and figurativness. This is also how the two units inside. In the case of the first unit, the Supreme Court, he decided building's first reviewers saw it in their journal review in the 1990s, for an intra-architectural four-wing form of a “manor house with cour when they politically explained the extra-architectural idea of crossing d'honneur” or “castle with courtyard”; for the second, the Ministry of “scales", measuring human deeds by the “will of the people” (not always Justice, it was a three-wing palace plan (planar disposition). That the pure or innocent, but often perverted) like a guillotine – probably “castle” alternative – referring to the Bratislava Castle – was preferred influenced by 1950s political processes. Apart from these two works to the “manor” is evident mainly from the configuration of four staircase of art, we find no other examples of such figurativity in the Supreme towers around the inner courtyard or atrium of the Supreme Court and Court building facade. Does this mean that Dedeček made a concession Ministry of Justice. These come out as the four protruding lift shafts, even to political representation, and then worked within a purely formal, above the roof silhouette. We come to this intra-architectural meaning abstract and non-figurative vocabulary? Our presupposition is that this thanks in part to the zigzag northwest facade, and indeed to the fact is not the case. Probably, as elsewhere in most projects, he was working that Vladimír Dedeček had already played with the same meaning in the with intra-architectural figurativity: with forms not referring directly National Archives. In both cases he cited not the historical morphology, but to extra-architectural context but rather to other architectural forms instead geometrized glimpses or hints of similarity, expressed in his own and relations. It was on this basis that he began to work with both architectural speech, which are most legible in the plan and the northeast contextuality and figurativness, such that they present both dependence elevation. This is what recalls Rossi's work with context in terms of on and independence from power. analogies, though in Dedeček's case without the Jungian connotations. b1 iii the uninterrupted horizontal windows in the rear. The side wings feature the Grassalkovich Palace, next to which Staromestská ulica street runs a more meticulous play of the open and the closed: they are divided below ground level. This palace has only the merest hint of a three-wing into pale balcony strips, brown strips with window openings, and pale (U-shape plan, or so-called French palace form) arrangement in its slight strips of stone-cladded walls. Their rhythm creates the building's main wing-wall projections, but similar to the Supreme Court its side facades are expression. From the Župné square side, the stone-cladded walls have cut to conform to the parcel. But Dedeček’s teacher Emil Belluš used the a single perforation: the aforementioned French window with chambranle. French palace form in the 1930s when building the District Administration On the Staromestská street side the stone-cladded walls are divided in [Okresný úrad] in Zvolen. Onto one of its wings, Vladimír Dedeček in the two vertically by the facade's brown strip, and the profiled window is 1970s added the Forest Economy Institute [Ústav pre hospodársku úpravu what ties them together. The resulting effect is that the front facade with lesov] /→ p. 454/. Belluš' District Administration has its central wing built its centred entrance is visually open; from the main entry, the side wings opposite to the tip of the triangular building site, and its wings are bent appear open because of their zigzags with balconies, and yet from directly into a U-shape behind the front wing, in keeping with the direction of across the street or the square they close up visually, almost to a single the surrounding streets. This scheme analogically manifested itself in plane, thanks to the facade's vertical strip with pale stone cladding. Dedeček's design for the Supreme Court and Ministry of Justice. There is The ground floor from the Staromestská street side, too, opens directly of course a difference, in that the side wings not only conform to the lines onto the sidewalk by way of glass doors (as well as stairs across from the of Staromestská street and Župné námestie square, but additionally zigzag ground floor on the Župné square side, where the glassed openings are regularly as in the former Regional Political School in Modra-Harmónia. above street level, and thus are inaccessible). This play of opening and Indeed even the cantilevering is analogous to that of the Regional Political closing in the case of the Supreme Court – compared to the openness of the School. In Modra-Harmónia the differentiated mono-block's shifting former Regional Political School in Modra-Harmónia – is ample indication was the result of a conflict between the program and the parcel. With that for the Supreme Court Vladimír Dedeček was thinking carefully in the Supreme Court the conflict was between the two buildings within watching the relationship of open and closed forms, for the very reason a building, and between an emerging city highway on the one hand and that he was putting two buildings into one: the first (the Ministry) with the dense historical centre urban structure on the other. Yet compared to a relatively open program, the second (the Court) relatively closed. Belluš' District Administration, even this conflict does not seem a sufficient condition for the series of zigzags. The relationships between the open and the closed are manifest not just outdoors, but expand indoors too. This is most evidently visible Could it be that the condition was something we did not take into consideration when comparing the Regional Political School (currently in functional-spatial layout (planar disposition) of sectors and smaller → a → k seg 9 Regarding the “palace” on the triangular parcel, the closest exemplar was units. Yet Dedeček's working linguistic version of architecture /→ p. 35/ the Slovak Medical University teaching facility) and the Supreme Court? is applied in a way subordinate to the visual-compositional and conceptual One of the basic differences between these two buildings is the degree versions. He segregated the main sectors (for trials-rulings and justice, of their openness and its opposite. This goes beyond the differences of administration, information, catering, circulation, technology and parking, mass-volume between the enclosed four-wing versus the open three-wing and even relaxation) by storeys: subterranean levels mainly dedicated arrangement. This large polarity comes through on several levels, the for parking and technical support, the first above-ground level for most visible being the external facades. The continuous loggia-walkway the trials-rulings sector, the second to fifth levels for administration, and around the entire building and the terraced ground floor open to the the sixth for information technology and catering. Each sector is further surrounding nature in Modra-Harmónia are an outright contrast to the divisible into smaller variously-sized units. Even this overview shows that continual balconies on the Supreme Court's front facade in Bratislava and some sectors (departments) comprised large homogenized units combined 230 | 231 t int III only with vertical circulation towers (such as administration or parking), while others are more heterogeneous: the relatively closed trials-rulings sector is hybridized with the open, circumfluent waiting areas on the first above-ground level perimeter, whereas the information technology and canteen sector is heterogenized with the administrative offices and relaxation terraces. Paradoxically, even such syntagmatic plan layouts have their rules of composition. This manifests itself once we recognize that the first above-ground level is subject to a centripetal layout, while the other five are centrifugal. Later it becomes evident that the Supreme Court's “castle” arrangement is an enclosed, centripetal cluster of courtrooms, judges' offices and staircases providing separate, autonomous access to the courtrooms- amphitheatres and the empty atrium above them. The cluster of programs and spaces is the most evident where the “castle” arrangement and “palace” arrangement meet: the first above-ground level. On higher floors it turns into an open atrium form. On the other hand the Supreme Court's “palace” is defined by its three-tract office arrangement around the atrium and in both side wings, which is – paradoxically – a classic enclosing mono-block scheme. Yet not even this compositional arrangement, confirming intra-architectural figurativness is not definitive. The clusters of rooms are not exclusive to the Supreme Court's “castle” arrangement; they can be found in the “palace” as well. For example there is a clustering of the information technology and catering sectors with the terrace in the atrium, or where two offices share a single balcony accessible from only one of them, or even of the multiplicity of balconies at the end of the wing towards Staromestská street. Thus clustering makes it easier to identify bunches of openness and its opposite, the conjunctions of the centripetal and the centrifugal, making it possible to find a theme – by intra-architectural means – concerning the autonomy of both judicial power and of political power, and their perpetual mutual conjunction. b1 iii 1 DEDEČEK, Vladimír. [Budova Najvyššieho súdu Slovenskej republiky v Bratislave.] Architect's Statement. Projekt. Revue slovenskej architektúry, 33, 1991, 7–8, p. 51. 2 Ibid., p. 50. 3 Ibid., p. 51. 4 Ibid., p. 50. 232 | 233 a int III  Architectural interpretation Vít Halada Co-authors Benjamín Brádňanský / Monika Mitášová / Marian Zervan in cooperation with  Matúš Novanský / Monika Netryová 10 10 0 10 0 0 10 0 50 50 10 10 50 0 100 10 10 10 50 0 Model interpretations 50 b1 10 50 iii Supreme Court and Ministry of Justice of the Slovak Republic in Bratislava 10 0 100 0 100 50 50 50 10 0 10 10 1 01 0 0 10 0 100 50 50 10 10 10 0 10 50 100 10 0 234 | 235 a int III → 001 Site plan: building in broad and narrow urban contexts, with I. Bratislava Castle, II. Grassalkovich palace (President’s Residence), b1 III. Faculty of Architecture, STU, IV. Episcopal summer palace (Government Office) and 1. Capuchin Friary, 2. The House of Journalists, 3. National Council's (parliament's) historical building, and 4. former Central Forestry Office (Regional Municipality) buildings marked in light red. iii a int III b1 iii 10 m 002 Site plan – axonometric view: building in relation to site context, existing buildings, and buildings planned by Dedeček but not built marked in grey. 238 | 239 a int III g in ild bu š' llu Be fa to w in churc ar ds Br Capuch at is lav aC as M t/ ur Co is ax tle ry st i in is ax e d ca h axis 003 Axonometric view: contextual building – ideal building axis and morphological contextuality b1 {Central Forests Directorate (by Kramár and Lukačovič), Castle hill, Belluš' window, side facade of Capuchin church}. /→ t int iii III | p. 230–231/ 10 m 240 | 241 a int III b1 iii A+ A+ A A+ A+ A 1 2 2 2A 1 10 m A 3 A A 3 004 Axonometric view: a) selection of sector from endless continuum (“salami”) and its differentiation into one basic module with a small and a large office {M = 3 × A, where A = 2.5 m, red hatching} on each side of the circulation tract. Three phases of domino game: 1. Game's point of departure: differentiation into a basic module 2. Shift of basic module to the side by 1A, to the edge of the land parcel, and zigzagging the central circulation tract {grey} 3. Shift of basic module to the side by 2A and zigzagging the corridor – forming a horizontal cluster. 242 | 243 a int III a rm fo 3a a × 3a × 5 2, id gr 36 × a 3a m a le le 29 u od od u m gr id 3a 2, 5 × a 2, 5 a fo rm a 3a 3a 3a 5 2, a a a a a a a fo rm a a 12 5 2, 6a × × 3a 2a 2a a 2a 2a fo rm 005 Axonometric view: relationship of basic module grid and form with empty, free atrium. iii 24 × a e m od ul 2a 3a gr id 5 2, 2, 5 5 36 2, × 3a a id gr 3a e ul od m b1 a rm fo 3a a 2, 5 a 29 le a le 3a × u od 3a m × 5 2, id gr 36 × a od u m gr id 3a 2, 5 × a fo rm a 3a 3a 3a 5 2, a a a a a 10 m a a fo rm a a 12 5 2, × × 24 × a e m 3a 2a od ul 2a 3a gr id 2, 5 2, 5 5 36 6a × 2, 3a a id gr 3a e ul od m 2a a 2a 2a fo rm 006 Axonometric view: relationship of basic module grid {M = 2,5 × 2,5 m} and form with atrium occupied by courtrooms. 244 | 245 a int III gr id le × 3a fo rm 1,5 a 6a 3a 5 2, 3a 5a 0, m × × 5 2, id gr 36 × a a le 29 u od 30 od u m 3a 2, 5 × 2, 5 3a rm fo a a a a a 2a fo a rm a 5a 9a e 3a ul od m 3a 5 2, 5 × 5 2, 2a × 36 2a 2a 1,5 a 2a rm fo courtrooms/“amphitheatres” and 4 circulation towers. iii e m 3a 2a od ul 2a 3a a b1 gr id a 2 × 24 ,5 × 2, 3a a id gr 007 Axonometric view: relationship of basic module grid and form with entry peristyle, 2a × 2a 5 5 2, a × 36 2, 2a × 24 5 2, × 2a a id gr a 5 2, a 2a 2a e ul od m id 2a gr 3a 2a e 2a 2a ul 2a 2a 10 m g in tw ac l tr e- al w re th a od 4a a a 2a a m a a 2a a a a 2a a 2a 2a 3a a a 3a a 2a 2a 3a 3a 5 2, 3a 3a 3a 3a m × 5 2, id gr 36 × a 3a 3a × gr id 3a 29 le 3a a od u le u od 3a 3a m 2a 3a 3a 3a 2, 5 × 3a 3a 2, 5 3a 3a 4a el e l s ton l a tre tr et iu t m rac t tr ac t 3a 2a al l sk al w al n to w le w e sk a 2a 2a 2a w n o et el sk l al 008 Axonometric view: relationship of basic module grid, construction and tracts. 246 | 247 × 2a 2a 5 2, a × 36 2, 24 2, 5 2a a id gr id × 5 2, a 2a e ul gr 2a 2a od m × 3a 2a a 2a 2a 2a 2a e e- g in tw ac l tr al w re th 2a a 4a a 5 2a 2a 2a 2a 2a l n o et el sk al w Axonometric view: relationship of basic module grid, construction and change of tracts. m od ul 2a a 2a a a a a a 2a 2a a a 3a a 2a 3a 3a 3a a 009 3a 3a 5 2, 3a 3a 3a 3a 2a × 5 2, id gr 36 × a 2a gr id 3a 3a 29 le × 3a a od u 3a m le u od 3a 3a m 3a et on l a tre tr et iu tr m ac tr t ac t 2a el 2, 5 × 3a 3a 2, 5 3a a iii 3a 3a 4a al 2a sk l a b1 ls n to al w al le w e sk w a int III 24 5 2, × id × 2, 5 36 5 3a × 2a × 2, a 5 2, a a 2a a id gr 2a gr a 2a 6a 2a e ul a a 2a od m e a a 2a ul 2a 6a 2a a 2a od 's m oo l al tr w ur co 2a a 10 m pe lo en ve 2a a m 2a a a a a 2a 2a a a a a a 2a a a a 2a 2a 3a 2a l 2a 3a 2a 3a on 7a 2a 5 2, 3a al × 2, 5 2a gr id 29 le od u a 5a m × 5 2, id gr 36 × a 3a et le u od 3a w m 3a el 2a 's × 3a 2, 5 3a sk 2a m 2a oo l tr l al w al w ur 's co m oo tr ur co a 2a w n to e el sk l al 01 0 Axonometric view: shift, exception to construction (structural) module – removing and adding columns {marked in red}. 248 | 249 a int III 01 1 Axonometric view: building as cluster of empty, free atrium, courtrooms/“amphitheatres” and circulation towers {“castle” towers} and wings of “palace”. b1 /→ t int iii III | p. 231–232/ 10 m 01 2 Axonometric view: clusters of glassed and solid facades, and facades with balconies. 250 | 251 a int III b1 01 3 Axonometric view: building as a “castle” – relationship of the corner circulation towers to building as a “palace”. iii 10 m 01 4 Axonometric view: relationship of vertical {“castle”} towers and horizontal {“palace”} circulation corridors. /→ p int III | p. 272–273/ 252 | 253 a int III 01 5 b1 Axonometric view: relationship of horizontal circulation paths at the building's periphery, the corner vertical circulation towers and central courtrooms/“amphitheatres”. iii 10 m 01 6 Axonometric view: circulation paths between atria marked in darker red. 254 | 255 10 m a int III 01 7 b1 Axonometric view: vertical cluster {superposition} of above-ground administrative offices and courtrooms/“amphitheatres” at ground level. iii 10 m 01 8 Axonometric view: clustering of subterranean spaces, ground level and above-ground spaces. 256 | 257 a int III b1 iii 10 m 01 9 Axonometric view: clustering of construction {walls, columns and vertical circulation cores}. 258 | 259 a int III b1 020 Axonometric section: clustering of cell, atrium and amphitheatre spaces in cross section. iii 10 m 021 Axonometric section: clustering of cell, atrium and amphitheatre spaces in longitudinal section {with unbuilt subterranean garages}. 260 | 261 a int III b1 iii 10 m 022 Axonometric view: 1 above-ground level with circulation paths. st 262 | 263 a int III 023 b1 Axonometric view: 2 to 5 above-ground level with circulation paths. nd iii th 10 m 024 Axonometric view: 6 above-ground level with circulation paths. th 264 | 265 a int III b1 iii 10 m 025 Elevations: horizontal and vertical clustering of solid facade walls, fenestration, continuous loggia, balconies, entries, canopy and part of facade wall with sculptural relief on building facade. 266 | 267 a int III 026 b1 Axonometric view of building. iii 10 m 268 | 269 p int III  Photographic interpretation b1 H ertha Hurnaus Model interpretations iii Supreme Court and Ministry of Justice of the Slovak Republic in Bratislava 270 | 271 b1 iii → k int III / p. 74/ → t int III / p. 227/ → a int III / p. 234/ 272 | 273 b1 iii → k int III / p. 74/ → t int III / p. 227/ → a int III / p. 234/ 274 | 275 b1 iii → k int III / p. 74/ → t int III / p. 227/ → a int III / p. 234/ 276 | 277 b1 iii → k int III / p. 74/ → t int III / p. 227/ → a int III / p. 234/ 278 | 279 b1 iii → k int III / p. 74/ → t int III / p. 227/ → a int III / p. 234/ 280 | 281 b1 iii → k int III / p. 74/ → t int III / p. 227/ → a int III / p. 234/ 282 | 283 b1 iii → k int III / p. 74/ → t int III / p. 227/ → a int III / p. 234/ 284 | 285 b1 iii → k int III / p. 74/ → t int III / p. 227/ → a int III / p. 234/ 286 | 287 iii b1 Supreme Court and Ministry of Justice of the Slovak Republic in Bratislava _ photographed : 2011 (pp. 272–287) / 2012 (p. 271) 288 | 289 iv Renovation of and addition to Slovak National Gallery in Bratislava t int IV T  extual interpretation: Clusters of agoras, amphitheatres/odeons and pavilions a int IV Architectural interpretation Benjamín Brádňanský / Vít Halada _ co-authors Monika Mitášová / Marian Zervan _ in cooperation with Andrej Strieženec / Mária Novotná / Anna Cséfalvayová / Danica Pišteková p int IV Photographic interpretation b1 Model interpretations 291 Marian Zervan / Monika Mitášová Hertha Hurnaus 330 298 b  ₁ iv Model interpretations Renovation of and addition to Slovak National Gallery in Bratislava 290 | 291 t int IV Textual interpretation Marian Zervan / Monika Mitášová Clusters of agoras, amphitheatres/odeons and pavilions We resolved the exhibition spaces as variable halls, separated by moveable exhibit panels. Spatial variability and flexibility requirements were our spatial solution's fundamental axiom... To this goal we sacrificed many of the architectural-artistic excesses that a fixed exhibit space would allow, graded in expression... Our solution's content is based exclusively on how to exhibit 1 Slovakia's art, rather than exhibiting an architectural interior. [ V.D.] The cascaded shift of exhibition levels made it possible 2 for each of them to be lit by natural daylight. [ V.D.] An open amphitheatre, allowing promotion of visual art through film, is part of the outdoor exhibition space. In separate wings there are spaces for libraries and reading rooms, academic research, and individual studies such as those for graphic art as well as restoration studios, a laboratory and a meeting hall with an audio-visual block at the border between 3 the exhibition and research-administrative spaces. b1 Model interpretations iv Renovation of and addition to Slovak National Gallery in Bratislava [ V.D.] in part by frequently using the word space, with a special emphasis over almost twenty years, from the early 1960s to the early 1980s, on differentiation of indoor and outdoor spaces. On the other hand in several stages. Project documentation has been preserved for each his formulations concerning intentionally subtracting or repressing stage /→ p. 89/. This relatively lengthy period of design and the subsequent the architectural interior, in favour of the outdoor “underpass” below realization, divided into stages, meant that the notion of the designed the front wing (also called bridging), imply that differentiating processes work fundamentally changed, and it was never completed as a whole. were occurring not just between outdoor and indoor spaces, but also The staging also enabled Vladimír Dedeček to reconsider aspects of his between indoor space and the architectural interior. Secondly, Dedeček earlier solutions (such as the checkerboard urban raster and the natural implemented his conceptual working version of architecture, in that lighting of the 33-classroom Economics school at Ulica Februárového this interconnection was designed in a few stages. Though even early víťazstva street in Bratislava), or to rethink them in parallel with work on variations clearly envisage such a staged design process, in fact the design other projects (such as Bratislava's Campus of Comenius University, Natural stages crystallized into a definitive form gradually; thus they took on the Sciences Faculty pavilions in Mlynská dolina /→ p. 406/, and the Multi-purpose changing of both visual representation of the SNG building complex and exhibition facility in Bratislava-Petržalka /→ p. 424/. The SNG was conceived architectural thought itself over the entire design period. This took place as a renovation of the Water Barracks/Vodné kasárne, which after 1948 were not just in the architect's project, but also through ongoing discussion already in the service of the newly-established Slovak National Gallery, and opinions by the architectural competition commission's members, but the complex entailed razing some buildings and building a series of → k int IV → k int IV → k seg 7 → k seg 6 The Slovak National Gallery (SNG) building complex came into existence including Dedeček's teacher Emil Belluš /→ pp. 92–93/. The concept itself is new ones. Working closely with then-director of the SNG Dr. Karol Vaculík, never a monologue, but in the SNG building complex design it was rather Vladimír Dedeček came out against the concept of reserving the whole exceptional for its dialogical nature and even “cluster in polyphony”. Water Barracks as the domain of older art collections while housing modern and contemporary art collections in another appropriate location; instead Vladimír Dedeček took three approaches to developing the concept. he advocated combining these two notions of galleries-museums in a single The first was classical composition infected by creation of clusters building complex, with the Water Barracks as its core. (clustering) on various levels. This manifested itself chiefly in the design → a of two types of alternatives, the first of which was either to consider Thus the design task was to link two gallery types, not in one building or to ignore context. The historical Water Barracks building was but in a single building complex. This in turn conditioned Dedeček's an impulse to consider context, as was Harminc's Hotel Carlton Savoy, conceptual working version of architecture /→ p. 30/. First of all, the Fuchs' Rosenthal residential house and even Belluš' Hotel Devín, all nearby. period's visual representation (Vorstellung) of the gallery had to be Dedeček's solution was and still is understood by the lay public as an rethought, not just in the sense of reconsidering a single mono-block example of acontextualism. Also Dedeček's statement seems to support building or a pavilions, but also in interlinking the site's indoor and outdoor this alternative: “We did not speculate over the compositional or material spaces, and putting these into contact with the city. Interlinking urban relationships between the SNG buildings and the buildings we proposed to planning and architectural aspects had from the first been characteristic demolish, for a range of objective and subjective reasons”. Yet this sentence of Dedeček's work and became a constant in his thinking, but in the addresses buildings, indeed only those slated for razing; it particularly SNG project it is even more striking in terms of considerable layering concerns a defined part of the architectural context. But Vladimír Dedeček and multiplicity. These tendencies conditioned both the selection from never addressed even the buildings not slated for demolition in terms historically established (anterior ) urban planning and architectural forms of developing further their external similarity or historical morphology. and the use of the clusters approach. The architect's text on the SNG site To the contrary: he was building, as became customary for him, his signals the interlinking of both optics – urban planning and architectural – own internal context of the whole site. All the alternatives in his design 4 292 | 293 show that the individual SNG buildings share the inclusion of a variety The Water Barracks' location and form offered the building complex of notions of anterior architectural and urban forms (for the gallery solution the interconnection of four significant urban spaces: two large this is the amphitheatre or odeon [a roofed amphitheatre], or the stoa town squares (Hviezdoslavovo, and what is now called Námestie Ľudovíta and agora or forum). The completed SNG buildings are for example raised Štúra) and the Hotel Devín's foreground – this latter, in the first alternatives, on pillars or terraced, or have outdoor walkways or continual balconies meant to serve as the main access area to the SNG bulding complex from running around their facades. Contextually, they share surface materials; the embankment – and finally the riverfront, in the period's urban planning and after all there is the shared approach to design, such as shifting conceptions seen as “... the showpiece of the city... with a society-related and terracing... /→ pp. 91–100/→ pp. 302–303/. → k int IV → k int IV / → a int IV t int IV function" / for more → pp. 92/. This could be the basis for the SNG building complex checkerboard raster, at the core of which is the Water Barracks courtyard with arcaded portico connected to the riverfront. Towards its edge the where, for example, the Water Barracks' rear facades received new facades checkerboard fields were occupied by the amphitheatre, separated from in common with the whole building complex. This clustering of historical Riečna ulica street by a perforated concrete block wall and intermediary and contemporary surfaces is literally “acontextually-contextual”. Such space with pillars under the library. The peripheral fields were taken up generalization of common signs both contemporary and historical, by the side entrance to the administrative building and parking area, transformed into Dedeček's own architectural speech, created (in contrast on which was meant to be a garage with roof sculpture gallery /→ pp. 92–95/. to the exterior similarities and preservation of historical morphology) → k int IV The newly-formulated site's internal contextuality is significant in realization conditions for contextuality, both on-site and outside the site, with the The shifted administrative building's floors descend in a manner of neighbouring historical and modernistic buildings. In this way, for instance, terraces to Námestie Ľudovíta Štúra square, as the roof gallery would the motif of stoa, peristyle or portico could become a contextual nexus have descended the opposite way toward the new space to be created between the Water Barracks and the new SNG buildings, like the internal by razing the residential buildings on Riečna and Lodná streets. Indeed, courtyard motif linking the SNG building complex to almost all the even the front wing (the bridging) in an unbuilt alternative descended surrounding building structure: not only did Harminc apply this to the near the Hotel Devín corner in a form of cascading contemporary art Carlton Savoy, but also Belluš to the Hotel Devín and Fuchs to the Rosenthal gallery into the same space. When the alternative including the outdoor residential house. The Fuchs building is interrelated with the SNG via its roof gallery was not realized, Dedeček surrounded the administrative terraces facing the SNG, i.e. towards what is now Paulínyho ulica street, building's walkable roof with a high thin gable wall, its two window and via its morphology as influenced by the sun's movement through the openings oriented to the very same space where the outdoor roof sky. In terms of terraces, the corner residential building originally slated gallery's terraces and the cascading contemporary art gallery were for razing on Rázusovo nábrežie riverside street relates to the SNG, too. to descend. Among other things, this alluded to the newly created In all Dedeček's alternatives proposed for the SNG building complex, the open checkerboard field that was both inside and above the site on configuration of the horizontal prism of the library and study area and the roof. This interconnection, or to be more precise transfusion, the vertical SNG administrative building was composed as an inversion of of the city's public spaces with the gallery's semi-public outdoor gallery the vertical Hotel Devín and its horizontal service facilities. Placing a raised spaces, became an urban planning contextual prerequisite for any plinth in the Water Barracks courtyard, in fact, corresponds to the terrace other possible architectural contextualities. It is literally the clustering placed in front of Hotel Devín. Beyond this, all these forms of intra- and of public and semi-public outdoor squares on which the SNG building extra-architectural contextuality cooperate with the urban contextuality complex grew. that from its inception defined the building complex's design. b1 iv → k int II Another circle of alternatives brought in by Dedeček's compositional dichotomy of extra-architectural representation and abstraction, there working version of architecture had to do with deciding between intervenes a striking intra-architectural representation dominating the a figurative representational or a non-figurative abstract individual building site, systematizing basic intra-architectural meanings: it is indeed possible or building complex. At first glance, this is a national gallery for the state to understand the entire building complex as a cluster of agora analogies. and the nation with no reference to semantics beyond architecture – Some agoras are walled in by the arcaded Water Barracks corridors, and unless we are tempted to consider the raised bridging and thus opening some by the pillared “underpass" next to the perforated concrete blocks of the view of the Water Barracks as a move towards representing under the library pavilion, alluding to ancient Greek stoas. The latter are 19th-century historicism, which is even now a sore point in Slovaks' also evoked above the ground level by the continual balconies of the national consciousness; and unless we see the preference for red and library and administration building's outdoor walkways. In the agoras white colouring on the SNG as identification with the idea of the Slavs are placed podiums or terraced amphitheatres, and exhibited artworks. / → p. 71/; and unless we choose to understand Dedeček's handling of The amphitheatre is a dominating figure, bringing together the whole gallery floor mass-volumes as a modern analogy of rustic wooden building complex in dynamic balance. It serves two related functions: cabin tectonic reconfiguration, which thus evokes folk architecture presentation and education-promotion. The outdoor amphitheatre serves in Slovakia. The SNG building complex employs no permanent art as an exterior cinema and the indoor one as a lecture room-odeon. After works as part of its figurative function, as is the case with the Supreme all, the cascaded exhibition levels in the interior of the front – bridging – Court. This is understandable, as the project intended the gallery to wing are themselves an amphitheatre. show temporary and changing exhibitions of visual art in its outdoor spaces. The artworks so installed outdoors were in the gallery's artistic Indeed the amphitheatre clusters even within itself; one example is collections, and became an integral sign of the gallery building the indoor lecture hall-odeon cluster with the outdoor amphitheatre complex's architecture and urbanism. The front facade, i.e. the bridging terrace above it, and their clustering with other anterior forms of itself, is sometimes seen as a sculptural form, though its form came the context. A characteristic example is the SNG's front with its bridging. about through the aforementioned architectural design processes In the project's initial alternatives the front wing brought together the and not sculptural processes. Such an architecture reference to other forms of bridge and house, and later alternatives added the odeon form. artworks, and vice-versa, can also be explained as a specific form Three parallel exhibition levels, divided by moving panels, function as of extra-architectural representation. a multiplied stoa. This cluster of intra-architectural meanings undoubtedly contributed to the conception of the extraordinary construction and As a counter to this kind of representation, a tendency to abstraction spatial cluster of the bridging wing. Yet this came about from more than was employed. The building complex architectural forms employ, in terms just an anterior architectural form cluster, motivated by a balancing of planar geometry and volumes, abstract rasters, which become frames of architectural and urban aims. for the outdoor galleries and exhibits. Where the grids are applied to facades they become large coloured surfaces that together with the The second form that the concept's next phase took is one of the central stone baseboards refer to historical architecture (like the Water Barracks issues in Dedeček's architectural thinking, expressed in the polarity rear facade); elsewhere their multiplication – as on the administrative of mono-block versus pavilion complex. This issue subsumes another way building's east facade – recedes to an ambivalent play of blind red and that the architect interrelates architecture and urban planning. The white windows, brise-soleil of skylights and glassless windows in the SNG building complex was intended chiefly as an exhibition space, and tall gable wall, as on the administrative building's west facade. Into this a basic need of the renovation and addition was to increase exhibition 294 | 295 areas. However, in discussion with the SNG director, Vladimír Dedeček understood the institution as purposed for art promotion and research. The pavilion arrangement tended to be an appropriate solution for such → k int IV / → a int IV t int IV in various forms: from direct and diffuse natural lighting to a variety of artificial. Vladimír Dedeček has on various occasions explicitly affirmed this /→ pp. 96–97/→ pp. 312–313/. Thus ways of bringing in light became the regulator a program. In this sense the SNG building complex can be read as an of shifting the exhibition halls of the bridging into a cluster of open hall effort at interlinking the pavilion plans characteristic of the period and space and volumes of exhibition levels, corroborated by intra-architectural the historical form of a three-wing plan (planar disposition), with the figurative clustering as well as the selection of the bridge's roofing wings – in contrast to an enclosed four-wing form – anticipating separate materials. Dedeček let the light into the SNG site differentially (the natural pavilions. Pavilions can be relatively independent monofunctional units, light in the bridging versus the Water Barracks artificial lighting), but also of unrelated masses and volumes, or differentiated by storeys as in the blocked it in some places (the Water Barracks' rear facade); i.e. he both three-tract SNG administration building, which was originally designed as introduced light and muted it, or blocked its intensity (the administrative a mono-block. The Architect's Statement implies that the monofunctional building's west facade). This contradictory playing with light was administrative storeys were hybridized to include small exhibition spaces unquestionably meant to facilitate readings of intra-architectural meanings. in various forms. It might be the form of the graphic art study; or clustering a lecture-meeting hall with the outdoor terrace above it, accessible But what brings these three ways of developing the SNG building by a walkway hub, connecting the administrative building corridors with complex concept into a single contradictory unity, and what role in the Water Barracks walkways and thus problematicizing its historical this does clustering play? We presume the clustering mediates a basic three-tract arrangement. intra-architectural theme, that theme being the exhibiting of art in → a diverse forms, expressed in clusters of agoras, stoas and amphitheatres, The multiplication of the resting platforms in the administrative or odeons and pavilions. In his statement, Dedeček wrote that his building's main stairway has an equally hybridizing effect, though solution's content was not meant to exhibit an architectural interior, functionally this serves to differentiate the vertical passage and but exclusively to exhibit Slovakia's art, though he certainly had in the horizontal connection to hygiene facilities. The dominating pavilion mind international art as well. In this he gave voice to the unstated arrangement refers to the architect's linguistic syntagmatic working dogma that echoes in the minds of many artists and art historians still: version of architecture /→ p. 35/; the rules of this were differentiated both the architecture should be a neutral frame for exhibiting visual arts. in program and especially in composition, with clustering intending Even if Vladimír Dedeček was interested in architectural asceticism, he to link contextuality with intra-architectural meanings. This “salami" decidedly was not limiting exhibiting to visual arts. The bridging wing is approach to distributing programs among various sectors and sections led a cluster serving the function of a “raised curtain”, making possible the to playing with them in a “domino" game. The shifting of pavilion storeys exposition of art on an outdoor socle-stage simultaneously surrounded in the administrative building, or raising and shifting them in the bridging, by historical architecture; but it also interrelates the gallery's exhibition was aimed at two goals: to create clusters of walkways and terraces, spaces with the part of the city in which people take the most pride, and to make the courtyard accessible; Dedeček's agora-based urban of which the SNG was becoming part: the Danube riverfront. The planning for the SNG building complex confirms this. amphitheatres (with outdoor cinema) and the individual stoas are also exhibition spaces. In some variants of his renderings, Dedeček himself drew sculptures in the stoa space opening onto Riečna street and toward → a Ultimately, the third version of the concept elaboration became the architect's factorial or agency working version of architecture /→ p. 38/. The decisive factor or agent in the process of formation became light b1 iv the Hotel Devín. The theme of exhibiting, installing and exposition thus expanded to the whole building complex's outdoor and indoor spaces, even those not primarily intended for exhibition. This theme of exhibiting is likewise a test of the diverse possible architectural forms of exhibiting art and architecture. If in Dedeček's words flexibility and variability were to be the fundamental axiom of the SNG site's spatial solution, then indisputably this was not a question of mere open hall spaces and moving panels, but of the variable and flexible interconnection of architectural and urban forms and their intra-architectural figurative meanings; of clustered anterior forms that would invite a variety of views and diverse forms of exposition. Clustering is the expression of this flexibility and variability. 1 DEDEČEK, Vladimír. [Areál Slovenskej národnej galérie v Bratislave.] Architect's Statement. Projekt. Revue slovenskej architektúry, 23, 1981, 1–2, pp. 10–11. 2 Ibid., p. 10. 3 Ibid., p. 11. 4 EISENMAN, Peter. Diagram Diaries. London : Thames and Hudson, 1999. 296 | 297 a int IV  Architectural interpretation B enjamín Brádňanský / Vít Halada co-authors Monika Mitášová / Marian Zervan in cooperation with Andrej Strieženec / Mária Novotná / Anna Cséfalvayová / Danica Pišteková 10 10 0 10 0 0 10 0 50 50 10 10 50 0 100 10 10 10 50 0 Model interpretations 50 b1 10 50 iv Renovation of and addition to Slovak National Gallery in Bratislava 10 0 100 0 100 50 50 50 10 0 10 10 1 01 0 0 10 0 100 50 50 10 10 10 0 10 50 100 10 0 298 | 299 a int IV → 001 b1 Site plan: building in broad and narrow urban contexts, with 1. Hotel Devín, 2. Rosenthal's residential house, 3. Hotel Carlton Savoy, and 4. Water Barracks buildings marked in light red. iv a int IV 002 b1 Site plan and axonometric view: built edifices {red} in relation to the site and historical Water Barracks {black solid line} and surrounding historical buildings {black dashed line}. iv 10 m 003 Building site and axonometric view: unbuilt edifices {red} in relation to the site and historical Water Barracks {black solid line} and surrounding historical buildings {black dashed line}. 302 | 303 a int IV b1 iv 10 m 10 m 004 Axonometric view: circulation paths {blue} in both built and unbuilt gallery building complex. Site plan of building complex with in-gallery squares/“agoras” and their relation to city squares/“agoras” and Danube River bank. Arrangement of pavilions by playing domino game. /→ t int IV | p. 293–294/ 304 | 305 a int IV 005 b1 Axonometric view: clustering of circulation paths interconnecting buildings on various levels and internal gallery building complex squares. iv 10 m 306 | 307 a int IV 006 b1 Axonometric view: clusters of “agoras” and “amphitheatres” {red} as well as of “odeons” and pavilions {grey}. /→ t int iv IV | p. 294–295/ 10 m 007 Axonometric view: clustering of research and administrative building wing {light red} with “streets”: outdoor galleries: “walkways in the air” and walkable roofs {blue hatching} and exhibition wing: bridging {light red} with indoor space of gallery levels {blue hatching}. 308 | 309 a int IV 008 Axonometric view of internal “amphitheatres”/“odeons”: cinema {dark red} b1 in administrative wing and 3-storey exhibition space in bridging wing {dark red} – expanded section of the 3 layers of amphitheatre gallery space in bridging wing. iv 10 m 009 Axonometric view of internal “amphitheatres”/“odeons” (urban interior): Water Barracks courtyard, cinema amphiteatre, and exhibition plateau under administrative wing {dark red} in relation to unbuilt terrace roof-gallery situated on walkable roof of unbuilt garage {red hatching}. 310 | 311 a int IV A Ia Ib 01 0 Axonometric view and section: first design of front Danube wing: Ia. hypothetical reconstruction of first alternative from 1962 {according to preserved front elevation}; Ib. second alternative from 1963. Diagram of shifted floors (A), bringing natural light from above into exhibition halls. b1 Ground floor features a design of perforated entrance wall, telescopically extensible up from the underground level and retractable down to it. /→ a | p. 35//→ t int iv IV | p. 296–297/ b2 10 m b1 IIa IIb 01 1 Axonometric view and sections: second design of front Danube wing. Formation of opening, creating view into courtyard and new front “bridging” wing, by removing pilotis and second above-ground storey. IIa. first alternative with enclosed storeys; IIb. second with open levels interrelated into three-level “odeon/amphitheatre” in bridging (both alternatives 1967–1968). Clustering of amphitheatre, interior streets and exhibition space. Sections show natural lighting system in closed storeys {B1} and open levels {B2} of the bridging. /→ t int IV | p. 296–297/ 312 | 313 a int IV a a ½a ½a a ½a ½a a ½a ½a ½a 10 m ½a 01 2 Sections: superposition of second alternative of first front wing design (1b) and second alternative of second design (2b): b1 apart from the view into the courtyard it shows natural light from top side in exhibition spaces and the space under the bridging (red arrows and dashed lines). Two bridging wing sections: relationship of function, structure and form: shift of interior gallery “street” by half of the module {½A}. iv 10 m 01 3 Axonometric view of administrative building: relationships of module grid field {M = 7.2 m × 7.2 m} to construction and form. Horizontal side, longitudinal and vertical shifts of floors: variances in level width and shifts. Shift of administrative levels by approximately 1/6 of module, playing domino game. 314 | 315 b b b b b b b b b b b b a int IV 2a 2a 2a 1 7,5 m a 2 a 2a 3 10 m 54 ,5 m 4 b1 01 4 Axonometric view: construction of bridging: cluster of load-bearing and carried, suspended and cantilevered structures. iv 6 5 6 5 b 4 b 4 b 3 2 b 1 2 0 1 b 7 6 5 5 4 3 2 10 m 1 1 2 b b 3 b 4 b b 6 b 7 a a 0 b 3 b b c b a b b b b b a c 01 5 Axonometric view of administrative building: changes in column construction: cluster of column structure and diagonal support elements. Cantilevering of stories. 316 | 317 a int IV b1 01 6 Axonometric view: 1 subterranean level with circulation paths marked. st iv 10 m 01 7 Axonometric view: 1 above-ground level with circulation paths marked. st 318 | 319 a int IV b1 01 8 Axonometric view: 2 above-ground level of administrative building with circulation paths marked. nd iv 10 m 01 9 Axonometric view: 3 above-ground level with circulation paths marked. rd 320 | 321 a int IV b1 020 Axonometric view: 4 above-ground level with circulation paths marked. th iv 10 m 021 Axonometric view: 5 above-ground level with circulation paths marked. th 322 | 323 a int IV b1 022 Axonometric view: 6 above-ground level of administrative building with circulation paths marked. th iv 10 m 023 Axonometric view: 7 above-ground level of administrative building with circulation paths marked. th 324 | 325 a int IV b1 024 Elevations: facade rasters (according to elevations provided for SNG reconstruction and addition competition). iv 10 m 025 Cross and longitudinal sections. 326 | 327 a int IV 026 b1 Axonometric view of built edifices of SNG building complex. iv 10 m 328 | 329 p int IV Photographic interpretation b1 Hertha Hurnaus Model interpretations iv Renovation of and addition to Slovak National Gallery in Bratislava 330 | 331 b1 iv → k int IV / p. 88/ → t int IV / p. 291/ → a int IV / p. 298/ 332 | 333 b1 iv → k int IV / p. 88/ → t int IV / p. 291/ → a int IV / p. 298/ 334 | 335 b1 iv → k int IV / p. 88/ → t int IV / p. 291/ → a int IV / p. 298/ 336 | 337 b1 iv → k int IV / p. 88/ → t int IV / p. 291/ → a int IV / p. 298/ 338 | 339 b1 iv → k int IV / p. 88/ → t int IV / p. 291/ → a int IV / p. 298/ 340 | 341 b1 iv → k int IV / p. 88/ → t int IV / p. 291/ → a int IV / p. 298/ 342 | 343 b1 iv → k int IV / p. 88/ → t int IV / p. 291/ → a int IV / p. 298/ 344 | 345 b1 iv → k int IV / p. 88/ → t int IV / p. 291/ → a int IV / p. 298/ 346 | 347 b1 iv → k int IV / p. 88/ → t int IV / p. 291/ → a int IV / p. 298/ 348 | 349 b1 iv → k int IV / p. 88/ → t int IV / p. 291/ → a int IV / p. 298/ 350 | 351 b1 iv → k int IV / p. 88/ → t int IV / p. 291/ → a int IV / p. 298/ 352 | 353 b1 iv → k int IV / p. 88/ → t int IV / p. 291/ → a int IV / p. 298/ 354 | 355 b1 iv → k int IV / p. 88/ → t int IV / p. 291/ → a int IV / p. 298/ 356 | 357 b1 iv → k int IV / p. 88/ → t int IV / p. 291/ → a int IV / p. 298/ 358 | 359 iv b1 Renovation of and addition to Slovak National Gallery in Bratislava _ photographed : 2004 (pp. 331, 351, 352, 355, 356) / 2007 (pp. 333–341, 350) / 2014 (pp. 343–349) / 2015 (pp. 332, 353, 357, 359) Keys to photographic segment of possible interpretations 1 k seg 1 School in housing estate on Ulica Februárového víťazstva (sector “Februárka A”), currently Račianska ulica in Bratislava 366 2 k seg 2 Secondary Agriculture Technical School, currently Joint School – Secondary Vocational School of Y. A. Gagarin in Bernolákovo and Primary Arts School, Bernolákovo k seg 3 N  ine- to twelve-year school, with pavilions of 8, 10, 12 or 24 classrooms (regional typification proposal [TP], Regional Project Institute Bratislava [Krajský projektový ústav Bratislava]) 3 4 k seg 4 Secondary Political Economy school / 33-classroom Economics school at Ulica Februárového víťazstva, currently Business Academy on Račianska ulica in Bratislava 382 5 k seg 5 Campus of the University of Agriculture in Nitra, currently Slovak University of Agriculture in Nitra 388 k seg 6 Campus of Comenius University, Natural Sciences Faculty pavilions in Mlynská dolina, currently Campus of Comenius University and Ľudovít Štúr residence halls 6 k seg 7 Multi-purpose exhibition facility in Bratislava-Petržalka, later Incheba, currently Incheba Expo Bratislava 7 k seg 8 University of Forestry and Wood Technology in Zvolen, currently Technical University in Zvolen 8 k seg 9 Extension to Forest Economy Institute in Zvolen, currently National Forest Centre in Zvolen 9 406 424 442 454 10 k seg 10 Institute of the Interior Ministry of the Slovak Socialist Republic for Local National Committees, currently Institute for Public administration in Bratislava, Horné Krčace 462 11 k seg 11 C  onstruction replacing buildings demolished on Místecká ulica / Multi-purpose sports hall for Vítkovice steelworks and Klement Gottwald machine plant at Ostrava-Vítkovice, later Vítkovice Palace (Hall) of Culture and Sports, later ČEZ Aréna Ostrava-Zábřeh, currently OSTRAVAR Aréna in Ostrava 468 Keys to possible interpretations with no photographic segment 12 13 b2 k nonseg 12 E  ight-year school with 9 classrooms for primary education, economized design (prototype in Čiližská Radvaň, repeatable project by Stavoprojekt) k nonseg 13 S  hared administrative building of the Directorate of Poultry Production and Construction/Project Centre of Bridge-Production Plant Brezno, currently head office of Social Insurance Agency 490 Possible interpretations 484 372 376 b₂ 1–13 Keys to photographic segment of possible interpretations Monika Mitášová 364 | 365 k seg 1 School in housing estate on Ulica Februárového víťazstva (sector “Februárka A”), currently Račianska ulica in Bratislava b2 Possible interpretations 1 Location  ight-year school with 25 classrooms general education school, currently Hotel Academy Mikovíniho 1 E and 4-classroom pre-school, currently Felix private pre-school Mikovíniho 3, 831 02 Bratislava-Nové Mesto Project for building permission Structural engineering project Interior architecture project Execution project General contractor 1  udolf Miňovský (pre-school and gym pavilions), R Vladimír Dedeček 1 (atrium school and canteen), 1957 2 Ľudovít Farkaš (?), Karol Mesík (?) 3 Jaroslav Nemec  ladimír Dedeček, Rudolf Miňovský and Studio II for educational buildings, from 1957 V Stavoprojekt Bratislava Investor  inistry of Education and Culture, M as represented by the Schools Department of the Central National Committee in Bratislava Construction from 1959 4 Building volume (total built space) (?) Expenses planned expenses for school (per calculation requirements) 7 mil. 500 thou. Kčs Building type  re-school and primary/general education school P (unified primary school with two years of secondary school) In the given period, Stavoprojekt 1 listed authorship in the order: Miňovský, Dedeček. → Literature item 2 (MIŇOVSKÝ – DEDEČEK 1957). In the 1960s, authorship was listed in reverse alphabetical order, → Literature item 5 (ŠVANIGA 1964). Project documentation that lists authorship and the chief architect is not at present available. Architect's dating 1956–1958. 2 In: Životopis z 26. novembra 1987. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. Dating was verifed based on the published text ŠVANIGA, Juraj. Škola na “Februárke”. Projekt. Časopis sväzu slovenských architektov, 5, 1964, 10–11, p. 229. Interview with Vladimír Dedeček, 3 in Bratislava, autumn 2015. Construction is dated based on an 4 * U  nverified dating is italicized. Dating verified using published or unpublished literature is given in plain text. Dating verified using project documentation, photographs of project documentation, unpublished archived document, Záznam z komplexnej previerky prípravy plánu investičnej výstavby školstva a kultúry na r. 1959–1960, napísaný na MPK pri rade ÚNV Bratislava dňa 14. januára 1959. Typewritten, p. 58. Fond NVB 1955–1960 (3497) 151 1958 B-T 2686. MV SR, State Archives in Bratislava (originally Archív hlavného mesta SR Bratislavy). [This states that the documentation was “available” for “the start of the construction process” in 1959.] and documentation from reports Technicko-ekonomické vyhodnotenie stavby (TEV) 001 View toward school atrium under construction. Black and white is underlined and can at this photograph by TASR/Magda Slosiariková. Photo dated 8 July 1961. point be regarded as stable. TASR archives in Bratislava. 366 | 367 k seg 1 002 Building(s) and its/their spatial relationships This atrium school consists of a three-wing school building and a separate gym pavilion. The three wings around the atrium – the schoolyard – connect at the side gym pavilion's corners to the staircase via paved walkways and an unglassed ­pergola. The pre-school is situated in front of the school in a row of four diagonally receding pavilions with play areas. Between the school and pre-school, the architects proposed a connecting pavilion with kitchen and dining room (unbuilt). Building site (Situation) The school complex is located at the convergence of the Staré Mesto and Nové Mesto city districts in Bratislava, in a park by the crossing of ­Šancová – Radlinského/Račianska streets, where the housing estate “Februárka A” begins. The two above-ground levels atrium school is a reaction to the park's sloped terrain toward the northeast, such that the rear school wings designed at the same level of ground are built on the terrain, while those in front rise up on pilotis, forming a sheltered ground floor break area (préau). The pre-school pavilions to the northwest turn in zigzag pavilions diagonally to the south, each one-storey pavilion (playroom) with its own entrance, hygiene facilities, and individual play area under a pergola with sandbox. The proposed shared scooter track was not built. 002 Programmatic and spatial solution b2 A new concrete panel housing estate on Ulica Februárového víťazstva/Račianska was planned in 1955 for 13,000 residents. At that time, the Schools department of the Ministry of Education and Culture calculated that 14% of these residents would be students in first through eighth year of primary general education school. Therefore the school was to be designed for 1,820 students; given 40 students per classroom, this implied 46 classrooms. These were allotted to two school buildings: an eight-year school with 25 classrooms (in the “Februárka A” sector) and an eleven-year school with 23 classrooms (in the “Februárka E” sector). There were also to be pre-schools built for children aged 3 to 6 (3.75% of the population, or 487 children), with 16 playrooms (30 children per room). Based on this, the localization program specified three free-standing, four-classroom pre-schools and two two-classroom pre-schools 003 1 002–003 004 → a / → k nonseg 12 / → m cv cv → m → k seg 2 → m cv situated directly into the residential buildings of the Februárka estate apartment buildings. “New school buildings for general education and preschools will utilize approved school building types.” (Schools department of Central National Committee, 1955) An approval letter from the minster of education and culture, the Marxist educator Prof. Ernest Sýkora, stated: “The building should be designed as an ­application of the 8/25 prototype [8-year school with 25 classrooms] located on the building site terrain, with all necessary support, in keeping with the regulations on project documentation.”  5 The calculation requirements report is dated 1955,6 but the design of the housing estate's civic amenities was postponed. For this and other reasons, for the progressive Februárka housing estate Dedeček and Miňovský by 1957 proposed more than simply locating their Bratislava proto­ type school as designed two years earlier in 1955 (STP BA, Bratislavský typ, approved 1956, / → pp. 686–687/ ) as the ministry had assigned them. By the time they started designing this primary/ general school in Bratislava, they had had the opportunity to design highly preferred vocational secondary schools for the systematically developing agricultural sphere in selected regions of Slovakia (Secondary Agriculture Technical School, currently Secondary Vocational School of Y. A. Gagarin in Bernolákovo, designed 1956–1957, / → p. 372/ and the unbuilt Agricultural technical school c­ omplex in Levice, designed 1956–1957). In them, the archi­ tects had tested variable school planar dispositions or layouts featuring “square classrooms”, which were more appropriate in terms of arrangement supporting alternative teaching ­ methods, and in terms of the technical parameters of bi­ lateral lighting and of cross-ventilation. It was in the Februárka school in particular that the architects were able to get the square classroom ­design into the typification process of primary/ general education, as the architect Professor Karfík and engineer doc. Harvančík had done in the prototype of the experimental concrete panel school in the Vistra housing estate / → p. 691/. There were a few different decisive influences on the concept and layout of this project for an atrium-based school and pavilion-based pre-school in a rising park terrain. One of them was Miňovský and Dedeček's ongoing architectural program of variable function and spatial differentiation of the so-called barracks school mono-block design (the architect Emil Belluš' term). Another came from new opinions on teaching regarding further differentiation by age as well as program in post-Stalinist schools and pre-schools of the turn of the 1960s. Dedeček situated the school's three functional programmatic sections in separate wings around a sloped atrium-school yard featuring greenery. He placed older primary students' ­general classrooms upstairs in the front wing, and the younger students' general classrooms on the ground floor of the parallel rear wing. The youngest pre-schoolers' rooms were elongated, by terraces for outdoor teaching, toward the grassy courtyard. The thus-conceived warm-weather atrium “classrooms in the park” (ŠVANIGA 1963, p. 229) were part of the programmatic reassessment of the avant-garde Dutch, French, German and Czechoslovak early 20th century schools (en plein air, Freiflachenschule). In the post-war USA, Walter Gropius also reconsidered their new function and mass-volumetric organization in cluster schools with outdoor classrooms. / → p. 36/ → pp. 486–487/ → p. 698/. This atrium-based “Februárka” school featured two equal-sized front and rear general-classroom wings to the southeast and southwest orthogonally joined at the side, and a northern wing of specialized classrooms for older grades (e.g. chemistry, biology and physics), with teachers' offices, common room, toilets and cloak rooms. On the opposite side of the specialized classrooms wing, a separate physical education pavilion with unglassed outdoor corridors enclosed the sloped atrium. The school's program, students' ages and park's morphology influenced the differentiation Minister's letter of approval 5 dated 20 October 1955, p. 1. In: Fond NVB 1955-1960 (3532/2693) 455 1955 D-Ú 2693. MV SR, State Archives in Bratislava (originally Archív hlavného mesta SR Bratislavy). Ibid., p. 2. 6 002 Plan of school's second level (ground floor) and section elevations of school complex. In: KARFÍK, Vladimír – KARFÍKOVÁ, Světla – MARCINKA, Marián. Nové smery vo výstavbe škôl. Bratislava : Vydavateľstvo Slovenského fondu výtvarných umení, 1963, pp. 228-229. 003 Plan of school's third and first levels. In: KARFÍK, Vladimír – KARFÍKOVÁ, Světla – MARCINKA, Marián. Nové smery vo výstavbe škôl. Bratislava : Vydavateľstvo Slovenského fondu výtvarných umení, 1963, p. 230. 004 Front view of pre-school under construction. Black and white photograph by TASR/Magda Slosiariková. Photo dated 8 July 1961. TASR archives in Bratislava. 368 | 369 004 k seg 1 process of the individual wings and pavilions on the building parcel. The pre-school's individual smaller pavilions, differentiated by children's ages, also shared common outdoor spaces. Each individual cell-playroom had its own playground, terraced in keeping with the terrain's slope. They were originally designed to feature irregular oval sandboxes (but were concrete-cast orthogonally). The school's space distribution or layout is cellular. This represented the architects' first steps toward their later pavilion-based schools in parks. Before it won external approval by the ministry, this innovative design primary/general school was criticized at the time for putative inappropriate interpretation (!) of the approved localization programs for the school and preschool (because of individual pavilions with their own infrastructure, and warm-weather terraces in a partially closed and partially open atrium) – even though this was an experimental project of a prototype that was to lead to a new stage in typification, and received full support from Stavoprojekt leadership in its internal approval process: “The ideas of the modern school were realized in a way that was truly unique in Slovakia... The conception of the pre-school at first elicited certain discussion, but the current prepared typification research fully corroborates these opinions.” (ŠVANIGA 1964, p. 229) Among the factors by which the architects and other professionals justified their step toward a more extensive pavilion school were the qualities of the site and the requirement that it feature variability of differentiated teaching spaces. In their reports accompanying project documentation, they explicitly argued utilization using the following factors/agents and requirements: “… the ample building parcel for differentiating function”, adding: “this is a type school, to be situated in other places too, and so the variability of individual buildings is likewise a necessity.” 7 b2 The school building is a new interpretation of the steel frame (skeleton), in terms of function and mass-volume. The steel frame size suited the dimension of the almost square classrooms of 730 × 720 cm with bilateral natural lighting through windows both in the facade and in the corridor partition wall – on the lower levels – while also suiting the classrooms on the upper levels, where the bilateral side lighting is supplemented by a third, top lighting source through skylights (it was on the upper levels of this school → p seg 1 Module, construction, volume, surfacing that the highest levels of the classrooms' lighting were measured ‹ŠVANIGA 1964, p. 229› ). There was a fundamental shift both in the program and mass-volume solution compared to previous school types in the overall urban and architectural differentiation of the complex and the individual buildings. The new school's layout does not uncritically follow either the classic type of school mono-block with closed schoolyard or the type of classicizing U-shaped, threewing palace layout with a three-sided courtyard (Cour d‘honneur) that was characteristic of ­typified schools of the early, i.e. Stalinist phase of ­ Socialist Realism. Miňovský and Dedeček’s school reevaluates both of these layouts, in that it forms a new partially enclosed, four-wing arrangement for the primary school in a park, with pathways at the ends of the wings and préau under the front wing. It makes available at least two possible modes of indoor and outdoor occupation of enclosed, partially-enclosed, and openair teaching spaces: it enables the complex to be utilized as a concentric space of semi-open atrium-courtyard school and longitudinal space of three-wing corridor layout school interrelated with a concentric space of the free-standing side sports pavilion, which is situated asymmetrically, thus decentralizing the axial symmetry of the atrium and the school's three wings. Occupiers of the complex with this design were able to differentiate learning environments for students in groups (collectivities on a smaller scale) within the larger collective of the socialist school per se, in a variety of relationships to the architecture of the school interior (classroom, classroom with terraces for outdoor teaching in the ­atrium-courtyard), urban interior (atrium-courtyard with pathways, préau, park) and urban exterior in this part of Bratislava. Besides the form of the whole school, in particular its front wing on pilotis and the rear wing with teaching terraces is designed as a partly open and partly enclosed structure. The fact that the current school administration as well as the education process have not yet accommodated to such u ­ rban-architectural organization (the classroom doors to the teaching terraces are currently walled-up, up to the window level ‹!› / → p. 505/ ) s­ignals long term prioritization of the single regimen of inhabiting the enclosed space only, which runs directly counter to the multiplicity of teaching possibilities offered by this school's architecture, with its terraces in a grassed ­atrium-courtyard. The open-closed ­modalities of this school operation assumed the cultivation of the urban-architectural environment of the 1 school culture in the city park, and thanks to its spatial/programmatic order it allowed for, or even initiated, an ongoing decision-making process between various programmatic and seasonal occupation modes that were not only reductive but also differentiating. Yet where differentiating of the mono-block is concerned, this school operated as if it were the kind of pre-modern barrack school criticized by generations of modern and late-modern ­architects designing open-air school complexes in ­Slovakia. Miňovský's pre-school offers to the school thus designed a “partner” in the differentiation process through the addition of small pavilions, which relate to the park via play areas with ­pergolas and sandboxes. Such a school and pre-school complex was a noteworthy combination of schools and park that at the time was one of the most progressive in Slovakia. In particular, it combined the closed regimen of planar disposition or layout type of an atrium school with the operations of a semiopen school in the air and the morphological type of a school of garden pavilions. This school complex, designed at the threshold of the 1960s, is closed to most of the public and simultaneously an open component of a public city park. It is semi-open in terms of: 1. its physical relation to the park, 2. its geometry (axial a/symmetries), and 3. its plastic-relief facade enhanced by ­colour (coloured plastering; the proposed white and red glass mosaic was not realized). characterization Formal-stylistic ATR [a Stavoprojekt architectural committee, Architektonicko-technická rada], in its internal ­ project evaluation and approval process, formulated an important supporting assesment: “Overall, the new way of conceiving the design is considered to be beneficial for the construction of school buildings, despite its contradiction of valid regulations. The economics are favourable.” (­MIŇOVSKÝ – DEDEČEK 1957, p. 6) ­Juraj Švaniga, who reviewed the school at that time, considered the realization of ideas of the modern school in this project to be unique (both untried and innovative) within Slovakia as well as Czechoslovakia at the beginning of the 1960s. Similarly, the authors of the publication New Directions in School Construction [Nové smery vo výstavbe škôl] (1963) did not formulate any stylistic characterization, instead featuring the proto­type at the end of the “Experimental schools” ["Experimentálne 005 školy"] chapter and writing of the r­ aster/grid of its deep, spatial facade: “The ­windows are considerably overhung with protruding floor cornices, so it will be possible to observe the impact this feature has on regulating strong sunlight.” (KARFÍK – KARFÍKOVÁ – ­MARCINKA 1963, p. 225) They stressed the function of the deep ­facade/sun break. In the literature of the period, the Februárka-street school and its warm-weather teaching space in the atrium was characterized just as modern architecture in general and not specifically as a reconsideration of the avant-garde (­ under the influence of the Stalinist phase of ­Socialist Realism, the avant-garde at the time was as a rule referred to pejoratively as formalism). Sign-symbolic DEDEČEK, Vladimír – MIŇOVSKÝ, Rudolf. Typizácia Relationship of formal-stylistic and sign-symbolic characteristics was also not formulated in the literature of the period. (študijná úloha ZSA). [Stavoprojekt – ZSA : Bratislava]. Typewritten, November 1958. 47 pages. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. KARFÍK, Vladimír – KARFÍKOVÁ, Světla – MARCINKA, Marián. Nové smery vo výstavbe škôl. Bratislava : Vydavateľstvo Slovenského fondu výtvarných umení, 1963. documentation archived at the sng ŠVANIGA, Juraj. Škola na “Februárke”. Projekt. Časopis sväzu slovenských architektov, 5, 1964, 10–11, p. 229. Project documentation/project model There is no project documentation or model in the collection. DEDEČEK, Vladimír. Vývoj priestorovej koncepcie základnej školy (postgraduate dissertation). Part 1. Bratislava: FS SVŠT, 1974, paginated by chapter. Textual part of project There is no textual part in the collection. Literature 7–8 This characterization was not formulated in the writing of the period, unless we take into consideration Švaniga's expression “classrooms in greenery” in reference to the open-air atrium as to the area of natural forces in the midst of architectural culture, as well as to the analogy of the building's open surroundings. Školský odbor ÚNV Bratislava. Dielčia investičná úloha, 1955. In: Fond Investing, Box 170. MV SR, State Archives in Bratislava (originally Archív hlavného mesta SR Bratislavy). See report: Prepracovanie E okrsku v sídlisku na Ulici Februárového víťazstva v Bratislave, Stupeň I. hlavný projektant Ing. Svetko, dated 29 April 1958, p. 1 of appendix. Fond Investing, Box 170. MV SR, State Archives in Bratislava (originally Archív hlavného mesta SR Bratislavy). MIŇOVSKÝ, Rudolf – DEDEČEK, Vladimír. Školský areál v sídlisku na Ulici Februárového víťazstva. Projekt. Časopis štátnych projektových ústavov pre výstavbu miest a dedín na Slovensku, 3, 1957, 8, pp. 6–7. 005 Completed pre-school in park. Black and white photograph by Ivan Kuhn (?). Photo undated. Archive of Fine Art SNG. 370 | 371 k seg 2  Secondary Agriculture Technical School, currently Joint School – Secondary Vocational School of Y. A. Gagarin in Bernolákovo and Primary Arts School, Bernolákovo b2 Possible interpretations 2 Location 2 Svätoplukova 38, 900 27 Bernolákovo Project for building permission Structural engineering project Interior architecture project Execution project General contractor  udolf Miňovský, Vladimír Dedeček,1 1956   2 R Ľudovít Farkaš (?), Karol Mesík (?) 3 Jaroslav Nemec  udolf Miňovský, Vladimír Dedeček and Studio II for educational buildings, 1956–1957  4 R Stavoprojekt Bratislava Investor Ministry of Education and Culture, represented by the Central National Committee in Bratislava Construction 1957–1960, workshops completed in 1961 5 Building volume (total built space) (?) Expenses (?) Building type Secondary vocational school The architects are listed 1 in the order that Stavoprojekt gave at the time the project originated. The reviewer Ľubomír Titl gave them in reverse, i.e. alphabetical, order in 1961. Project documentation giving the order of authorship and chief architect is not presently available. Architect's dating: 1956–1958. 2 In: Životopis z 26. novembra 1987. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. Dating verified based on the published text TITL, Ľubomír. Poľnohospodárska technická škola v Bernolákove. Projekt. Časopis Sväzu slovenských architektov, 3, 1961, 9, p. 185. Interview with Vladimír Dedeček, 3–4 in Bratislava, autumn of 2015. Dated based on information 5 from the school. 001 Front of completed school. In: DEDEČEK, Vladimír. Vývoj priestorovej koncepcie základnej školy (postgraduate dissertation). 2 parts. Bratislava: FS SVŠT, 1974. Paginated by chapter, pictorial part unpaginated. 372 | 373 The building complex consists of the school building's long front wing with a perpendicular administrative wing to the right of the main entrance and a wing of workshop halls to the left. Behind these is the gym pavilion. The planned residence hall and canteen pavilion were added only in the 1980s (on the basis of a new project by a different architect). building site (situation) → k seg 1 002 Building(s) and its/their spatial relationships 004 k seg 2 The school site is located in the northwest of Bernolákovo. Senecká cesta street borders the school to the north. A neighbourhood of family houses borders it to the southeast, and to the southwest beyond the street Gaštanová alej is the devastated chateaux now in private ownership. The art historian Peter Fidler characterizes the chateaux in the context of early eighteenth-century architecture: “The three-wing Esterházy palace in Bernolákovo (at the time Landsitz or Čeklís) from 1714–1722 is one of the noteworthy first traces of the new style. The building, negligently attributed to Johann Bernhard Fischer of Erlach, is beholden to French Vorklassik models. A renovation in 1750 by Jakub Fellner gave it its present appearance.” 6 The school and its main entrance face to the east, toward Priemyselná ulica street, with a view of a family house quarter; its rear views are to the west, and the chateaux park formerly of the Esterházys. b2 In 1952, based on a Czechoslovak government resolution, the Ministry of Agriculture established an agricultural vocational technical school in Bernolákovo – specialized in mechanized agricultural production. The school's first site was the Esterházy chateaux. Construction preparations for the new building began in the 1953/54 academic year.7 The architects designed the initial school area as a four-wing building, differentiated by both program and mass-volume (in the end, the planned fourth student’s residential hall wing did not appear in the resulting design). They planned the two-storey school building as a three-tract planar disposition or layout with a central corridor. On the first above-ground storey (the ground floor) the entry hall is situated, together with the service staircase as the main vertical circulation path. The central corridor differentiates the upper floors into the courtyard tract with longitu- 0 0 2– 0 0 3 programmatic and spatial solution dinal teachers’ rooms, archive and library facing the park. In contrast, the street-side tract has longitudinal offices and “square classrooms” with side bilateral lighting through paned windows on the facade and through the corridor partition windows (the glass of the “corridor windows” in the classrooms has currently been painted white ‹!› – this borrowed light and cross-lighting of the classroom seems to be considered disturbing and is out of use now). The second aboveground level has a third, top daylight source through the skylight, like in the later primary/ general education school on Ulica Februárového víťazstva/­Račianska street in Bratislava / → p. 366 /. After earlier primary school prototypes with square main classrooms, this became the first secondary school in Slovakia in which all the general classrooms were designed as halls of varying dimensions roughly square. The square classrooms enabled more varied ways of teaching in a so-called active school, not just in the sense of linking theoretical lectures with (workshop) labour, but also in providing a new and more variable furnishing of teaching space when assigning one or more groups of students to classrooms. The expectation was for light-weight, moveable furniture, not the fixed rows of standard two-student desks in a deep auditorium in front of a single teacher's desk and blackboard. In this sense, the Bernolákovo agricultural school's first reviewer in the early 1960s, the architect Ľubomír Titl, considered it an experimental building: “Based upon learning from schools in other countries, such results were expected. The valuable thing in our example is that the architects at the time (1956) showed, through experimentation in our conditions, that one cannot insist on a traditional viewpoint when it comes to school buildings. Rather, one must seek new forms, new operating principles and new architectural means of expression and elements that would become universal and be specific to the schools of our time.” (TITL 1961, p. 185) The school's front wing connects, through the entry hall and staircases, to the side wings: administration on one side and workshops with technical classrooms on the other. The workshops, with stations designed for assembling and disassembling agricultural machines, are lit from above by a series of round projected glass block/ brick skylights in the flat roof. This building foreshadows the key role of translucent glass block walls in many of Dedeček's later primary school designs. But the reviewer in the early 1960s was impressed by neither the hall's differentiation in mass and volume, nor by the connecting corridors: “However, it is a shame that the interrelation of the 2 buildings' volumes does not seem quite as neat; in contrast with the simple architecture of the school building itself, the bigger picture comes off as relatively complicated, marked clearly by the time period of its origin.” (TITL 1961, p. 185) His eye, being trained in functionalist architecture, recognized the tight joining of differentiated wings through an articulated entry hall. At the time, the reviewer attributed this to the preceding (Socialist Realist) rather than the upcoming period of (cluster) school construction. However, in the context of Dedeček's entire body of work, we can in hindsight regard this as one of the sources of the tight mass and volume compositions of circulation halls to come in Dedeček's future cluster schools. And even at the time, the reviewer appreciated the “unified impact” of both the architectural and sculptural works, i.e. the plasticity of the school building and the sculptural relief by Professor Rudolf Pribiš (1959: a reclining female figure, conceived in the classicizing mode, partly veiled in drapery with a scarf on her head and depicted with attributes of a cogged wheel and grain sheaves as a Socialist-Realist allegory of agriculture and machinery). The Pribiš’ relief is installed on the facade of the bevelled entry with a flat roof. module, construction, volume, surfacing The school wing, which is partially underground and has three above-ground levels, is of ferro-concrete construction (at present no more detailed data is available). The tract by the schoolyard has a shed (skillion) roof, while the tract by the street has a flat roof – the skylight is installed in the height difference between them. The recessed basement level of the schoolyard tract receives light from the areaway. The school's spatial layout is based on rooms and cells. The entry hall's staircases give it height differentiation, providing visual and physical interconnection of the rooms, which are in a range of dimensions from narrow longitudinal teachers' rooms, through square classrooms, to the large workshop halls. Every third in-between window pillar on the front facade projects in front of its plane, forming a characteristically deep raster of pillars, covered in white speckled plaster. Spandrel walls are covered with yellow glass mosaic with aquamarine parts. Socle covering is grey artificial stone (currently painted over in white in some places). In contrast to later urban primary schools with a white/red colouring, this vocational school classroom pavilion in this residential 002 quarter near a park has a white/yellow facade (Vladimír Dedeček explains that the Jablonecká bižuterie factory initially produced only yellow glass mosaic, and only later did Dedeček's studio commission other colours 8 ). The workshop wing has white plastered masonry with green coloured metal sill covers and rain gutters. characterization 003 004 Relationship of form-stylistic and sign-symbolic characteristics Again, these relationships are not formulated in the period's literature. It is noteworthy that even though the workshop building had new post-­ Stalinist tectonics and design of the interior and roof with projected skylight, this was not even mentioned in the writing of the period. Formal-stylistic documentation archived at the sng The first reviewer, Ľubomír Titl, characterized the building among experimental school sites in the late 1950s and early 1960s. He considered it a search for new forms, and new programmatic and operational principles. He found the school wing's form to be simple, and the form of the corridors and other interrelations between wings to be complicated and a sacrifice to the age. Project documentation/project model I [Secondary Agriculture Technical School in Bernolákovo.] Black and white photograph of project documentation. Unsigned, undated (plan of levels p±0 and p+1, scale not given). Photographs unsigned, undated / Inv. č. A 1604/90–92 /. Textual part of project Sign-symbolic The reviewer made mention of the fact that the school had been seeking new architectural ­expressive means and elements, and stressed the unity between the architectural and sculptural plastic impact. The sculptural relief brought together the current attributes of industry and agriculture, and a classically-composed female figure as their allegory. The architecture resulted from a simple yet spatially differentiated form, articulated in relief and colour in terms of both geometry and function/operation, and related to complex spaces and forms. The reviewer likely intended the words complicated interrelation of the buildings' volumes to refer to the entrance projected from the building, and its formation in bevelled planes. But he formulated no explicit sign-symbolic characterization. There is no textual part in the collection. Literature FIDLER, Peter. Architektúra 6 MIŇOVSKÝ, Rudolf. Vývoj školského ateliéru ŠPÚ-Bratislava. Projekt. Časopis štátnych projektových ústavov pre výstavbu miest a dedín na Slovensku, 3, 1957, 8, p. 2. DEDEČEK, Vladimír – MIŇOVSKÝ, Rudolf. Typizácia (študijná úloha ZSA). [Stavoprojekt – ZSA : Bratislava]. začiatku 18. storočia. In: RUSINA, Ivan. Dejiny slovenského výtvarného umenia. Barok. Bratislava : SNG, 1998, p. 32. Dated based on information 7 from the school. Interview with Vladimír Dedeček, 8 in Bratislava, summer of 2014. Typewritten, November 1958, 47 pages. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. TITL, Ľubomír. Poľnohospodárska technická škola 002 Plan of school's first above-ground level. Black and white v Bernolákove. Projekt. Časopis Sväzu slovenských architektov, photograph unsigned. Undated. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, 3, 1961, 9, p. 185. Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. DEDEČEK, Vladimír. Vývoj priestorovej koncepcie základnej školy (postgraduate dissertation). Part 1. Bratislava: FS SVŠT, 1974, pagination by chapter. 003 004 Plan of second above-ground level and cross section. Black and white photograph unsigned. Undated. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 374 | 375 k seg 3 Nine- to twelve-year school, with pavilions of 8, 10, 12 or 24 classrooms (regional typification proposal [TP], Regional Project Institute Bratislava [Krajský projektový ústav Bratislava]) b2 Possible interpretations 3 Location 3 City of Bratislava, Bratislava Region (→ Construction) Project Vladimír Dedeček, 1959 1 Structural engineering project Ľudovít Farkaš (?), Karol Mesík (?),2 Josef/Jozef Poštulka 3 Interior architecture project Jaroslav Nemec Execution project Vladimír Dedeček (chief architect), S[?]. Gašparovič (responsible architect) and Studio II for educational buildings, from 1959 General contractor Krajský projektový ústav (Stavoprojekt) Bratislava Investor Construction Ministry of Education and Culture, as represented by the Central National Committee in Bratislava This regional typification proposal [typový podklad] was built, with modifications, on sites including the housing estates _ in Bratislava-Trnávka on Vietnamská ulica street (currently Primary school Vrútocká 58, 1959–1960 4 ); _ in Bratislava-Petržalka on the former Lysenkova ulica street (currently Private Bulgarian primary school Záporožská 4 and the police administration building Záporožská 8, 1959–1961,5 urban plan by Fedor Mitterholzer), _ and in Bratislava-Kramáre Dated by the architect: Bratislava1 (currently Primary school with pre-school Cádrova 23, Trnávka, 1958–1960; Bratislava-Petržalka, 1959–1961; Bratislava-Cádrova Bratislava, 1960–19616 ). 1959–1961. In: Životopis z 26. novembra 1987. Uložené: Fond Vladimír Later, the same type of school was built Dedeček, Zbierka architektúry, úžitkového umenia a dizajnu SNG. _ in the Štrkovec housing estate 7 on Drieňová ulica Dating verified based on the unpublished text DEDEČEK, Vladimír. Vývoj (currently Primary school Medzilaborecká 11, addition completed 1964 8 ) priestorovej koncepcie základnej školy (postgraduate dissertation). Part 1. Bratislava: FS SVŠT, 1974, p. III/14; and on the published text: [unsigned.] _ and Trávniky Katalóg pôvodného riešenia budov základných škôl, Bratislava : VVÚPS(currently Business Academy Nevädzová 3, Bratislava, 19619 ). Nova Výskumno-vývojový ústav Pozemných stavieb, 1995, p. 3/2. One example of the school as built in the wider Interview with Vladimír Dedeček, 2 Western Slovakia region is in Bratislava, autumn of 2015. _ in Malacky (currently Gymnázium Malacky, Ulica 1. mája 8, 1963 10 ). Statická správa. Signed by 3 Josef Poštulka, Ateliér VIII, dated 31 December 1959. In: Fond Investing, Building volume (total built space) (?) Expenses 4,200–4,700 Kčs per student (federal limit: 5,200 Kčs) Box 26. MV SR, State Archives in Bratislava (orginally Archív hlavného mesta SR Bratislavy). Dated by the architect. 4–5 In: Životopis /cited in Note 1 /. Unverified. Dating verified by the unpublished 6 Building type School for general education text: [unsigned.] Územné rozhodnutie o umiestnení stavby. Typewritten. Bratislava, 21 September 1960, pp. 1–2. Fond NVB 1955–1960 (3334/2594) 154 1968 S-Z 2594. MV SR, State Archives in Bratislava (orginally Archív hlavného mesta SR Bratislavy). Allocated using a building plan 7 by Irina Kedrová. Dated based on information 8 provided by the school. Dating corroborated based 9 on the published text MRÁZEK, Pavol – SKALA, Jozef (eds.). Stavoprojekt, Bratislava 1949–1989. Bratislava : Alfa, 1989, unpaginated [Typizácia chapter]. 10 Not listed in Životopis. Not dated in Zoznam prác II. Dated based on information from the school. 001 Pavilion school complex on Tokajícka street in Bratislava-Štrkovec. Black and white photograph by TASR/Štefan Petráš. Photo dated 20 August 1963. TASR archives in Bratislava. 376 | 377 k seg 3 → p seg 3 002 Construction of the pavilion site required no more building area than the same volume of classrooms in a mono-block school (ŠVANIGA 1960, p. 5), but facilitated a variety of urban planning solutions, both in compact panel housing estates and less dense urban sites in the suburbs or between towns. The school's site could be landscaped in various park or garden designs, as is apparent in Fedor Mitterholzer's urban plan for school sites at the former Lysenkova ulica, currently Záporožská, in Bratislava-Petržalka; the school site plan on the hillside at Cádrova ulica in ­Bratislava-Kramáre / → p. 518/; and the greenspace of the extensive site in Malacky. building site (situation) programmatic and spatial solution The first of these pavilion schools were mostly built and tested in the building process on both flat and sloped land in Bratislava and Western Slovakia. The architects considered sloped locations as more desirable, as these made it possible to situate the furnace/workshop underground in the general education building. All 4 kinds of the pavilions, differentiated by function and student age, and interconnected by walkways, covered relatively small areas, and thus could be placed as required and relatively economically on either smaller or more extensive sites, even with varying terrain morphology and vegetation. “Thus the children had maximum opportunity, indeed necessity, for moving about in the fresh air...” (KARFÍK – ­KARFÍKOVÁ – Until 1959, older repeated designs of mono-block schools were still being built in Slovakia, as well as type schools with classicizing palace plan layout as interpreted in Socialist-Realism or new experimental prototypes and type projects, including the atrium-based, Thälmanova-type Nine-year school with 24 classrooms (designed 1958) by the architect Rudolf Miňovský (­ŠVANIGA 1959, p. 2) / → p. 699/. However, in 1959, because of problems when supporting spaces were not built for them as they became necessary (absent wings or pavilions for canteens, physical education and often even specialized classrooms) the architects of Studio II for educational buildings designed an interpretation of the new localization program of schools that differentiated by age both school and after-school MARCINKA 1963, p. 195) 3 004 b2 As per the typification proposal [typový podklad, or TP], the school site is accessed by covered paved walkways (unglassed with metal pergola). The walkways could be designed based on the character of a given site, either as a central promenade with branches, as a central crossing of two walkways with branches, or as a loop. In the third case, the covered walkways connected pavilions located at the periphery (as in Bratislava-Cádrova and Malacky) with a loop walkway linking pavilions on its inner side with those on its outer side (TP, 1959); alternatively, a loop walkway can delineate a park, with all pavilion entries along its circumference (Bratislava-Trnávka, Bratislava-Ružinov). Typically, the covered walkways connect 4–5 school pavilions, which are differentiated by educational programs and the age of the students. These interconnect: A) 1 or 2 pavilions of general classrooms for lower and upper primary school (these pavilions might have their own underground furnaces or polytechnic workshop, and usually were the first buildings constructed on a given site, while others could be added in stages), B) a pavilion for a canteen and after-school care (as a rule 4 rooms on the lower storey, divided by folding partitions) as well as school administration (on the upper storey); C) a natural science pavilion with specialized physics, chemistry and biology laboratory classrooms and a so-called demonstration hall with stepped auditorium (designed as analogous to university lecture halls); and D) a physical education and sports pavilion (the gym is 120 × 2,400 cm, and the two changing rooms and showers 150 × 270 cm), or a sporting ground on the school site. → m cv 003 001 Building(s) and its/their spatial relationships activities, such that it was possible to transition from typification of individual school buildings built in a few stages to the typification of entire pavilion school complexes, leaving reserve space for gradual additional construction. Rudolf Miňovský designed and tested experimental pavilion park school complexes in Trnava and Nitra, constructed using a “light assembly” construction process (with each prefabricated component weighing no more than 75 kg). Meanwhile Vladimír Dedeček was working on designing and testing progressive pavilion schools in parks, built using a hybrid construction process: classical brick masonry in combination with assembly of typified building components (for example prefabricated floor elements or staircases, type windows and doors, and so on). In cooperation with the construction engineers of Studio II, he designed and implemented a new and broader dimension of school floor panels, of 690 × 60 × 24 cm. Dedeček designed the pavilion school complex such that individual pavilions could be built either all in one phase or through gradual addition and/or extension. A school complex could thus grow by adding pavilions (a large modular component) or extending those already built, in half-storey additions with a pair of classrooms (a small modular component). This meant that pavilions could expand an 8-classroom to a 10- to 12-classroom building with variations of two, two and a half, or a maximum of three storeys. Pavilions (with two or three operational tracts divided in rooms/cells) could grow to any of these three heights, by addition of small modular components. ­ lassrooms had yet to be tested or approved for c primary education, and were being built only as experimental prototypes. Even Dedeček’s four transversal classrooms in clovers/clusters anticipated alternative furniture arrangements: organizing student desks along the width of the classroom in just 4 rows, or forming groupings or a single large group of individual desks. The book New Directions in School Construction [Nové smery vo výstavbe škôl] (1963) characterizes these cluster pavilion designs of Dedeček's schools as follows: “The teaching pavilions have an interesting planar disposition or layout, with 4 classrooms per floor, dimensions of 8.8 × 6.6 m, and a two-side system of natural light ‘through the corner windows’. The classroom's blackboard is along its longer wall, and is the first example of a transversal classroom in our country.” 006–007 (KARFÍK – KARFÍKOVÁ – MARCINKA 1963, p. 190) 003 While Miňovský was designing corridor-based pavilions with square and rectangular classrooms for Trnava and Nitra schools, Dedeček designed and tested in Bratislava a new design of “corridor-free” clusters: groups of 4 transversal classrooms accessed by a single staircase, which he called “four-leaf clover” or “bunch”: “The planar disposition or layout of the basic classroom pavilion is based on a four-leaf clover of 30-student classrooms – deep or transversal [in comparison with longitudinal], arranged around a vertical circulation core. The classrooms are lit from corner windows. The design anticipates a flexible interconnection between the common pavilion and the common openspace hall [using a folding partition], and instead of specialized classrooms provides laboratories connected with a stepped lecture hall.” (DEDEČEK 1974, p. III/14) This transversal, or as the architect called it “deep classroom”, was in fact an alternative to the square-classroom (concentric space) in a longitudinal building layout, at a time when square The cluster or “four-leaf clover” of peripheral classrooms, with central staircases and hygiene spaces, has partially glassed facades, giving each classroom suitable lighting, from side and back walls and “through corner windows”. The transversal classrooms, each turned at 90° in the plan, are slightly shifted and oriented toward the daylight (like Bohuslav Fuchs’ ­Rosenthal apartment house, designed and built 1935, near the SNG in Bratislava, or Luigi ­Moretti's Il Girasole, ­designed and built 1947–1950). The half-storey rise in two-storey pavilions means the staircase plays a key role in the spatial interconnection of individual cluster rooms/cells. The vertical circulation core thus becomes one of the pavilion's spatial foci of cells/classrooms grouped around it. When moving up or down the staircase, a ­sequence of views emerges that unfolds the dense spatial organization of indoor cells. Further pavilions in a given complex are designed either as operational and construction three-tracts with lecture hall and laboratory, 002 Working model of school complex. Model and black and white photograph unsigned. Undated. In: ŠVANIGA, Juraj. Typizačná úloha pavilónových škôl. Projekt. Časopis Sväzu slovenských architektov, 2, 1960, 1, pp. 2–5. 003 Variant of typification proposal for school with covered inner circulation loop, specialized classroom pavilions in the centre and general classroom cluster pavilions on the loop’s perimeter. In: KARFÍK, Vladimír – KARFÍKOVÁ, Světla – MARCINKA, Marián. Nové smery vo výstavbe škôl. Bratislava : Vydavateľstvo Slovenského fondu výtvarných umení, 1963, p. 190. 004 Possible half-storey vertical expansion of cluster general classroom pavilions. Section. In: ŠVANIGA, Juraj. Pavilónová škola v Bratislave. Projekt. Časopis Sväzu slovenských architektov, 6, 1964, 10–11, pp. 226–228. 004 378 | 379 k seg 3 006 → a / → m cv or two-tracts with a gym. In these the architect placed circulation and hygiene spaces differently, next to the pavilion entries: thus he gave the staircases the role of watchtowers with a view over the school's land and surroundings. The indoor staircase conversely had the role of an internal hub affording views of the interior. Thanks to left-sided, corner window and rear-wall window lighting, flexible rearrangement of light-weight furniture away from the walls into the centre of the room becomes possible. The lighting expertise concluded that rearwall windows enhanced the visibility of blackboard writing, precluding surface glare (ŠVANIGA 1960, p. 3) . This means that the spatial organization of clusters of classrooms/cells offered more flexible reconfigurations of furniture in the rooms, and therefore wider variability of interrelationships among people in the collectivity of socialistic schools. It is noteworthy, given the school typification situation at the end of the 1950s and beginning of the 1960s in Slovakia, that when the project plans were published the reviewer (Juraj Švaniga) made reference, among others, to the example of Swiss schools in general, and Vladimír Dedeček referred to specific Swiss schools with transversal classrooms and to American cluster schools / → pp. 36–37/ → pp. 700 –701/. b2 0 0 8 –0 0 9 module, construction, volume, surfacing The brick masonry clusters with prefabricated floors do not have a modular grid based on a gen- 006 007 005 eral, universal modular coordination, but rather are designed as dense groupings of 2 or more locally modular units around a circulation hub The “modular unit” is a pair of classrooms (a “twoleaf” clover) with a short corridor. But in other pavilion schools the “modular unit” could be three classrooms (a “three-leaf” clover) or bunches of larger numbers of classrooms. So in this case the cluster or “bunch” of orthogonal classrooms arrangement characterizes a new relationship between planar disposition or layout type of economized schools and the morpho­logical type of condensed cells (i.e. of habitats as architectural analogies to astronomical “binary stars” – systems of two proximate stars that de/form each other's gravitational fields as they get closer together – or to “tone clusters” in free jazz or modern classical music: chords comprised of consecutive tones separated diatonically, pentatonically, or microtonally (as in compositions by Heinrich Biber... and Leoš Janáček, Béla Bartók, Henry Cowell, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Alfred Schnittke, John Cage etc). 007 008 characterization Formal-stylistic The literature of the period situated pavilion school sites, in the context of experimental and type projects, among new and interesting solutions, but posited no characterization in terms of form or style 009 3 010 Sign-symbolic The literature of the period offers no formulation. Textual part of project Relationship of form-stylistic and sign-symbolic characteristics The literature of the period offers no formulation of this either. Literature There is no textual part in the collection. DEDEČEK, Vladimír – MIŇOVSKÝ, Rudolf. Typizácia (študijná úloha ZSA). [Stavoprojekt – ZSA : Bratislava]. Typewritten, November 1958. 47 p. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Zbierka architektúry, úžitkového umenia a dizajnu SNG. documentation archived at the sng ŠVANIGA, Juraj. Typizačná úloha pavilónových škôl. Projekt. Časopis Sväzu slovenských architektov, Project documentation/project model 2, 1960, 1, pp. 2–5. KARFÍK, Vladimír – KARFÍKOVÁ, Světla – MARCINKA, I [Nine- to twelve-year school, with pavilions of 8, 10, 12 or 24 classrooms.] Black and white photographs of pavilion campus presentation model. Modelmakers and photographers not listed, undated / Inv. č. A 1604/47–58 /. II [Nine- to twelve-year school, with pavilions of 8, 10, 12 or 24 classrooms.] Black and white photographs of the building in completion, at an unspecified location (corner view of school pavilions, campus overview with circular water receptacle, views of covered walkways between pavilions, view of physical education pavilion). Unsigned, undated / Inv. č. A 1604/59–82 /. Marián. Nové smery vo výstavbe škôl. Bratislava : Vydavateľstvo Slovenského fondu výtvarných umení, 1963. 005 Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. Projekt. Časopis Sväzu slovenských architektov, 6, 1964, 10–11, pp. 226–228. KARFÍKOVÁ, Světla. Základný učebný priestor pre ZDŠ. 006 009 Architektura ČSSR, 26, 1967, 5, pp. 303–308. Project of pavilion with four-leaf general classrooms. Plan, section and elevations. In: ŠVANIGA, Juraj. Typizačná úloha pavilónových škôl. Projekt. Časopis Sväzu slovenských architektov, MASNÝ, Rudolf – LOJDL, Milan (eds.). Stavoprojekt 2, 1960, 1, pp. 2–5. Bratislava 1949–1969. Bratislava : Práca, 1969, pp. 108–109. DEDEČEK, Vladimír. Vývoj priestorovej koncepcie School complex with inner pedestrian loop. Presentation model and black and white photograph unsigned. Undated. In: Fond Vladimír ŠVANIGA, Juraj. Pavilónová škola v Bratislave. 01 0 Complex under construction. Black and white photograph by základnej školy (postgraduate dissertation). Part 1. FS SVŠT, TASR/Štefan Petráš. Photo dated 17 August 1962. TASR archives Bratislava, 1974. in Bratislava. 380 | 381 k seg 4 Secondary Political Economy school / 33-classroom Economics school at Ulica Februárového víťazstva, currently Business Academy on Račianska ulica in Bratislava b2 Possible interpretations 4 Location Project for building permission Structural engineering project Interior architecture project Execution project General contractor 4 Račianska ulica 107, 831 02 Bratislava-Nové Mesto  ladimír Dedeček, 19611 V Ľudovít Farkaš (?), Karol Mesík (?),2 Josef/Jozef Poštulka (?) Jaroslav Nemec Vladimír Dedeček (chief architect), I.[?] Adamec, [?] Kusovský 3 (supervising architects) and Studio II for educational buildings, 1962 4 Stavoprojekt Bratislava Investor Construction Ministry of Education and Culture, represented by Central National Committee in Bratislava Pozemné stavby, n.p. Bratislava, school pavilion with administrative section 1961–1962,5 change in gym project documentation in 1965 because of foundation problems 6 (construction of gym halted in 1962, completed after project documentation change in 1964–1965) Building volume (total built space) (?) Expenses (?) Building type Specialized secondary school Architect's dating: 1961–1963. 1 In: Životopis z 26. novembra 1987. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. Dating verified based on archive material of Pozemné stavby Bratislava. In: Hospodárska škola. E okrsok v sídlisku na Ulici Februárového víťazstva v Bratislave. Fond Investing, Box 177, unpaginated. MV SR, State Archives in Bratislava (originally Archív hlavného mesta SR Bratislavy). [Project documentation was not part of these records.] Interview with Vladimír Dedeček, 2 in Bratislava, autumn of 2015. 3 Attributed based on archive material of Pozemné stavby Bratislava /cited in Note 1 /. 4 Dated based on project documentation for Hospodárska škola Ul. Februárového víťazstva – Bratislava. Execution project. Signed by Dedeček and Adamec, dated July 1962, scale 1:50 (plan for ground floor and first to fourth storeys). Ozalid copy on paper. Archive of Obchodná akadémia in Bratislava. 5–6 Dated based on archive material of Pozemné stavby Bratislava /cited in Note 1 /. 001 Secondary Political Economy school at Ul. Februárového víťazstva – Blava [Bratislava]. Project. Signed by Dedeček, Adamec. Undated. Front view. Scale 1:100. Reproduction on paper coloured with pastels. Obchodná akadémia in Bratislava archives. 382 | 383 k seg 4 002 The centrally-situated school pavilion is connected to the side administrative pavilion to the right of the main entry via outdoor walkways. A separate gym pavilion is situated behind the administration part. To the left of the school pavilion's entry a canteen wing was later added (in the mid-1970s, according to a different project). 002 building site (situation) b2 The school is located parallel to the former U ­ lica Februárového víťazstva street in Bratislava, currently Račianska – the main route connecting the city centre with the old Rača area. The school campus is situated close to the residence hall Mladá garda designed by Professor Emil Belluš (in co-authorship with students of the technical university's Faculty of Architecture in Bratislava, designed [?] and built 1955 7 ). The central pavilion of classrooms is accessible through a green park in the foreground coming from Račianska ulica; the canteen and sporting pavilions behind surround, to the depth of the parcel, the school's courtyard area with playgrounds and greenery (originally with no fencing; at present it has been fenced). The central classroom pavilion has southeastern views to green areas and the busy Račianska ulica street, while the northwest views from classrooms lead to the school courtyard play areas and out of town to the slopes of the western Carpathian hills, to the terraced terrain of Rössler lom quarry. 4 programmatic and spatial solution 003 building(s) and its/their spatial relationships Vladimír Dedeček designed the three original pavilions, for classrooms, administration and sport, while he was working on the execution project for the University of Agriculture in Nitra, and just before he started designing the first alternatives for the renovation of and addition to the Slovak National Gallery in Bratislava. In keeping with this specialized secondary school's localization program he differentiated, in volume and in mass, the pavilions' functions of education, physical education and administration. He supplemented them with common club and exhibition spaces, and designed a new spatial differentiation of walking communications inside and between pavilions, especially indoor staircases and outdoor walkways. The horizontal circulation spaces (corridors) of the main five-storey school pavilion with classroom are in a double-tract layout of the building on the edge, along the courtyard facade. The vertical circulation (cores) are shifted out and projected from the courtyard facade as two triangular wings or “towers” (one half of each housing a three-flight staircase and in the second an elevator lift and hygiene facilities for girls, or in the adjacent tower for boys). The circulation cores/ towers express their functional and spatial independence from the classrooms and horizontal circulation, both through their triangular volume projected from the quadrilateral prismatic classroom pavilion and through differentiated facades. On the side facade of the circulation wings or “towers” are a row of low ventillating horizontal windows, placed directly above the staircase lower landing and below the upper landing, as well as in between them (i.e. there are three lines of horizontal windows on each storey). This dense arrangement of horizontal windows on the staircase tower's side facades changes the perception of the whole building's scale (the atypically low windows make the towers seem higher, and the pavilion with the typical w ­ indows height lower, → k seg 1 003 though “tower” and pavilion heights are equivalent). In contrast the tower's rear, courtyard facade has no windows at all. This gives the “tower” an ambivalent form: the side view is of a seemingly high structure with dense alternation of window and masonry strips (a seemingly closed, horizontally-articulated solid, allowing the light into the interior from this side). The front courtyard view shows the tower as a window­less prism (a literally closed prismatic solid, inaccessible from this side). In this context the blind facade of both triangular towers is perceivable as a place/plane of indecidability in planar and volumetric terms. And the entire rear facade engenders a new r­elationship between ­ the optical and physical closedness and openness of the school, in comparison for example with Dedeček's earlier atrium-based school at the end of Ulica Februárového ­víťazstva / → p. 366 /. From the first above ground level upwards, the corridors of the front classroom pavilion extend to form three outdoor walkways on the side facade (marked in project documentation as “galleries [pavlače]” ‹ DEDEČEK – ADAMEC 1962 › ). These connect the school and administration pavilions: in between school/administration they are transformed into three “bridging walkways” with staircases. Thus in contrast to the concentric triangular staircases, the longitudinal corridors extend beyond the building walls: “I designed the exterior galleries [pavlače] to make possible walking out of doors to a [lower flat] roof terrace, and into the p ­avilion” [ V.D. ]  8 However, the roof terrace is not used as such (contrary to Fuchs' gymnázium building in Martin while Dedeček studied there). And the doors from the “bridging galleries” into administration have since been walled up (!). In this school building as in that Dated based on the publication 7 DULLA, Matúš. Architekt Emil Belluš. Bratislava : Slovart, 2010, p. 315. Interview with Vladimír Dedeček, 8 in Bratislava, autumn of 2015. 002 33-classroom Economics school at Ulica Februárového víťazstva – Bratislava. Landscaping scheme. Signed by Fellinger, Leščenko. Dated 1967. [Building site (Situation)]. Scale 1:500. Reproduction on paper. Business Academy in Bratislava archives. 003 Secondary Political Economy school at Ul. Februárového víťazstva – Bratislava. Project. Signed by Dedeček, Adamec. Undated. 2nd storey plan. Scale 1:100. Ozalid reproduction on paper. Business Academy in Bratislava archives. 384 | 385 b2 In Dedeček's words, he designed “glass block [or glass brick] loggia floors, to let in top light to the classrooms below.” [ V.D. ] 9 Classrooms on the second, third and fourth above-ground storeys were to be illuminated by daylight of varying intensity from three directions: through paned windows on the front facade from the left (with light on the blackboard/s and the desks/individual tables); further, light was to fall from the left above through a glass block floor, as well as from the “corridor partition window” from the right via paned windows in the courtyard facade. One reason for inserting shorter specialized classrooms/ teachers' common rooms among long main general classrooms was the complex lighting of classrooms allowing daylight in. As a consequence, Dedeček gave the main school a “deep” or spatial front wall: a “cell-based facade”. This new variant alternated with the preceding concrete pier- or wall-based variants of deep “brise-soleil facades”, created by protruding vertical and horizontal elements extending the plane of the rectilinear structured facades. Later, the architect built on the proven concept of top daylight via a shift in storeys in his first version of a southern Danube-­ facing wing of the Slovak National Gallery, where the exhibition spaces demanded top lighting. Of this design mode he said: “I designed the construction and the volume simultaneously. Architecture is construction and descriptive geometry.” [ V.D. ] 10 module, construction, volume, surfacing 003 of ­Februárka A / → p. 370 /, the possibilities of their occupation are currently restricted. Whether we take the bridging galleries as remnants of connections between the school and its intended adjacent residence or as autonomous connections between two school pavilions, they come across as indications or fragments of multi-level “streets in the air” (Alison and Peter Smithson) / → p. 529 /. With some hyperbole, it would be possible to make the possible distinction (in terms of function, mass and volume) that the classrooms (the concentric spaces, where motion pauses) form the inner space, while the vertical and horizontal circulation paths (the longitudinal spaces for motion) have been shifted on the edge and in front of the facade: they become relatively independent, with their own spatial and architectural autonomy, as buildings for circulation/ movement. Thus the “buildings as movement paths” (laterally extended, tall or long spaces) differentiate themselves from the closely-attached “classroom wing”, i.e. the “building as places for occupying” (the cells and halls of learning). In fact the actual spaces are often interrelations of movement trajectory and stasis, for instance the “square classrooms” expand into their loggias on the school's Račianska street facade (indeed becoming longitudinals), and the corridors contain their own halls: the respírium (in fact becoming a concentric space). Individual spaces become autonomous, simultaneously engendering among themselves possible exchanges in function and mass-volume. This holds true of indoor and outdoor circulation: the outdoor walkway galleries and bridges are the school's “streets” as well as “watchtowers”. Where the classroom pavilion has a twotract disposition or layout, the administration pavilion is a three-tract, with a staircase, corridor and rooms/cells. The separate gym pavilion is a hall space. The main school pavilion's ground floor features an entry hall [respírium] with porter's room, library, student common room and specialized classrooms toward Račianska ulica street. The other four above-ground storeys have the largest corner classrooms with no corridor (with dimensions of 660 × 1060 cm, shortened on the top storey by the corridor's area). In the middle of the floor plan, the long general classrooms (660 × 800 cm) aligning with the front facade alternate with shorter specialized classrooms/teachers' common rooms (660 × 610 cm/660 × 330 cm) with loggias (660 × 120 cm). It is these shifts that form a new type of Dedeček's deep checkerboard facade, consisting of receded loggias and aligned paned windows. → m cv → p seg 4 → k seg 1 k seg 4 The module grid of the main school building is 697 cm × 870 cm, and the window module on the front facade is 147 cm and 348 cm on the rear. The construction is of ferro-concrete, and the spandrel walls and partitions are of porous concrete. The flooring is stone tile in the hygiene facilities, and rubber flooring from Zlín (Zlinolit, from the ­manu­facturer Československé závody gumárenské a plastikářské specialized plant, patented 1955). The interiors were plastered and painted white. The administrative pavilion's entry hall and corridor have atypical wooden wall panelling with wooden upholstered seating and “display tables-vitrines”: horizontally glassed cases on plinth (on the basis of Jaroslav Nemec’s design). The latter are placed in the widened corridor space, which serves to house permanent expositions. Cases based on Nemec’s designs are also classrooms’ built-in furniture. As with earlier schools, these classrooms were not furnished with Nemec's designs for light-weight individual tables and seats / → p. 689 /. They had and have standard 4 t­ ables and a blackboard in the middle of the main wall. Mass-produced basins are installed on the main wall by the blackboard. Outdoor bridging galleries between the classroom and administration pavilions were designed as ferro-concrete cantilevers with thin steel railings and vertical eaves (with orthogonal cross-section). The metalwork still has its original black colour of paint, but the walking surfaces have been newly covered in asphalt (!). They are not used for passage between pavilions. The rectilinear facade relief was enhanced with bold colour contrast of the white plastered facade, white/red/black coloured spandrel ­surfaces, and red vertical frame surfaces (plaster coloured with iron oxide and manganese oxide [iron red and manganese brown]). This colour combination supports the perception of a scale of depths of the front's surface, while articulating the checkerboard facade in an alternating planar raster. The proposed red L-shaped surfaces were to form zigzag diagonals and black I-shaped surfaces were to articulate horizontal dash-lines (repainted in red). The front of this urban school has colouring analogous to the earlier faculty pavilions of the University of Agriculture in Nitra, or the pavilions of the general education schools TP Stavoprojekt 1959. characterization Formal-stylistic The school was not reviewed in the press of the period, and therefore was not characterized in terms of form or style. Sign-symbolic The literature of the period offers no formulation. Relationship of form-stylistic and sign-symbolic characteristicsc Consequently the writing of the period offers no formulation on the relationship between them. documentation archived at the sng Project documentation/project model There is no documentation in the collection. Textual part of project There is no textual part in the collection. Literature  11 9–10 Interview with Vladimír Dedeček, in Bratislava, summer of 2014. 11 The literature of the period did not address this project, and the Architect's Statement and other textual parts of project documentation are not as of now available. 386 | 387 k seg 5 Campus of the University of Agriculture in Nitra, currently Slovak University of Agriculture in Nitra b2 Possible interpretations 5 Location 5 Trieda Andreja Hlinku 2, 949 76 Nitra Competition project for Nitra-Žrebčín location Preliminary project and study for new Nitra-Letisko location Rudolf Miňovský, Vladimír Dedeček,1 1956 2 variant by Vladimír Dedeček (built), 1959–1960 3 variant by Rudolf Miňovský (unbuilt) Deputed project for building permission rectorate and aula pavilions: Vladimír Dedeček, Rudolf Miňovský (d. 1960) and Studio II for educational buildings, 1960–1961.4 Radioisotope pavilion with domed particle accelerator: Vladimír Dedeček (chief architect), 1963 5 Execution project faculty pavilions 6 (without rectorate, aula and radioisotope and particle accelerator pavilions): Pavol Pataky (supervising architect) and project group of Pozemné stavby, národný podnik Nitra, 1960–1963 7 Structural engineering project Karol Mesík (statics calculation), Ľudovít Farkaš (design of scafforldings, formwork and arch centering for the aula maxima), Jozef Poštulka (lecture hall construction), Jozef Bučko (foundation) Interior architecture project Jaroslav Nemec General contractor Stavoprojekt Bratislava Investor The Slovak Ministry of Education and Culture, as represented by the University of Agriculture in Nitra Construction Pozemné stavby, národný podnik Nitra, 1961–1966 8 Building volume (total built space) 147,193 m3 (113 m3 per student) Expenses 111 mil. 924 thou. Kčs Building type University campus, university city Authorship is listed 1 in the order given in competition documentation, as archived at the University of Agriculture in Nitra. Dating given is based on text 2 documents for the competition, archived in Fond VŠP, Box 25, F-II/2, A. Archive of University of Agriculture in Nitra. Authorship is listed in the order 3 given in project documentation and the first publication by Stavoprojekt: MASNÝ, Rudolf – LOJDL, Milan (eds.). Stavoprojekt Bratislava 1949–1969. Bratislava: Práca, 1969, unpaginated [section on Vyššia občianska vybavenosť]. Dated based on sketch book archived in SNG collections. Architect's dating: 1960–1965. 4 In: Životopis z 26. novembra 1987. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. Dating verified in the published text DEDEČEK, Vladimír. Areál vysokej školy poľnohospodárskej v Nitre-Letisku (introductory description with building characteristics). Architektura ČSSR, 27, 1968, 2, p. 99. Dated based on project 5 documentation archived at the University of Agriculture in Nitra. Project documentation drawn 6 from scale 1:100 to scale 1:50. Interview with Vladimír Dedeček, in Bratislava, fall of 2015. Attributed and dated based 7–8 on the published text DEDEČEK, Vladimír. Areál vysokej školy poľnohospodárskej v Nitre-Letisku (introductory description with building characteristics), /cited in Note 4 /. 001 Aerial view of university campus. Black and white photograph by TASR/Štefan Petráš. Photo dated 23 August 1966. TASR archives in Bratislava. 388 | 389 k seg 5 002, 006 building(s) and its/their spatial relationships The university complex is composed of three spatial plans. On the north the faculty area comes to the forefront: the vaulted aula maxima on a one-storey plinth with an entry hall and the high-rise administrative-departmental pavilion PA (originally the rectorate, deans' offices, ­library, and economics department). The vestibule is connected by the southeast glassed corridor to three tall departmental pavilions – A (agronomy), Z (animal husbandry) and T (technology) – and concludes at a low-rise laboratory pavilion. This glassed corridor also gives access to five lower pavilions with lecture rooms: each tall departmental pavilion has one lecture pavilion opposite it (3 large lecture halls), and one lecture pavilion in between (2 small lecture rooms between departments). Thus the triad of larger departmental lecture halls alternates with two smaller pavilions between. In total, the 5 pavilions hold 9 lecture rooms of different size, alternating in the rhythm of full/divided-size lecture rooms: 1 : (½ and ¼) : 1 : (½ and ¼) : 1. Beyond this frontal comb-shaped pattern of pavilions, a botanical garden with a pond spreads in the second spatial plane, along with specialized pavilions scattered in groups or alone in the university's park. These are low-rise pavilions for chemistry and engineering, and the southernmost pavilion of radioisotopes with a domed particle accelerator. Continuing away from the entrance, in the third spatial plane, the campus was completed on the southeast by the low-rise buildings for research in animal husbandry and plant cultivation, and fields for plant crossing (in the Ivan Vladimirovich Michurin mode), including other support services. In addition to the botanical garden's pond, a second pond with a bridge and greenery is situated in the university main entry's area as accessed from the river. After construction of campus was completed, a white ceramic sculpture by Jozef Sušienka, Summer Fountain [Letná fontána] 9 was installed on the riverfront lawn (removed in 2010). Building heights gradually increase toward the entry, by the aula and rectorate, and decrease in height toward the botanical garden. 002 003 building site (situation) b2 The campus is situated near the city's historical centre, across the River Nitra on its left bank, which until then had no urban structure. From 004 5 005 006 the university to the west are views of the riverbank and river, and to the north of the historical city centre. To the southeast, through the botanical garden and school park and pavilions, the vista was of flat countryside along the riverbank, which has since become a built-up part of town. The architects designed a connection between the historical city centre and the school campus on the left bank of the river, along the axis of the Bratislava-Zvolen road (the former ­Ulica Národného povstania street, currently Bratislavská and Štúrova streets). A new road bridge and the continuation of its axis to the left bank formed an access road (with car and pedestrian lanes) to the new school area as well as its first vista axis in a roughly east-west orientation. Perpendicular to this, i.e. almost directly to the northwest, the architects plotted a second campus operational axis. This is an outdoor-indoor university park walkway, from which the individual pavilions of the school's entrance area can be accessed. Thanks to this, the architects created two main compositional axes for the campus (of circulation and vista or operation and vista) along with a very first street line for the left river bank (currently called Nábrežie mládeže riverbank). This comprised a new riverfront area, and brought the street back to constituting a current urban space. They place the entrance-academic forum and school administration at the crossing of the school campus' two initiating, main axes. This sculpture did not come about 9 as part of the project. Unfortunately it has not yet been possible to date its origin or installation. It is not in the list of the city's monuments, and information about it is absent from the Krajský pamiatkový úrad in Nitra. After the sculpture was damaged, according to the latter institution, they deinstalled it and placed it in their storage space. 002 003 Design of campus at Nitra-Letisko location, with round aula maxima. Wooden working model and black and white photographs unsigned. Undated. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 004 Study for placement of VŠP [University of Agriculture in Nitra]. Alternative 1 Ing. Dedeček, Ing. Miňovský. Dated 1959. Scale 1:5,000. Presentation model and black and white photograph unsigned. Undated. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 005 007 Design of campus at Nitra-Letisko location, with round aula maxima on two-storey plinth at campus entrance. Presentation woodencanvas model and black and white photographs unsigned. Undated. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 007 390 | 391 k seg 5 b2 In the flatlands of the meandering river with its layers of flood alluvium, architects set up the campus in the tradition of setting out the main or cardinal streets (cardo and decumanus) of Roman camps (castra). But they also reformulated the general, universal geometry of the Roman camp in more concrete ways, in orienting it to the approach routes to school and city, with an eye to the terrain's morphology and in harmony with the program of the new agricultural university – and this produced their concretized, local urban plan for the university city. Moreover, they reinterpreted an ideal, timeless cardo-decumanus crossing in two ways: as the geometric coordinate system of pavilions (the focal points of the university's program), and as a network of motion and stasis areas that both bear and create meaning, for academia and the general public (gathering in the aula maxima, meeting on the promenade, and relaxing in the park with its pond). They developed the initial geometric cardinal street crossing further in an irregular network of paths and standpoints in the park. The pavilions advance on and retreat from the axis (in oscillation) in an open spatial field according to a specific rhythm, allowing for a basic orientation of movement and views within the campus, along with identification with a new place as well as the layers of Nitra's historical town. The architects located the faculty buildings at the school's forefront about 250 meters from the river and new bridge, making space for both the riverside promenade and the school's grassy foreground. The riverfront and lawn areas, as well as the botanical garden and pond within the campus, serve Nitra's citizens and visitors as recreation space, even as the aula maxima serves for the academic year's public academic ceremonies. The new academic city thus interconnects with the historical town over the river, not just through views and the bridge, but also with public-function buildings and areas. We might say the architects established a “school in the park” and an expanding “school garden city” within the historical city, with the urban structure extending to the opposite bank. So the school became the first “inhabited camp” of the opposite bank, and the bearer of transportation and technical infrastructure, as well as a spatial reserve of urban spaces for the potential development of the school and the town (in the city space beyond the school, a complex of buildings was built for the seasonal agricultural expos Agrokomplex Nitra, along with the concrete panel housing estate Nitra-Chrenová (designed and built 1963–1965, constructed according to a project by the major architect of the second modernist generation in Slovakia, Michal ­Maximilián Scheer). The urban and architectural design of the school, thus perceived and interpreted as initiating infrastructure, spanned both riverfronts and devised a new meaning, giving rise to a new university city associated with the history, present and future of one of Slovakia's oldest settlements in Nitra, sometimes referred to as “the mother of Slovak cities”. Within Miňovský and Dedeček's oeuvre, this school represented the first university project in which they cultivated both urban and pre-urban land. At the same time their work contributed to the ongoing critique of the educational mono-­ block related to criticism of a functionally segregated (strip) city. The solution includes a road 5 → k seg 6 → k seg 8 005–007 007 008 bridge, the first in the oeuvre of either architect (though it was not built on the basis of their design). Later Dedeček was to design pedestrian and car bridges, and even bridge-buildings as integral components of his projects, where a town or part of it was to progress and expand from inhabited to uninhabited land, from newer to older layers of a town, or focal and peripheral ­areas of the urban tissue. Dedeček's designs for road and pedestrian bridges and platforms/terraces as components of buildings were an urban and architectural interpretation of a “leap” through the caesura or chasm of urban spaces, offering yet another l­evel of the city's height differentiation, facilitating the further evolution of Slovakia's towns not just outwards and upwards, but in its own intervals: intermediate spaces. It was in this spirit of “interlayering town and country” that Dedeček took on the role of co-authoring a late modern urban space in a landscape both developed and undeveloped in terms of urban structure. In this sense, the Nitra university design had and still has significant influence on consideration of the city's historical, contemporary and future layers in the late 1950s and early 1960s in Czechoslovakia: it realizes the idea of a post-­ Stalinist “agricultural university” in a cultivated semi-urban setting. It interrelates the concepts of historical layers of European cities (Rome and Nitra), and layers of both present-day (a socialist university) and Utopian concepts (a growing university and new housing estate). In their preliminary 1956 design, Miňovský and Dedeček formulated, for the first time in Slovakia and Czechoslovakia, a task to design a contemporary academic city within a city for all its citizens and visitors. In historical Nitra, the most important symbolic site and main meaning-creating focal point was the Upper City [Horné mesto] with the cathedral complex, the Nitra Castle and the basilica of Saint Emmeram at the right bank on the hill. On the left-bank river flats, under the hill with castle and cathedral, the university forum with the botanical garden became another initiating and meaning-creating focal point, a symbolic place around which the city could grow. Vladimír Dedeček was later to pose an analogous question of the academic city as a place of meaning-creation and symbolic site initiating new urban dimensions, in the partially-built u ­ niversity campuses at Bratislava-Mlynská dolina / → p. 406 / and the university in Zvolen / → p. 442 / and the ­unbuilt design for the University of Transportation ­Sciences in Žilina (1962). However, the ­ Nitra university was Miňovský and Dedeček's first and only university campus to be ­constructed and ­completed 03 4 01 2 in the spirit of their project, i.e. without alterations or uncompleted parts and components. ­ After Miňovský's death, Dedeček made drawings for the Nitra campus' further expansion, but only as one of several possible stages of its development, which was to take a different direction. 009 programmatic and spatial solution Prof. Ing. Bohumil Dušek (rector, 1952–1953, 1955–1956) coordinated the school's first localization program even during the initial search for land parcels. The competition for school localization (1955) was to examine five possible sites: 1) Nitra-Párovce, 2) Nitra-Žrebčín, 3) Nitra-­ Čermáň, 4) Nitra-Šindolka and 5) Nitra-Letisko,10 though Nitra's zoning plan by the architect ­Bohuslav Fuchs (1954) had already situated the future university campus at Nitra-Šindolka under the Zobor hill. Seven teams participated in this 010 Investiční úkol pro nadlimitní 10 výstavbu staveb národní spotřeby. Ministerstvo zemědělství, Prague, p. 1. The school commission for building parcel selection chose Fuchs’ locality Nitra-Šindolka. 008 Design of university campus at Nitra-Žrebčín location. Presentation model and black and white photograph unsigned. Undated. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 009 01 0 Two variants of aula maxima design, perspective of campus’ front facades at Nitra-Žrebčín location. Black and white photographs unsigned. Undated. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 01 1 Rear facade with classrooms in two compact pavilions. Black and white photograph unsigned. Undated. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 01 2 Stacking classrooms into a compact pavilion. Sketch. Unsigned (Vladimír Dedeček). Undated (2014). Section. Black pen on paper. 011 Architect’s archive. 392 | 393 009–01 1 008 k seg 5 b2 competition, of which five positioned the university on the former cavalry farm Žrebčín and two on the former airport [Letisko] site. Miňovský and Dedeček proposed for the Žrebčín site in the centre. The urban planner Prof. Emanuel Hruška also proposed a project for this location, having earlier distinctly recommended it as the most appropriate to Prague's Ministry of Agriculture administration. Based in part on his judgment, the Ministry favoured the Nitra-Žrebčín site in the city centre. After discussion the competition jury inclined to this, concluding its selection with the remarks “... building at the airport would result in a satellite with no liaison to the town”.11 Miňovský and Dedeček's competition project (1956) won Stavoprojekt's subsequent internal architecture competition, between two teams led by Šavlík and by Miňovský, for the university building at the successful Nitra-Žrebčín location. The design of their comb-shaped school complex drew on Belluš' concept for the unbuilt Bratislava Technical University rectorate building, on what is now the Námestie slobody square (Belluš' students, Dedeček among them, worked on this project at school, which gave them experience with its design). However, in contrast to Belluš' project, Miňovský and Dedeček preferred an asymmetrical comb pattern. Additionally, Miňovský and Dedeček suggested transfer of the campus away from the historical centre toward the former airport on the opposite bank, where Fuchs' zoning plan had allowed for residential halls and schools. The architects believed that it was there that a university building could be built that allowed space for both the school and the city of Nitra to grow. In the later approval stages of their successful competition project, there was an argument formulated by experts of the State Building Committee in Prague that objected to the airport location, using points raised in earlier ministry expert assessments: expanding the town over the river would create a “second centre”, which would weaken the significance of historical Nitra (such opposition was strong, including from the urban planner Prof. Emanuel Hruška, the architect specialized on agricultural buildings doc. Imrich Kedro, and the representative of the regional National Committee in Nitra Ing. Pavel Zibrín 12 and other interested parties). Furthermore, technical assessments disapproved of the demands of deep foundation in a flood plane. After four years (!) of conflicting conceptual, static and financial expert analyses by the Prague State Building Committee (an organ of the federal government) and others commissioned by Stavoprojekt in Bratislava (which was “only” a state-level architectural design institute), Slovakia's minister for agriculture and forestry in Bratislava, Michal Chudík, inclined toward the airport location, i.e. the riskier alternative, which was to prove crucial to Nitra's later development. In Dedeček's words, the minister decided on his own responsibility to greenlight the project's shift from the historical city centre to the other side of the river in summer 1959.13 The localization program for the school on the new land by the airport received major input from other internal discussions among the teachers of Nitra's emerging university. Emil Špaldon, member of the Slovak Academy of Sciences (university rector, 1958–1966), who is even now regarded by Vladimír Dedeček as an extraordinary “building commissioner”, represented the ­investor 0 13 0 14 5 (the state) with a great share in the origin and realization of this form of the school 14, and headed the school's committee for construction of the new campus. This committee focused the proposals, comments and initiatives in line with a teaching and research program for an anticipated 1,350 students in two major fields (phytotechnics and animal husbandry). After considering teachers' needs with departmental representatives and the architects, the committee worked up a final localization program, which the rector summarized in six points: 1. a pavilion pattern, 2. each pavilion to house related departments, 3. storey size/volume to correspond to one average-sized department (one department per storey), 4. pavilions to be joined such that students and visitors could “with dry feet” circulate between all ­ differentiated → m cv 013 – 022 015 s­ paces: the rectorate, the deans offices and each department, 5. the “loud sections” with large numbers of students (classrooms) to be separated from the “quiet sections” of departments (offices and research laboratories), and 6. the buildings to have lively pale colours and spaces with adequate direct daylight. (ŠPALDON 1988, p. 14) In autumn 1959 – after a return from an excursion by Czechoslovak architects to Rome / → p. 705 / Dedeček proposed a new variant of the university project. It featured a looser comb-shaped pattern of main buildings over the extensive land of the former airport, with a domed aula maxima, now repositioned from the side of the comb-plan to the university's entry as its principal forum. Dedeček recalls that Miňovský did not support this new variant to their shared project; therefore in 1960 each architect submitted his own variant to the university for its appraisal, with Miňovský drawing up the original version.15 The rector's ­advisory board approved Dedeček's variant. Analogous to how the architects oriented the overall crossing of the university city's thoroughfares in the river flatland and developed it into a specific network of park walkways, in designing the buildings they tested the universal typology of the modern pavilion-based school through a specified localization program. The pavilions As referred to by jury chairman 11 doc. Ing. arch. Imrich Kedro from the Slovak Technical University's architecture faculty, in 1956. In: Zápis z komisie pre predbežný výber staveniska pre výstavbu Vysokej školy poľnohospodárskej v Nitre, p. 5, archived in Fond VŠP, Box 25, F-II/2, A. Archive of Agricultural University in Nitra. Ing. Pavel Zibrín, then head of 12 the construction council of the Regional Administration in Nitra. Interview with Vladimír Dedeček, 13 in Bratislava, summer of 2014, summer of 2015. 016 "Špaldon influenced the concept 14–15 in a way similar to that of the SNG director [Dr. Vaculík]". In: Interview with Vladimír Dedeček, in Bratislava, summer of 2014. 01 3 Study for VŠP-Nitra [University of Agriculture in Nitra]. Study of campus at Nitra-Letisko location. Signed by Dedeček. Dated November 1959 – February 1960. Scales 1:500, 1:100 and not given. Black and colour pencils on sheet of drawing paper + tracing paper. Album, A3 format (297 × 420 mm). Title page + 18 stapled drawings and 20 unattached drawings with sketches at the edges. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 01 4 Longitudinal section of aula. Scale 1:500. 01 5 Typical storey plan. 01 6 Pavilion P. [Small module grid and planar disposition 01 7 Plan of level ±0 of A, T, and Z pavilions. [Small module grid or layout of pavilion]. and planar disposition or layout of pavilion with differentiated lecture rooms]. 017 394 | 395 → m cv 01 8 k seg 5 b2 were differentiated according to the c ­ haracter of various academic activities, everyday and ceremonial events, with regard to their differing demands and the size/volume of faculties and departments. (On a single storey, the departments had their offices, cloak rooms and hygiene facilities to the south, and small laboratories and a larger laboratory-classroom for 24 students to the north – thus the department was designed as an elementary series of both teaching and research workplaces with a specific, small departmental lecture hall. It was not just an administrative unit, closed away from studies and laboratory research). But differentiating the mono-block into pavilions was also undertaken as a disassembling: it resulted from the reconsideration of assembling techniques of prefabricated constructions and components on-site (assembling modular elements or units). Analogously, the mono-block was differentiated into wings and later into individual pavilions and their elements according to the differentiation of a new program into sections (functional and multifunctional units) and in keeping with the modular coordination of the whole construction or construction elements. The faculties' individual pavilions were located within walking distance of several minutes along the straight glassed corridor (parallel to the river) as a series of alternating spaces. The longitudinals (hallways, building tracts and sections) alternated with the concentric spaces (lecture rooms, laboratories and aula maxima) and important paths/cores of vertical and horizontal circulation (the entry hall, staircases and elevator lifts). With regard to the focus and size of study and research groups or circles, the various lecture halls have capacities of 60, 120 and 240 students. They were differentiated specifically (for each individual department) and generally (for interdepartmental education, and lectures on common core social sciences and humanities subjects). This arrangement of the room/cell spaces pointed to how individual and group research and lecturing, in smaller or larger groups, could become a relatively autonomous academic event in the shared collective space of the socialist university, reflecting teaching reforms in the 1960s / → p. 700 /. The architects proposed green parks in the intervals between pavilions. The architect Ján Antal, in his first review of the university, aptly called these spatial fields among the three tall pavilions and the accumulated lower pavilions “... bringing air into the disposition with a maximized access to greenery”. (ANTAL 1965, p. 98) Both the 0 18 0 19 0 20 5 Even as in urban planning terms the campus interrelates the conceptual cross and perceptual network, in architectural terms it forms a relationship between the pavilions' conceptual comb-shaped pattern and the perception of a free series and accumulation of longitudinals, concentric spaces and intersections, near the river and in the botanical garden. The first reviewer also noted that the “aula maxima gives the entire ­architecture its specific character”. (ANTAL 1965, p. 100) Yet the other right prisms and antiprisms of the faculty pavilions and bevelled prisms of the lecture room pavilions are no mere generalized forms, no universals or generics of “prismness”. They are spaces with a variety of concretized and localized lecture rooms (the large lecture hall with stepped auditorium has a different connection to the lateral corridor than the small and medium lecture rooms with a different floor incline; the halls are neither enlargements nor reductions of a single universal form, with the inclination given just by calculating the sight lines to the massive Mendeleev's periodic table of the elements that extant photodocumentation shows as displayed together with the blackboard on the hall's main wall). Yet in contrast to the singular ellipsoid aula maxima, the lecture rooms' bevelled prisms and the laboratories' right prisms are repeated through the campus. To be more precise, even the aula maxima is a disk with axis of revolution and triangularly ribbed dome. So it is itself both a progression and repetition of segments, though it is not repeated elsewhere in the campus (much like the spherical dome of the university's particle accelerator in the park). The campus thus differentiates and relates spaces, the repeated with the singular, and interrelates individual spaces 021 0 15 – 0 1 6 , 0 1 9 –0 21 interior and exterior of the academic mono-block was differentiated, disassembled and re-composed such that a relatively open architectural field resulted; this had the potential to accrue “infinitely” as a variety of differentiation developed in variable grouped pavilions (the comb, the ­clusters, and the individually-located pavilions). The architects designed the six-storey faculty pavilions with a three-tract planar disposition or layout. They proposed 3 two-storey departmental lecture rooms (for 240 students) and 2 interdepartmental lecture rooms (for 60 and 120 students) as one open space (large hall) or a doublet of two smaller halls. Miňovský and Dedeček differentiated the universal comb-shaped p ­ attern, which became ­compositionally a series of p ­ avilions along 018 022 the river and a ­ccumulated groups of pavilions in the park – varying the rhythm, g ­ eometry and dimensions of the buildings and the trees and ­ ­other ­vegetation. Even the university's frontal high-rise rectorate pavilion is not just a mono-block, but also an eccentrically shifted three-tract. The aula maxima ellipsoid is in this sense the only concentric, compact counterpoint of the longitudinal department pavilions. And the aula is simultaneously, in the words of Emil Belluš, an accentuated “decisive point” of the school; this not just in the sense of choosing between the axis of entry (pedestrian walk) vs the programmatic-operational axis, but also as “decision-making on how to ­operate and manage the school”. Study for VŠP-Nitra [University of Agriculture in Nitra]. Study of campus at Nitra-Letisko location. Signed by Dedeček. Dated November 1959 – February 1960. Scales 1:500, 1:100 and not given. Black and colour pencils on sheet of drawing paper + tracing paper. Album, A3 format (297 × 420 mm). Title page + 18 stapled drawings and 20 unattached drawings with sketches at the edges. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 01 8 [Side elevation]. 01 9 [Frontal elevation]. 020 [Section, plan and side elevation, with variant of anatomy pavilion 021 [Side elevation with bevelled flat roof variant of zig-zagged aula aula roofing.] maxima]. (According to Vladimír Dedeček, he sketched various roofings of aula at the bottom of tracing paper during the discussion with the structural engineer. Sketches include the scheme of Palazzetto dello Sport by Vitelozzi and Nervi. Interview with V.D., in Bratislava, 2015). 022 [Side elevation with another variant of aula maxima roof]. 396 | 397 with spatial series and accumulations (others of Dedeček's projects added to this concept of compositional redefinitions, including clusters). The Nitra university forms a field of spaces centric and eccentric, of smaller groups and the individual, together in one broader collective. Miňovský and Dedeček's collectivized university at the turn of the 1960s in this sense differentiates individuals from small collectives/groups from the larger collective. Were we to ask what drives the school's functional and mass-volumetric arrangement, we might answer that it is by distinguishing and relating to the historical and modern town (historical Nitra, Roman camp and Pantheon vs modern university campus and socialist university city). Further it is driven by differentiating and associating the current urban and pre-urban cityscape (the town of Nitra and flatlands of the River N ­ itra). And finally it is driven by the distinction and correlation of the utopic and atopic city (the vision of accretion and transformation of the building complex to a university city became a reason to move the campus to the former airport site, and to allocate “spatial reserves” that endured as an undeveloped but utilized urban interval: a conceptual gap in the perception of the intervals among ­pavilions and buildings in the park). The campus design was even influenced by the city's pre-urban forces (the river's flow and bends in its trough, banks, alluvium...) and the forces and paths of the urbanization of Nitra and Slovakia (the road bridge, setback from the river: the rise of the second riverfront, the school, ­Michurin-gardens, botanical garden, new water reservoirs, complex of exhibition spaces, housing estate...). All this contributed to the genesis of this campus as a constantly-renewing opportunity of decision-making: a training ground and battleground 16 bringing together the various layers and dimensions of the socialist academic city, in one of Slovakia's most ancient cities, with its strata of settlements Celtic, Germanic (Quadi) and Slavic (Great Moravia's principality of Nitra). Module, construction, volume, surfacing b2 The construction module grid of the administrative section is 600 × 600 cm and 600 × 725 cm. The construction module of the departmental section with its own administration and lighter-weight laboratories is 600 × 725 cm. Heavyweight laboratories, workshops and classrooms (for 60, 120 and 240 students) have a module of 300 × 1,200 cm and 300 × 1,000 cm. The radius 027 k seg 5 of the circular aula maxima (with capacity of 800 v ­ isitors) is 1,800 cm (diameter 3,600 cm). The faculty pavilions' and laboratories' construction system is a ferro-concrete frame structure (skeleton) with brick walls on aboveground storeys (and partitions of 12.5 cm bricks). The staircases are of monolithic ferro-concrete. The flooring is either monolithic, or in laboratories it is a composite floor of ferro-concrete beams and Simplex-Record hollow ceramic blocks (so utilities could be run through at any point in the floor, therefore eliminating the need for vertical utility shafts and lengthy electrical installation). The aula has a ferro-concrete ribbed dome composed of triangular elements. The dome's ­external surface is covered in glass mosaic. The pavilions' indoor plastering is stucco, and the outdoor surface is glass mosaic or ceramic tiles. The pavilion roofs are flat, with thermal protection and bitumen roofing. The interior flooring is either tiles, PVC or marble. The majority of the building craftwork was atypical, with the rest “of standard execution”. ( [DEDEČEK] undated typewritten document from after 1970, p. 8) The interior equipment and furnishing for the workshops and laboratories (designed by Jaroslav Nemec), including lab tables with ventilation elements, was detachable, and easily moved as necessary to other school rooms. At the time, this was an innovative solution with high precision requirements for harmonizing the frame structure, vertical and horizontal installation systems and work with the inserted elements (windows, doors, metalwork details, and surfacing) and the interior built-in furniture. Vladimír Dedeček later wrote: “The work outlined in the project was beyond the capability of a single construction concern, however willingly and sacrificially they approached it. Having actually built it, even with all its faults, was a real victory if we consider how many different specialized sub-contractors would share in similar construction projects abroad”. ( [DEDEČEK], undated typewritten document from after 1970, p. 8) Nonetheless, this was to be one of Miňovský and Dedeček's projects built at the highest level of quality. There is no comparing it with the retrograde quality of construction in the 1970s and 1980s in Slovakia. The architects chose a construction module grid of 720 × 600 cm or 725 × 600 cm, with a construction height of 3600 cm, and began its verification before the university typification ­research study was completed. The Nitra design became a point of departure and construction basis for this study, which was to establish further planar, volumetric and structural standards for universities and residence halls.17 5 023 024 On the facades the building's module is divided into five window modules of 120 cm each. Each window module is further divided into 6 fields (3 with flat glassed metal window frames, and 3 with projecting in-between window pillars). This gave the facades a three-dimensional plastic­-relief raster, further segmented by ­horizontal protruding elements. 027 indicate his quest for planar disposition or layout of the auditorium and the articulation of its volume and space.18 The resulting aula is an ellipsoid on a one-storey plinth, but this plinth is a further elaboration and transformation of the prismatic low-rise entry building of the Toronto City Hall proposal. Dedeček pursued this further, as he did sunshading, in his competition project for the unbuilt Divadlo Jonáša Záborského theatre in Košice 025 Campus – from Lat., 16 1. ‘open flat level ground’, specifically applied to the Campus Martius in Rome, utilized for games, athletic practice, and military drill, 2. a field of action: scope, 3. a field of debate: topic, 4. an opportunity. → <https://en.oxforddictionaries.com>. Apart from their own 17 projects and realizations, they drew on the publication by KOUKAL, František. Pedagogicko-provozní, technologické a ekonomické podklady pro výstavbu vysokých škol v ČSSR. Díl 1. Prague : Ústav školských a kulturních staveb, 1963. → [DEDEČEK, Vladimír.] I. Cieľ typizačnej práce v oblasti projekcie vysokých škôl. /Základná skladobná jednotka, sekcia, vzorová fakulta/ (documentation for typification research study). Typewritten. [Stavoprojekt Bratislava, undated (after 1970)], 36 pages. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Zbierka architektúry, úžitkového umenia a dizajnu SNG. 18 → sketches in MITÁŠOVÁ, Monika. Vladimír Dedeček. Stávanie sa architektom. Bratislava : SNG, 2016. 023 024 Volunteer workers on university construction site. Black and white photographs by TASR/Štefan Petráš. Photos dated 1 August 1962. TASR archives in Bratislava. 025 028 026 The glass curtain wall of the university's entry hall is articulated by both the grid of its metal frames and protruding triangularly-shaped piers with extended “intercolumnia”. Triangular concrete piers function as a brise soleil too. Miňovský and Dedeček had already designed them for the competition entry for the Toronto City Hall, and in Nitra tested them in building practice. From their first project for the university at the Nitra-Žrebčín location it is clear that the preliminary variant of an aula maxima drew in part on Dedeček's thesis project for a Slovak National Gallery pavilion in Bratislava, with a neoclassical continuous colonnade around the building. Dedeček's sketches of his variant design for the Nitra university from late 1959 and early 1960 026 Concreting and construction of scaffolding/arch centering for monolithic aula maxima dome on one-storey plinth. First black and white photograph by TASR/Viliam Přibyl. Photo dated 27 March 1963. TASR archives in Bratislava. Second black and white photograph unsigned, undated. Archive of University of Agriculture in Nitra. 027 Construction of aula maxima. Black and white photograph by TASR/Alojz Prakeš. Photo dated 23 January 1965. TASR archives in Bratislava. 398 | 399 021– 03 1 k seg 5 b2 (1959). Thus the vertical raster in Nitra's main facade grew out of both: the modularity/spatial structure of the agricultural university design, and Dedeček's parallel design for the Košice theatre (1959). And it also grew out of several earlier projects: for the Toronto City Hall (1957), the typified secondary and primary schools designed with Rudolf Miňovský, and Dedeček's thesis supervised by Professor Belluš (1952). Here is another indication of Dedeček's gradual formulation of his own architectural program tested over the long term, on which he started work in the time of cooperation and contention with Belluš at the Technical University's Faculty of Architecture, and later with Miňovský within Stavoprojekt. From the overall modularity and specific modules of the Nitra pavilions also resulted the design of their balconies on the vertically caesured side facades. Like the Lecorbusian brise soleil, the balcony and the vertical rupture in the middle of side facade contribute to the formation of facade depth (a “deep” or “spatial facade”). The balconies' narrow walls or the triplets of in-between window pillars rise from the facade as plastic reliefs, embodying an outthrust and delineating a niche in the surface. It is precisely this plastic relief that points to the surface as to the plane, similar to El Lissitzky's “planimetric space" 19 or De Stijl's “planimetric composition”. Without this plasticity of form, the facade would not enable differentiation of the (conceptual: mathematically, geometrically and chromatically multidimensional) flat surface and (perceptual) planimetric surface with a spatial impact. There would just be a smooth shell. With the plastic relief, the facade becomes a co-creator of space. It forms a layered surface that helps produce a spatial field by differentiating walls, caesura, niches, frames... which is also a differentiation of what is empty and filled-up, what forms a grid or a sequence of grids, in the one common field of the facade. Dedeček, in his own words,20 discussed the plastic-relief solution to the facades and the form of the bevelled prismatic lecture rooms with the architect, and then head of Stavoprojekt, Dr. ­Martin Kusý during the design process. Kusý supported Dedeček in deepening the facade relief both through use of material and chromatically. Kusý designed an analogous solution for the prismatic lecture rooms cantilevered in a “Constructivist” manner from the mass-volume of the building, in his own project of the F ­ aculty of ­ Mechanical Engineering of the Technical university in Bratislava (designed 1957–1960, built 1963, in cooperation with Jozef Fabiánek, Štefan Štempák and Ferdinand Milučký). Thus ­ ­tavoprojekt's architects and working groups S were to some extent discussing and testing their own solutions in mutual consultation across the individual studios. The plasticity of the Nitra “spatial facades” is further optically enhanced: 1. by the contrast of white plaster walls and ceramic tiles of earth tones, 2. by protruding/receding elements on white plaster facades tinted with glass mosaic, with the primary colours of Malevich’s, El ­Lissitzky's and De Stijl’s avant-guard palettes, or 3. by the colours of folk art in Slovakia: white (for foreground, first plane or height), black (for background, second plane or depth) and red (for dynamic intermediate spatial intervals: the level of cutting/sectioning, pushing up, collapsing down or inclining; it also means elements which might continue or expand, “grow further"). 0 28 0 29 5 “Theo van Doesburg correctly says that architecture without colour is blind... This crucial role of colour must not be underrated. Visually, it can bind together or break up both outdoor and indoor space." 21 Besides these primary chromatic or nonchromatic colours (white and black), and secondary/intermediate colours (blue and green, bluish tint: aquamarine), the facades and the dome surface have thanks to the glass mosaic a thin layer of transparent glass. The glass layer of every piece in the mosaic transmits, absorbs and reflects/refracts light almost like a drop of water, or scumbling techniques in oil painting. The mosaic wall radiates light of various intensities, especially from diagonal views, and its strong reflections further articulate the surface plane as they light it – they almost “withdraw” it from the visual field. Thus the glass mosaic both 014 , 019 Štefan Belohradský (later removed; thus far not identified or found) was installed in the entry foyer. The original “school logo”, with the white dove of peace in a circular medallion (authorship unidentified, object not found), has been taken down from the front entry of the renamed university. The aula maxima with monolithic ribbed vaulting has a circular tension ring with diameter of 36 m. This ring transfers the load to V-shaped supports. These also bear the lower glassed part of the cylindrical volume with the amphitheatre in the centre. In his preliminary sketches, Dedeček drew the aula maxima's auditorium asymmetrically inclined. He placed the “tilted” ellipsoid on a two-storey plinth in an inclined position to give the amphitheatre a view of historical Nitra's silhouette.22 In seeking to reduce construction costs, he omitted one storey → k seg 7 → k seg 11 → k seg 6 → k seg 9 “colours” and “illumines” the wall, transmitting light via the glass' own inner optical space. The mosaic, too, has a figurative and literal spatial role within the facade, although its optical, illusive glass space, like the pictorial space of walls, envelops the resident or visitor metaphorically rather than ­physically. Jaroslav Nemec further developed indoors the interpretation of the coloured reliefs and three-dimensional grids on the school's ­facades, in interior partitions and wall panelling of inclined segments; these were tested further in university buildings in Bratislava / → p. 406 / and Zvolen / → p. 442 /. Thus even moving indoors, the buildings have layered spatial segmented/ inclined surfaces, especially in the common and communal, ceremonial spaces. After the building was completed, a kinetic object by the sculptor of two-storey plinth. At that point the issue of a view from the aula became unsolvable through its diagonal inclination. He was further moved to situate the aula in keeping with axial symmetry for speed and simplicity in calculating the cylindrical solid with a concentric auditorium vaulted by a spherical cap.23 So Dedeček's unique diagonally inclined mass-volume with two foci became the “horizontal concentric volume with a single circumcentre” known from many historical and contemporary structures. Assembling the academic senate and university leadership in the aula maxima (on the small stage) made it possible for the concentric volume to be inhabited in other ways than during the large-scale faculty and university-wide ceremonies (using the enlarged stage). The stepped auditorium could be supplemented by additional chairs on the ground level (600 seats), or with the chairs cleared away the audience could sit on 300 seats fixed right on the stepped auditorium floor. Thus the aula floor could be used almost in full for an audience or almost entirely as a stage. Later, Vladimír Dedeček, together with structural engineer Otokar Pečený, was to develop this manual “variability” into automatically of the moveable sectors of the tribune in the ­Ostrava sports hall / → p. 468 / and the unbuilt culture and sporting hall for Bratislava's Incheba exhibition complex / → p. 424 /. The aula maxima's interior colour scheme is analogous to that of the faculty buildings: a red 030 LISSITZKY, El. A. und 19 Pangeometry. In: EINSTEIN, Carl – WESTHEIM, Paul (eds.). Europa– Almanach. Postdam : Gustav Kiepenheuer Verlag, 1925, pp. 103–113. [Reprint Leipzig, Weimar : Kiepenhauer, 1984 and Leipzig : Kiepenhauer, 1993.] From the English translation, cited per LISSITZKY, El: A. and Pangeometry. LISSITZKY-KÜPPERS, Sofie (ed.). El Lissitzky. Life – Letters – Texts. London : Thames & Hudson, 1968, reprinted 1992, pp. 142–149. Interview with Vladimír Dedeček, 20 in Bratislava, summer of 2014, summer of 2015. KOULA, Jan E. Farba 21 v architektúre. In: Pozerám sa na architektúru. Bratislava : Slovenský fond výtvarných umení, 1965, p. 118. Interview with Vladimír Dedeček, 22–23 in Bratislava, summer of 2014, summer of 2015. 028 Entrance to university campus from river side. Black and white photograph by Oto Veselý. Photo undated. Archive of University of Agriculture in Nitra. 029 031 Exterior of completed pavilions before botanical garden was established. Black and white photographs by M. Mihalovič (Stavoprojekt). Photos undated. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, 031 Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 400 | 401 k seg 5 floor, white ceiling/walls, seating of light-coloured wood, metal details of polished aluminium or with black coating. ( [DEDEČEK], undated typewritten document from after 1970, p. 8) In contrast to the frontal and side facades of the rectorate and plinth, the aula dome is ribbed indoors, but outside is a smooth spherical surface, perceived in the same way from all areas of campus. Like the bevelled prism of the lecture rooms, the disc of the aula maxima is a response to the rising steps of the auditorium’s floor, but there is a difference in that the common vaulted space under the dome refers to society, to the communal and social rituals of the university community with the public's participation. The architects later again put this concept to the test as well, developing it in later school, cultural and sporting facilities.24 characterization b2 → m cv Formal-stylistic The first reviewer understood the campus primarily as contemporary and modern, as an archi­ tectural complex “whose sign is a high level of technique, good balance, and a fine sense for scale in a town's organism”. (ANTAL 1965, p. 101) And at the same time he regarded it one of the most successful and appreciated projects of its time in former Czechoslovakia. Twenty three years later, architects in Slovakia in a survey by the journal Projekt chose this campus as the most successful project of the last 30 years. In his written evaluation Dr. ­Martin Kusý noted in the school's urban concept “... a confrontation between the poles of rationalism and romanticism or the previous poetism, emotivism, historicism, or the static and the dynamic – that is, the dialectics of a creative search...”. (KUSÝ 1988, p. 10) He called the aula maxima “one of a kind” in terms of “urbanism and architecture” as well as “technical solution”. He was the first to point out that when the school was first conceived it was an innovative solution compared to established symmetrical school mono-blocks and buildings with the three-wing palace planar dispositions or layouts of Socialist Realist schools from the early 1950s in Slovakia. He praised the concept for the campus as comprehensive as well as beautiful. He considered the building shapes graceful... In his opinion, the campus offers “an optimal environment”. (KUSÝ 1988, p. 11) It was from these opinions of his that the later stylistic characterizations drew, though they were to concentrate more on a search for global derivations, and parallels to ­Europe's late modern architecture / → pp. 773, 788–789, 798 /. 0 32 0 33 The architect himself disputed later repeated comparisons to Niemeyer's and Nervi's work in terms of their construction: “I saw it when Palace dello Sporte [Palazzetto dello Sport] was built, I was there. But we were working on a problem different from Nervi's. His vaulting elements were of bigger proportions, with ribs that were monolithic. When Nervi freed up the dome, the pressure ran through the ‘Y-shaped’ struts. The dome is built on the ground. But we were designing introrse [internal] columns: [inclined V-supports] transmitting the load to the 5 vertical columns [in the one storey-plinth under the dome]. So we were at risk of the whole building collapsing if each ground floor [vertical] column did not bear and transmit that load exactly as designed. We had a very sharp engineer, [Ľudovít] Farkaš, who built the state bank, the one in which the Hviezdoslavovo theatre is located [in Bratislava]. And he said: ‘Vlado, we're going to do this differently. We'll design the scaffolding, let the mathematicians calculate the precise coordinates for the rings. We'll cut the scaffolding's steel tubing to precisely the length the surveying engineer tells us. Then we'll set under the tubing the metal platform and hydraulic jacks, which we'll hook up and electrically control to lower all tubing at once. At that moment the dome will bear the load, and transmit it to the tension ring.’ So this fantastic man solved our problem. And no one knows about him. I always used to list all my collaborators in the project design: structural engineers, interior ­specialists...” 25 Sign-symbolic II [Campus for the University of Agriculture in Nitra.] Sketch book. Unsigned, undated [1957 30 and later]. A5 notebook format (210 × 146 mm), / Inv. č. A 1618 /. III [Campus for the University of Agriculture in Nitra.] Sketch book. Unsigned, undated.31 Notebook format (about 166 × 104 mm), / Inv. č. A 1616 /. IV Study for VŠP-Nitra. [Campus for the University of Agriculture in Nitra.] Study [campus at second location of NitraLetisko]. Signed in Dedeček's hand, dated November 1959 – for other projects in this book, builds on period literature and provides with sketches (bound: plan of level ±0, 1 + 1½; typical storey pertinent information for its possible interpretations. For other plan, section of wing and storey plan, scale 1:100; longitudinal possible interpretations → MITÁŠOVÁ, Monika. Forma a jej recepcia section of aula, scale 1:500; front elevation; detail of level ±0 with These characterizations come out primarily in discussions on the origin or archetype for the aula and its dome, that is the most specific of the school's spaces. The architect himself refers to a whole scale of historical domes in buildings he visited, and to the concave walls of antecedents he utilized (from the ancient Roman ­Pantheon, through the domed Gothic Church of the ­ Assumption of the Virgin Mary and Saint Charles at Karlov in Prague ‹attributed to the workshop of Matthias of Arras, consecrated in 1377 probably in incomplete condition› with its arched central space in an octagonal nave and a gothicizing brick lierne (stellar) vault with stone ribs ‹1575, vaulting 22.8 m wide, attributed to Bonifac Wolmuth›,26 to the wicker weaving of a bread basket). In his circular floor plan for the Nitra aula maxima, the architect is referring to the R ­ oman forum amphitheatre, and to circles in which ­Slavic tribes used to convene councils of elders.27 The aula maxima is spoken of as a “­decisive point”, and “a precious stone (a jewel) rather than semiprecious (costume jewellery)” 28 (in Belluš' words). Yet the nature of iconic-symbolic signs is also in the cardo-­ decumanus cross on which the campus is laid out. This is the architectural sign of a city, and marks the university campus as an academic city within a city of all ­citizens. aula, scale not given; front elevation (variant); plans of faculty In: URLICH, Petr – VORLÍK, Petr – FILSAKOVÁ, Beryl – ANDRÁŠIOVÁ, detail; plan of level ±0 of A, T, and Z with dissection hall, plan Katarína – POPELOVÁ, Lenka. Šedesátá léta v architektuře očima pamětníků. and section of aula, plan and elevation of pavilion with dissection room and alternatives of roofing (variant); design of programs’ Interview with Vladimír Dedeček, in Bratislava, summer of 2014. → also VILÍMKOVÁ, Milada – LÍBAL, Dobroslav. Umění renesance a manýrismu – Architektura. In: POCHE, (unbound drawings with sketches: sketch of urban plan; layout Emanuel et al. Praha na úsvitu nových dějin. Prague : Panorama, 1988, of pavilions and aula around a quadrangle; two variations of pp. 109–110; HORYNA, Mojmír. J. B. Santini-Aichel – Život a dílo. plan of p+1 storey of aula; module grid of faculty pavilions; plan of p+1 storey of faculty pavilions; section of A, T, and Z pavilions; Prague : Karolinum, 1998, p. 244–245; VLČEK, Pavel et al. Encyklopedie českých klášterů. Prague : Libri, 1997, pp. 565–569. “I understood the round aula of 27 variants of their elevations, scale not given). Tracing paper fixed the University of Agriculture not as a classroom, but as a gathering space, on drawing paper and individual, unbound sheets of tracing as in ancient times when the chiefs would gather around a fire, making paper. Black pencil and coloured pastels. A3 notebook format a circle.” In: »Náčelníci sa schádzali do kruhu”, interview with Vladimír (297 × 420 mm) / Inv. č. A 1615/1–39 /. Va Campus for the University of Agriculture in Nitra. Dedeček by Matúš Vallo. .týždeň, 12, 2015, 6, p. 57. “Try to make architecture that 28 is jewellery rather than costume jewellery. Imagine the building's entrance Layout of buildings. Signed by Dedeček, undated (scale not as an open embrace. The entry, this is not merely doors, it is a concept given); Urban plan for placement of areál VŠP v Nitre [University of the whole space.” PUŠKÁR, Peter. Zo spomienok študenta. In: Architekt of Agriculture campus in Nitra]. Signed by Dedeček, dated profesor Emil Belluš. Zborník príspevkov z vedeckej konferencie. Bratislava : 14 July 1965 (scale 1:2,000). Ozalid reproduction on paper / Inv. č. A 1619/1, 2 /. VI [Campus for the University of Agriculture in Nitra.] FA STU [1999], p. 80. The larger sketch book 29 /Inv. č. A 1617/ contains an entry dated “up to 15 July 1957”. In it are drawings of an orthogonal aula, integrated among pavilions arranged Black and white photograph of drawing documentation for Nitra- in a comb shape, similar to Miňovský and Dedeček's competition entry. Žrebčín location. Unsigned, undated (perspective, with version There are other alternatives for the aula that are triangularly shaped of aula with neoclassicist collonade). Photograph unsigned, undated / Inv. č. A 1620/7/. VII [Campus for the University of Agriculture in Nitra.] with a flat roof and rounded or zigzagged corners, or an oblique prism with a curved continuous roof. 30 The smaller sketch book / Inv. č. A 1618/ contains entries dated “Praha 30. IV. 59” and “15. V. Black and white photographs of drawing documentation for (Porada ČSAZV)”. Among them are sketched-out variants of the comb- Nitra-Žrebčín location. Unsigned, undated (perspective, front shaped pavilions layout with a free-standing circular aula and an aula Photographs unsigned, undated / Inv. č. A 1620/1–6 /. VIII [Campus for the University of Agriculture in Nitra.] on plinth. Here the aula had the form either of a spherical cap with the rounded side turned down and the form of a dome, or of an oblique orthogonal or triangularly shaped solid with flat roof. This was a new stage of seeking how to orient, situate, lay out and give form to the Black and white photograph of project documentation. Signed aula and the faculty pavilions, which appear either as slabs or crossed by Dedeček, dated July 1965 (plan of construction, scale 1:2,000). slabs with individual circular or prismatic lecture rooms. The sketches IX [Campus for the University of Agriculture in Nitra.] are undated, and the sketch book is missing some pages. The various drawings may have been added in varying order. 31 The smallest sketch book /Inv. č. A 1616/, with a series of 14 different urban layouts of the campus showing a circular aula on one-storey plinth; includes no dating. Nitra-Letisko location. Unsigned, undated (situation, floor plans, sections, scale not given). Photographs signed by M. Mihalovič I Prague : Česká technika – nakladatelství ČVUT, 2006, pp. 284–285. 26 distribution or layout and 3D diagram of aula, scale not given), Black and white photographs of project documentation for [Campus for the University of Agriculture in Nitra.] Vladimír Dedeček. Interview from of A, T, and Z (variant); side elevation of A, T, and Z with facade a občiansku výstavbu (Stavoprojekt), undated / Inv. č. A 1621/9/. Project documentation/project model v Nitre. Architektúra a urbanizmus, 49, 2015, 1–2, pp. 120–143. 25 2 June 2004; Vladimír Dedeček, Katarína Andrášiová, Mária Topoľčanská. Photograph signed PVS Foto Krajský projektový ústav pre bytovú documentation archived at the sng v architektúre. Na príklade areálu Vysokej školy poľnohospodárskej pavilions: level ±0 and first storey of A, T, and Z, front elevation and rear view, showing connecting building and aula on pilotis). Relationship of form-stylistic and sign-symbolic characteristics Thus far, characterizations have alternated between both, though the former predominate. The "key" for this project, as 24 February 1960. 18 bound drawings and 20 unbound drawings (Stavoprojekt) for Krajský projektový ústav pre bytovú 032 033 Interiors of completed pavilions. Black and white photographs by Sketch book. Unsigned, undated [1957 29 and later]. Notebook a občiansku výstavbu (Stavoprojekt) and also unsigned, M. Mihalovič (Stavoprojekt). Photos undated. In: Fond Vladimír format (about 229 × 152 mm), / Inv. č. A 1617/. undated / Inv. č. A 1621/10–24 /. Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 402 | 403 k seg 5 034 Scale 1:5,000. Photographs of model at Nitra-Letisko location, by M. Mihalovič, Ľ. M. Mihalovič (Stavoprojekt and Krajský Black and white photograph of presentation model, specified: with differentiated lecture halls and aula near campus entry. projektový ústav pre bytovú a občiansku výstavbu) and also “Model dľa úvodného projektu Ing. Miňovského a Ing. Dedečka Modelmakers and photographers not given, photographs unsigned, undated / Inv. č. A 1621/46–53 /. vypracoval arch. Brogyányi s kolektívom. Scale 1:500.” undated /Inv. č. A 1621/1, 3, (coloured photographs) XVII [at Nitra-Žrebčín location with 4 differentiated lecture halls 6, 7 (black and white photographs)/. Black and white photographs of the completed buildings X [Campus for the University of Agriculture in Nitra.] and aula maxima at the edge]. Photograph unsigned, XIV undated / Inv. č. A 1620/8 /. in Nitra]. Alternative (?). Ing. Dedeček, Ing. Miňovský, May 1959. sides of the river, views of faculty pavilions A, Z and T; lecture Scale 1:5,000. Coloured photographs of model with no pavilions, aula maxima and radioisotope pavilion, and some details Black and white photographs of presentation model based on differentiation of lecture halls or aula, with only multi-storey of facades, roof and indoor entry and lecture hall). Photographs competition project for Nitra-Žrebčín location, with two compact faculty pavilions. Modelmaker and photographers not given, signed by ČSTK agency photojournalists, M. Mihalovič, pavilions of lecture rooms and aula maxima at the edge. Model photograph undated / Inv. č. A 1621/2, 4/. Ľ. M. Mihalovič (Stavoprojekt and Krajský projektový ústav XI [Campus for the University of Agriculture in Nitra.] and photographs unsigned, undated / Inv. č. A 1620/9–15 /. XII Study for placement of VŠP [University of Agriculture [Campus for the University of Agriculture in Nitra.] Black and white photographs of working wooden models in Nitra]. Alternative 1. Ing. Dedeček, Ing. Miňovský, May 1959. / Inv. č. A 1621/25–26 / and presentation wood-canvas models, Scale 1:5,000. Black and white photograph of model at Nitra- of Nitra-Letisko location with circular aula maxima at Letisko location with differentiated lecture halls and circular the campus entry. Models and photographs unsigned, undated aula at the end. Modelmakers and photographers not given, / Inv. č. A 1621/27–45 /. photograph undated / Inv. č. A 1621/5 /. b2 XV Study for placement of VŠP [University of Agriculture [Campus for the University of Agriculture in Nitra.] XIII Study for placement of VŠP [University of Agriculture in Nitra]. Alternative 2. Ing. Dedeček, Ing. Miňovský, May 1959. XVI [Campus for the University of Agriculture in Nitra.] (bird's-eye view of campus, views of campus entry from both pre bytovú a občiansku výstavbu), and of the university, Oto Veselý, and also unsigned, undated / Inv. č. A 1621/54–74 /. Textual part of project Vb Technical report. Structural. Signed by Dedeček, Black and white photographs of campus construction (of faculty Miňovský, signed in Mesík's hand, dated 9 March 1961. pavilions, rectorate and aula maxima). Photographs signed Typewritten, 7 pages. / Inv. č. A 1619/3 /. 5 Literature ANTAL, Ján. Vysoká škola poľnohospodárska v Nitre (review). Projekt. Revue slovenskej architektúry, 7, 1965, 5, pp. 98–101. HLAVÁČ, Cyril. Vyznamenané diela architektúry. Výtvarný život, 11, 1966, 8, pp. 303–308. DEDEČEK, Vladimír. Areál vysokej školy poľnohospodárskej v Nitre-Letisko (identification label with building characteristics). Architektura ČSSR, 27, 1968, 2, p. 99. KARFÍK, Vladimír (?). [Areál Vysokej školy poľnohospodárskej v Nitre-Letisko.] (review). Architektura ČSSR, 24, 1968, 2, pp. 100–106. MASNÝ, Rudolf – LOJDL, Milan (eds.). Stavoprojekt Bratislava 1949–1969. Bratislava : Stavoprojekt; Práca, 1969, pp. 126–131. [DEDEČEK, Vladimír.] I. Cieľ typizačnej práce v oblasti projekcie vysokých škôl. /Základná skladobná jednotka, sekcia, vzorová fakulta/ (documentation for typification research study). Typewritten. [Stavoprojekt Bratislava, undated (after 1970)], 36 pages. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. [DEDEČEK, Vladimír and editor of DBZ.] Landwirtschaftliche Hochschule in Nitra (Tschechoslowakei). DBZ, 1973, 12, pp. 2.1–2.4. DEDEČEK, Vladimír. Východiská a činitele architektonickej tvorby troch desaťročí. Projekt. Revue slovenskej architektúry, 26, 1984, 2, p. 22–24. KUSÝ, Martin. Areál Vysokej školy poľnohospodárskej v Nitre (review). Projekt. Revue slovenskej architektúry, 30, 1988, 10, pp. 10–11. DEDEČEK, Vladimír. [Areál Vysokej školy poľnohospodárskej v Nitre.] Základ bol v dobrej spolupráci. Projekt. Revue slovenskej architektúry, 30, 1988, 10, pp. 12–13. ŠPALDON, Emil. [Areál Vysokej školy poľnohospodárskej v Nitre] Slúži dobre svojmu účelu. Projekt. Revue slovenskej architektúry, 30, 1988, 10, pp. 13–14. MRÁZEK, Pavol – SKALA, Jozef (eds.). Stavoprojekt, Bratislava 1949–1989. Bratislava : Alfa, 1989, unpaginated. 034 Localization plan of VŠP-Nitra [University of Agriculture in Nitra]. Signed by Dedeček. Dated 1965. Scale 1:2,000. Reproduction on paper. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 404 | 405 k seg 6 Campus of Comenius University, Natural Sciences Faculty pavilions in Mlynská dolina, currently Campus of Comenius University and Ľudovít Štúr residence halls b2 Possible interpretations 6 Location 6 Mlynská dolina, 842 48 Bratislava Project for building permission  niversity campus, construction of faculties and residence halls U of Comenius University Natural Sciences Faculty: Vladimír Dedeček, first project 1965 1 (built). Second project for expansion including Comenius University Faculties of Arts and Law, 1967 2 (unbuilt)  stage i of first built comenius university campus project a) residence halls: _ mono-block halls (Juraj Švaniga and Oldrich Černý, 1965–1972 3) _ atrium halls (Vladimír Dedeček, 1965) b) Comenius University campus and pavilions (Vladimír Dedeček, 1965) as follows: _ chemistry and biology pavilions and geology pavilion _ mathematics and physics pavilion _u  niversity quadrangle, with pavilions for rectorate and dean's offices, aula maxima, commons pavilion and 1st part of terraced library (all unbuilt) _ radioisotope pavilion with particle accelerator (unbuilt)  stage ii of first comenius university campus project b) university campus and buildings (Vladimír Dedeček, 1965) as follows: _  2nd part of terraced library, electrical engineering faculty pavilions of Slovak University of Technology, high voltage laboratory, physical education and sports faculty pavilions, sports area (built according to IPO ŠS projects) 4 Structural engineering project Interior architecture project Execution project General contractor  arol Mesík, Mária Rothová K (ferro-concrete construction) Jaroslav Nemec  hemistry and biology pavilions and geology pavilion; c mathematics pavilion, classrooms pavilion, computer centre, physics I and physics II pavilions and workshops, and ultimately the project for three atrium-based residence hall pavilions as a repeated project: Vladimír Dedeček (chief architect), Jozef Stohl (supervising architect of pavilions), Jaroslav Prokop (supervising architect of residence halls) and Studio II for educational buildings/Studio X for university and cultural construction. After 1973, the Ministry's planning organization for the design of educational architecture in Bratislava (Slov. abbrev. IPO ŠS) took over the design and construction supervision.  tavoprojekt Bratislava until 1973, S afterwards IPO ŠS Bratislava The “feasibility study” was 1 approved on 29 September 1964. See [unsigned, multiple authors.] Záverečné technicko-ekonomické vyhodnotenie výstavby I. a II. stavby Vysokoškolských internátov v Mlynskej doline v Bratislave. Bratislava: 1980, p. 4. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. Dated based on interview with 2 Vladimír Dedeček, in Bratislava, summer of 2014. Not verified from an independent source. Underlined dates indicate 3 verifications based on unpublished literature: [unsigned, multiple authors.] Záverečné technicko-ekonomické vyhodnotenie výstavby I. a II. stavby Vysokoškolských internátov v Mlynskej doline v Bratislave. /→ Note 1.  / 4 Also built was the area of the international residence halls Družba: 1974–1980, hall completed 1976 (architect of studies and documentation: Manol Kančev, IPO ŠS Bratislava, architect of the project: József Finta and design institute Lakótery Budapest) with halls “A” and “B”: 1978–1981/1980–1983 (architect Manol Kančev and IPO ŠS Bratislava, 1978 and 1979. 001 University campus in Bratislava-Mlynská dolina. Black and white photograph of presentation model in white laminate. Model and photograph unsigned. Undated. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 406 | 407 k seg 6 Investor Construction  inistry of Education and Culture, M as represented by the Construction administration for universities at the Slovak University of Technology (disbanded in 1968), and Rectorates of Comenius University and Slovak University of Technology (after 1968 IPO ŠS)  ozemné stavby, n. p., Bratislava, P after 1972 Pozemné stavby, n. p., Nitra First project Phase I _ Ľudovít Štúr mono-block residence hall, by Švaniga and Černý: 1965–1972 _ atrium residence hall: localized by IPO ŠS as a repeating project of Vladimír Dedeček's: 1969–1977 _ chemistry (CH 1, 2), biology (B 1, 2) and geology (G) pavilions built on the basis of projects by Vladimír Dedeček; IPO ŠS took over responsibility for construction as general investor (1969) and general designer (1973): 1969–1977 Phase II _ mathematics pavilion (M), classrooms and administration pavilion (PA), computer centre, physics pavilions (F 1, 2) and workshops (D) built on the basis of projects by Vladimír Dedeček; IPO ŠS took over responsibility for construction as general investor (1969) and general designer (1973): 1969–1977 Building volume (total built space): faculty buildings atrium residence hall Expenses faculty buildings atrium residence hall Building type 83.2 m3 per student (10,000 students) 145,000 m3 332 Kčs per student (10,000 students) (?) University campus, university b2 6 002 001 –002 building(s) and its/their spatial relationships The campus is oriented toward the city in two main spatial planes to the south and north and a less dense area between them. The front plane to the south comprises a line of five projecting or receding medium-rise pavilions (chemistry I, chemistry II, biology I, biology II and geology). This line is punctuated to the west by the diagonal row of the low-rise pavilions hosting the Primary nineyear residential school for the visually-impaired (Manol Kančev, designed 1958, built 1960). Uphill from these buildings are six centrally-located medium-rise mathematics and physics pavilions, grouped or individual (mathematics, lecture halls, computer centre, workshops, physics I, physics II [the high-rise physics III pavilion was not built]). Part of this grouping is the sculpture Nicolaus Copernicus (1973) by Tibor Bártfay (installed on a travertine base designed in cooperation with the campus' architect). The maths ­pavilion facade features a bronze relief, in ­ memory of the mathematician and member of the Slovak Academy of Sciences Jur Hronec, by the sculptor and teacher at the technical university's architecture faculty Rudolf Šipkovský. To the west, a spatial reserve rounded out the campus area (now a library stands there, based on a later project of different architects). This grouping was to have been punctuated to the north by a group of low-rise sports halls and the administration of the physical education and sports faculty (of Comenius University; unbuilt). This faculty's sports fields in the park were to have transitioned into the campus' recreational zone. To the north – on the heights, separate from the other buildings – a medium-high-rise physics IV pavilion was to have been built (astronomy, ­geophysics and meteorology; unbuilt). A second plane was to open to the north, with the student centre pavilion (unbuilt). Above it to the north, four residence halls were planned: a tall mono-block (designed by Švaniga and Černý) and three medium-high residence ­ avilions in a compact urban design; one was to p have had atrium-based pavilions halls (Dedeček designed three pavilions as a repeated project). A second, analogous line of projecting/ receding pavilions, like those of the Natural Sciences Faculty to the south, enclose the campus' east end. These pavilions of the technical university's Electrical Engineering Faculty were designed and constructed subsequently (on the basis of a ­design by Manol Kančev, IPO ŠS, 1975). The crossing of the north/south and east/ west circulation axes (an asymmetrical cardodecumanus cross) was meant to give rise to a university quadrangle-academic forum (the low-rise buildings of the university commons, main library, aula maxima with high-rise rectorate and deans' offices, and the joint departments; the quad and all these buildings went ­unbuilt). 002 University campus, Bratislava-Mlynská dolina. Urban plan. Signed by Dedeček. Dated 1966. Scale 1:2,000. Reproduction on paper. Vladimír Dedeček’s archive. 408 | 409 k seg 6 building site (situation) 003 b2 The pedestrian bridge over the road into ­Mlynská dolina would have linked the academic forum to the sports areas on the opposite slope above the former stone quarry (unbuilt). To the south, the faculties connect to the pedestrian bridge and city transportation, the Družba international residence hall, the wooden modular “Swedish ­ houses” [“Švédske domky”] student dormitory with tennis courts and the Natural Sciences ­Faculty's boat house (though the rowing course went unbuilt). On-site transportation and deliveries are provided by a campus loop drive. The campus on the hill is accessible by city public transportation, as well as car and non-motorized transportation (the car parks in four cardinal ­directions from the loop drive went unbuilt). 6 The campus is located on Bratislava's western hills above the road into the Mlynská dolina city district. To the south it provides views of the urban area around the Karloveské arm of the ­Danube, to the north of the slopes and buildings of Mlynská dolina, to the west of Líščie údolie and the concrete panel housing estate in ­Karlova Ves, and to the east the Bôrik hill with single family homes and government buildings. To the south, Karloveská cesta road and a fragment of the Botanical Garden (which was planned to stretch uphill to the campus slopes) borders the campus. To the north the campus is bound by the former Asmolovova cesta (­currently Staré Grunty), and to the east by the road into ­Mlynská dolina and the Slovak Television buildings and the Zoo. The campus terminates to the west in the Líščie ­údolie district. Almost diagonally, Slávičie údolie greenery with its park and cemetery runs through the university campus. The valid zoning plan directed that the cemetery (established in 1912 for the urban poor) be moved before the university's construction began. The architect got around this step by interpreting the park and cemetery as a continuation of the university’s recreational zone, part of the sporting area's park and spatial reserve. This made possible a “delay” in its move that lasts to this day, though the university decided that its operations made it unavoidable to halt further burials. So Slávičie údolie, with the existing sepulchral architecture and buildings (residential and service), became part of the university, remaining accessible to Bratislava's residents and visitors every day, including the academic year's ceremonial periods. Zoning plans called for the university city to be located at Bratislava's western edge. It had been partly urbanized land, characteristically for Bratislava cultivated as vineyards and agricultural areas (with a tradition of building both settled and floating mills on the Vydrica and Danube), and ran athwart the Slávičie údolie valley, home to one of the oldest Neolithic settlements in Slovakia. It was in this environment of vineyards, gardens, meadows and traces of Neolithic pits outside Bratislava's historical centre that, in the words of the architect Dedeček, a new country/city layer of town was to arise. In his project, the architect took into consideration both the layers of landscapes and the new building program. The only buildings razed to build the university campus were garden huts and a few family houses. The localization of the 001 school's pavilions took into account the terrain morphology, the sub-soil, and an orientation toward the cardinal directions and roads to and from the town centre. The front lines of ­faculty pavilions align with the southern and southeastern Tôňava slopes toward the Danube and Bôrik hill. As a contrast, the architect situated the residence halls to the north (toward the Mlyny and Sitina areas). The role of the diagonal Slávičie údolie greenery in between them is analogous to that of the botanical garden and pond at the ­University of Agriculture in Nitra: it articulates and links relatively separate campus areas, giving rise to the differentiated urban environments and landscape of the university city ­within the city of Bratislava. This new university city on the slopes overlooking the Danube was meant to face the city centre and the river with an academic quadrangle, a student forum and an aula above the crossing of Karloveská cesta/Mlynská dolina roads. A university forum was meant to be permanently perceived as reestablished through the process of sharing the quad, a plane of academic institutions and circulation via the cardo-decumanus crossing of the campus, which until then was non-existent: university buildings were scattered throughout the central part of town without any mutual relationships. The slopes beyond the historical centre were to have housed the newly interrelated faculties of schools, forming a differentiated whole of independent academic and research workplaces: a university campus as a ­successor to that in Nitra. The architect planned for three high-rise buildings dominating the campus: the 16-storey rectorate on the east of the university quadrangle with administration and shared departments, a 7-storey reserved space to the west for the ­future physics III pavilion, and finally a 7-storey physical education faculty building to the north. To the south, the sinuous row of pavilions was a reaction in height and geometry to the contours of the rocky incline. To the north the pavilions' patterns corresponded to a highly varied terrain by a scattered grouping or clustering in structures non/hierarchical as well as de-hierarchized. The academic quad was to have linked them up in common asymmetrical focal points at the campus' edge. With some hyperbole, we might say that the campus was conceptually planned as more of an independent “university in the air” over the city, rather than a colonizing camp of the expanding town. Perceptually, its impact is now of a fragment of an incomplete academic city on a bluff over the Danube. programmatic and spatial solution Following discussions with representatives of the individual faculties, doc. RNDr. Michal Harant, the dean of Comenius University's ­ Natural Sciences Faculty, mathematician and ­ later head of a geometry institute, submitted requirements to the Ministry of Education in early 1953. These focused on two new separate buildings, each with its own deans' offices in the centre of ­ Bratislava, for mathematics/physics/ chemistry, and for a biology section. The same year, the ministry's ­construction administration deliberated with representatives of all Bratislava's universities on their needs, and put forward a plan to concentrate university buildings in three sites in the city. The technical faculties were to centre on the former Gottwaldovo námestie square, now Námestie slobody. Urban plans by the architect Belluš situated them in the area of Račianske mýto between Mýtna and Radlinského streets up to Kollárovo námestie square. The natural science faculties were to be on the former Lafranconi lands 5 by the Danube, at a location chosen in a localization search competition back in 1929. The ministry then planned construction of new buildings for the rectorate, the Philosophical Faculty, Medical Faculty and Geography workplaces of Comenius University in Bratislava's centre. Project designs for the new Natural Sciences Faculty facilities at Lafranconi were scheduled for 1954–1956, and construction in 1957–1959. All design work was to be done by the Slovak Technical University's faculty of architecture and construction in ­Bratislava.6 Results of the international competition for this university city, called by the Ministry of Education and National Edification 7 during the war in 1941, at Hradný vrch hill went unbuilt (for long term realization, a project by the brothers E ­ rnesto La ­Padula and Attilio La ­Padula, which won one of two second prizes ex aequo, was s­ elected). In the 1950s the ministry came back to the idea of a university city in new ways. Though the idea of Bratislava’s new academic city was not a priority even after the Second World War, Vladimír Dedeček was to write with respect much later of Professor Belluš' urban planning proposals for the technical university's buildings (1947–1948) in Bratislava’s centre as the first design that answered “the needs of a university city”. (DEDEČEK 1972, p. 21) In addition to faculty buildings, Belluš’ post-war project included an unbuilt residence hall near the B ­ lumentál church. In other words, the architects themselves and the academic community were ­ ringing to life the university city idea, and givb ing it new dimensions, more than any state and later ­Party-state ­committees. However, the intention of building new Natural Sciences Faculty buildings at Lafranconi was long to be downgraded from the Republic's highest-priority investment plans. Even in the early 1960s, 32 workplaces of Comenius University were housed at 25 different locations around town. After negotiating with other ministries in Prague, the Ministry of Education managed to reclassify this investment from the fifth five-year plan to the third and fourth five-year plans. Project designing began immediately afterwards, thanks to extraordinary efforts by the Comenius University rectorate and the personal initiative of the philosopher and logician Prof. Vojtech Filkorn (Comenius University rector, 1962–1966) and the civil engineer Prof. Ing. Dr. techn. Jozef Trokan (Slovak University of Technology rector, 1963/1964 and 1968/1969, then from 8 April to 31 December 1968 the minister of construction). The first and second construction s­ tages were built under the coordination of F ­ ilkorn's successor, the biochemist and geochemist Prof. Bohuslav ­ ­ Cambel (rector, 1966–1969). The rectors' agreement to locate the technical university's ­ Electrical Engineering Faculty along with Comenius University's Natural Sciences ­Faculties in Mlynská dolina grew from the need to build and utilize some shared workplaces (the computer centre, laboratories, and the ­university 5 The decision by the ministers' committee for construction meant that the economics faculty was to move from Lafranconi to Gottwaldovo námestie. The rectorate, and the Faculty of Humanities and Geology with the Geography Faculty, were meant to receive new buildings in the city centre. The health ministry opted for space on Kmeťovo námestie and Bratislava-Kramáre. The faculties' task was to prepare “feasibility studies” and arrange for projects for planning permission for this centrally-coordinated construction. Priorities were established, from the technology faculties, through medicine and pharmacy, geology-geography, and education, to the botanical garden greenhouses and the Faculty of Medicine's central animal facility. → Zápis z pracovnej porady rektorov a zástupcov vysokých škôl v Bratislave s pracovníkmi Povereníctva školstva a osvety, Právnická fakulta v Bratislave, 14 July 1953, pp. 1-3. Archive of Comenius University. 6 Ibid., p. 3. 7 After the wartime Slovak Republic declared autonomy, the prior Under-Department of the Ministry of Eduction and National Edification became the Ministry of Education and National Edification of the Country of Slovakia. 003 University campus in Bratislava-Mlynská dolina with palace layout of the Education University, Comenius University's Natural Sciences Faculty and residence hall. Localization plan. Unsigned. Undated (Office of the City Architect of Bratislava, 1950s [?]). Reproduction on paper. Vladimír Dedeček’s archive. 410 | 411 b2 reactor/particle accelerator). This put the technical university's Electrical Engineering Faculty in the context of university workplaces, thus supporting the actual need for an academic city. In the 1960s, public anonymous competitions were not called for investment projects over a specified budget; instead as a rule there were restricted competitions by invitation and with honorarium. For this reason, the State Committee for Construction [Štátny výbor pre výstavbu] in Prague denied efforts by the ministry to call a public anonymous competition in collaboration with the Association of Slovak Architects (ASA). Filkorn as rector received instructions from Prague to request proposals from five archi­ tectural teams. He commissioned four studies from Bratislava project offices and the Faculty of Architecture, and for the fifth turned to the Brno functionalist architect and stage designer, and member of the Czechoslovak section of the International Congresses of Modern Architecture (CIAM) Bedřich Rozehnal. The latter specialized in hospitals and schools8, and after his release from imprisonment on fabricated charges in the 1950s was employed at Jan Evangelista Purkyně University in Brno.9 A Ministry of Education committee assessed the four studies submitted: by a team of Jozef Lacko 10 from the technical university's Faculty of Architecture, a team of Oldrich Černý, a team of Vladimír Dedeček and Stavoprojekt's Studio II for educational buildings, and Rozehnal's study from the Purkyně University in Brno. Under the guidance of the ministry's permanent expert, Prof. Belluš, the committee short­listed the studies by Lacko and Dedeček, and recommended their further development. From these, both Filkorn's executive body at ­Comenius University and Trokan's at the ­technical ­university endorsed Dedeček's design. As bases for developing competition projects, the architects worked with the detailed and extensively elaborated localization program 11 of buildings for 10,000 students, with possible expansion to about 15,000. The requirement of first building the maths-physics, chemistry-biology and geology-geography sections helped Dedeček to ponder a differentiated school design, based not purely on the faculty and departmental structure. In keeping with the program, he designed individual pavilions for related specializations (one storey per department – as in Nitra); however, this time he distinguished not just common social science and humanities workplaces, but shared natural science workplaces as well: for example he located the group of mathematics-physics pavilions with computer centre in the central area 004 005 of the natural sciences section. He considered maths, physics and programming languages the “basic prerequisites of academic communication in human ­sciences” [V.D.] as well as in natural ­sciences (Gr. mathésis – learning, knowledge, teaching, science, and mathésis universalis – universal knowledge 12; moreover, Heidegger suggests Gr. “tà mathémata” means among other things “... that which man knows in advance in his observation of whatever is and in his intercourse with things: the corporreality of bodies, the vegetable character of plants, the animality of animals, the humanness of man” 13 ). For this reason, Dedeček placed the 6 008–009 006–007 k seg 6 ­ athematics-physics pavilions and computer pam vilion in the middle of the campus area. Thanks to this, the Faculty of Mathematics and Informatics had no insurmountable space problem in the 1980s when they became independent while ­remaining part of the campus structure. For example in contrast to these focal pavilions, there was also meant to be a specialized physics IV pavilion (astronomy, geophysics and meteorology) in a separate building on the rise over Slávičie údolie (unbuilt). Thus this layout of the academic institution enabled differentiation of individual pavilions in related groupings ROZEHNAL, Bedřich. 8 Cesta k řešení nemocniční otázky města Brna: Projekty Zemské klinické nemocnice a St. oblastní dětské nemocnice v Brně. Brno: self-published, 1949. 126 pages. → draft of a letter dated 30 May 1963, in which the rector Prof. Dr. Filkorn asks assent 9 of Prof. Dr. Theodor Martinec, rector of Jan Evangelista Purkyně University in Brno, allowing Prof. Ing. arch. Bedřich Rozehnal to prepare a volumetric study for the campus. Archive of Comenius University. Along with Prof. Jozef Lacko, 10 the proposal was worked on by Prof. Ján Svetlík, Tibor Alexy, Milan Kodoň, Ján Kavan, Jozef Červeň, Ladislav Kušnír and Ivan Slameň. Oldrich Černý's collaborators were Oľga Kristiánová and Jozef Chovanec. For the proposals, → MARCINKA, Marián. Poznámky k výstavbe vysokých škôl. Projekt. Časopis Sväzu slovenských architektov, 5, 1964, 1, pp. 9–12. The final version of this program 11 appeared in the “feasibility study”. → [Správa výstavby vysokých škôl v Bratislave – TROKAN, Jozef – FILKORN, Vojtech.] Investičná úloha na výstavbu vysokoškolského areálu v Bratislave v Mlynskej doline. Undated [1964 (?)], 245 pages. In its conclusion, the text considers three campus volumetric studies by Vladimír Dedeček, Jozef Lacko and Oldrich 006 Černý. Concerning Dedeček's proposal: “All the faculties agreed with the design, mainly because of operational suitability, the relationship of shared teaching and scholar-research spaces, the 5–7 storey high-rise, and transportation and the urban planning aspect of layout of buildings.” p. 222. The Comenius University rector named an expert committee to assess the volumetric studies in comparison; the committee sat from 16–18 December, and of the four designs chose, without unanimity, the two from the technical university (Lacko) and KPÚ (Dedeček); next in preference was Rozehnal's project, and then Černý's. The committee included the architect Milan Beňuška; its chairman Emil Belluš c ­ oauthored the jury's decision: “The solution needs to include a central organizing space. This ought to be a space that culminates the overall concept, meaning that it ought to satisfy the need to orient the entire area of the universities, to underscore the area's relationship to the Danube, to the student residential unit, and to other architectural and natural components (the television building, Bôrik hill and so on)... It calls for a gradation of spaces toward the centre... The solution ought to respect the terrain's conditions, and in a plastic composition of mass produce accents or dominant focal points that would enhance the university area's mission, both in its urban unit and in mutual relationships between the area's individual needed units.” (p. 231). → 12, 13 004 005 Competition project for university campus with residence halls by Oldrich Černý, Oľga Kristiánová and Jozef Chovanec. Model and black and white photograph unsigned. Undated. In: [Správa výstavby vysokých škôl v Bratislave – TROKAN, Jozef – FILKORN, Vojtech.] Investičná úloha na výstavbu vysokoškolského areálu v Bratislave v Mlynskej doline. Undated [1964 (?)], 245 pages. 006 Competition project for university campus with residence halls by Jozef Lacko in cooperation with Ján Svetlík, Tibor Alexy, Milan Kodoň, Ján Kavan, Jozef Červeň, Ladislav Kušnír and Ivan Slameň. Model and black and white photograph unsigned. Undated. In: [Správa výstavby vysokých škôl v Bratislave – TROKAN, Jozef – FILKORN, Vojtech.] Investičná úloha na výstavbu vysokoškolského areálu v Bratislave v Mlynskej doline. Undated [1964 (?)], 245 pages. 007 Competition project for university campus with residence halls by Vladimír Dedeček and I.[?] Adamec. Model and black and white photograph unsigned. Undated. In: [Správa výstavby vysokých škôl v Bratislave – TROKAN, Jozef – FILKORN, Vojtech.] Investičná úloha na výstavbu vysokoškolského areálu v Bratislave v Mlynskej doline. Undated [1964 (?)], 245 pages. 007 412 | 413 009 k seg 6 b2 (­science families), and this with regard not just to individual departments and areas of study, but also to interdisciplinary relations. The sinuous sequence of five frontmost 3- and 5-storey pavilions of the university's chemistry-biology section is built on the southern slope on two levels of the rocky incline. Entry to these pavilions is on the middle storey (and from that upwards or downwards). This differentiated/shortened vertical circulation paths and decreased the volume of horizontal paths. The terrain influenced not the shape but both the vertical and horizontal disposition or layout (in plan and in section) of the pavilions, with atrium and office rooms/cells around them. Thus the composition of indoor spaces is influenced by the landscape layers and the geometrical coordination of the architecture. This frontmost line of pavilions appears to be a series of prisms with atria and continuous loggia running all around building; but inside they resemble the space that Aldo van Eyck called space of labyrinthian clarity. We can understand these pavilions as a layering of both the interrelated and intermediary spaces of classical and modern architecture (concentric spaces ‹atria, cells›, longitudinal spaces ‹continuous loggia, walkway galleries, corridors› with flat walkable roofs). In the first review of the partly-­ complete Mlynská dolina campus, the architect Iľja Skoček sr made a subtle and apt interpretation of this sinuous front pavilion layout employing the word meandering; more precisely he characterized the spaces as grouped “in squared meanders around an atrium arrangement”. (SKOČEK 1966, p. 189) The pavilions with office rooms/cells on the pavilion’s periphery included either built-in two-storey atrium lecture rooms with top daylight and a grassy garden on the flat roof, or builtin workshops, laboratories and e ­xpositions of natural science collections, one or more storeys high with a rooftop garden. Thus in the atria it was intended to make possible work “indoors” (in laboratories and collections) and/or “outdoors” (in the atrium roof garden) – under an open sky while still being within the atrium. This is a sort of “indoor exterior” or “outdoor interior” space for teachers and students to work in. Where the chemistry, biology and geology pavilion cluster provides these “indoor-outdoor” atrium spaces and continuous loggia, the maths-physics pavilions partially include the landscape in their inter-pavilion spaces. Each of the pavilion groupings has its own ways of interrelating with the landscape; and at the same time they set themselves apart from it as ­receptacles 008 009 of knowledge of the discipline of natural sciences research, while maintaining a certain studious distance: distance and proximity is characteristic of pavilion families, whether in pairs or sequence chains, solo or in groups: clusters, ­ bunches, bundles... In the architect's words, the atria are “... habitable building exteriors, in which one is protected from the climate, wind and noise. Each of them belongs to the respective building, and is simultaneously recreational and research space, that has 'a master' answering for its ­cultivation. This is 6 the essence of the localization plan's operational economy.” (DEDEČEK 1965, p. 8) Even for the communal space of this collectivized university, the architect designed spaces of both individual and group responsibility. This is what put into the school's operation Lecorbusian flat roofs with cultivated greenery in the atria of 3- to 5-storey pavilions (i.e. not on the pavilion’s roof), at the brink of a rocky incline over the Danube and an urban street crossing, so plant life could grow there and students and teachers could enjoy the atria. 01 5 010 Based on Czech translation 12 from Greek in PRACH, Václav. Řecko-český slovník. Prague : Springer a spol., 1942, p. 328. “Ta mathémata bedeutet für die 13 Griechen dasjenige, was der Mensch im Betrachten des Seienden und im Umgang mit den Dingen im voraus nennt: von den Körpern das Körperhafte, von den Pflanzen das Pflanzliche, von den Tieren das Tiermäßige, vom Menschen das Menschenartige.” In: HEIDEGGER, Martin. Die Zeit des Weltbildes. In: Gesamtausgabe. I. Abt., Bd. 5, Holzwege. Frankfurt a. M. : Klostermann, 1977, pp. 71–72. For English translation → HEIDEGGER, Martin. “The Age of the World Picture”. In: The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays, trans. William Lowitt, New York and London : Garland Publishing, Inc., 1977, p. 118. 008 Comb-shaped variant of high-rise faculties layout, with differentiated lecture rooms, high-rise rectorate and prismatic aula maxima. Wooden working model and black and white 011 photograph unsigned. Undated. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 009 Variant with meandering layout of atrium pavilions, high-rise rectorate and prismatic aula maxima. Working model and black and white photograph unsigned. Undated. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 012 Bratislava-Mlynská dolina. University campus. Construction of faculties – Comenius University Faculty of Arts, mathematics pavilion, computer centre, classrooms. Project for building permit. Signed by Dedeček, Gašparovič. Dated 1965. Scale 1:200. Reproduction on paper. Vladimír Dedeček’s archive. 013 01 0 Plan of level ±0 (ground floor). 01 1 Plan at terrain level +360 . 01 2 Section II-II‘. 01 3 Elevation. 01 4 Elevation and section III-III‘. 01 5 Dedeček's unbuilt expansion of high-rise university rectorate with aula maxima, university library and quadrangle. Working model in white polystyrene, glass mosaic and paper. Model and black and white photograph unsigned. Undated. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 014 414 | 415 k seg 6 016 b2 6 → k seg 7 → k seg 8 atrium gardens, the nearby quarry, the university boat house...). There also is one peculiar layer or intermediary space – Dedeček's first urban bridging, that forms part of this campus project: the pedestrian bridge over the road Karloveská cesta. It simultaneously houses infrastructure conduits, which had to be facilitated up the hill without ­extensive excavation. At the request of the education minister doc. PaedDr. Matej Lúčan, the architect integrated into the partly-completed campus a new project for the Faculties of Arts and Law (1967), which would have increased the number of anticipated students in this academic city within Bratislava from 10,000 to 13,000, with a possible maximum of 25,000. Dedeček offered two variant solutions; one was based on adding these two specializations' workplaces to the anticipated university quad, with a widened rectorate high-rise ­pavilion Module, construction, volume, surfacing 0 10 – 0 2 0 ­ nfortunately, problems with state and “academU ic” care for such a differentiated group of spaces have become apparent in their currently degraded condition. In contrast to Nitra's project, in Bratislava the architect was considering not just urban and pre-urban landscapes, but also the tension between landscape partly urbanized and de-urbanized (such as a torn-up weekend garden colony, terrain vague, and fallow gardens and meadows). The question of the layering, growth processes and self-organization of organic nature was much more imperative than it had been in Nitra, as was the planned organization of anorganic nature and cultural, scientific and technical processes. Here again he took into consideration the correlation between the utopic city (the unbuilt university city in Bratislava) and an atopic city with zones of varied dystopia (a cemetery, the rooftop 0 2 1 –0 25 017 articulated into diagonally-shifted vertical slabs (towers) of the arts, the law and academic administration of a school with shared faculties (“research institutes”). This would have meant either increasing the height of the main building from 16 to 20 storeys, or increasing its volume without added storeys. The architect believed such modifications would not halt the ongoing work on the initiated natural science pavilions, would not exclude the already-designed faculties from the first phase of construction, and would not necessitate relocating them to the western “physics reserve”. The other variant would have necessitated delaying the additional faculties' construction to the second phase in the “reserve for physical education and sport” (DEDEČEK 1967, pp. 2–3), i.e. in Slávičie údolie's middle campus area. Consideration of these two alternatives made for the closest Bratislava’s campus came in the post-war years to establishing an academic city. However, these attempts at a discrete academic city, from the time leading up to the Prague (and Bratislava) Spring, went unbuilt. After 1968, this campus project – like many others – was not completed in the spirit of the initial execution or supplemental projects. From the early 1970s, an autonomous student city within Bratislava was no longer a political and cultural priority. “They feared having so many students in one place.” [V.D.] And Comenius' “normalized” Faculty of Arts had no intentions of departing the city's broader centre later in the 1970s and 80s, as they repaired and extended their historical buildings. The Mlynská ­ dolina campus became (and remains) a “field office", a university version of a “school of the woods/Waldschule”. Relatively discrete and generationally cohesive university communities formed and continue to form, paradoxically, a kind of “camping” culture in the much-maligned student ­residence halls and houses of Mlynská dolina. All the edifices from this project that went unbuilt, and therefore untested, were to influence Dedeček in his further campus designs in former Czechoslovakia. There was direct impact on the competition design for Jan Evangelista Purkyně University in Brno (1975, unbuilt) and the project for University of Forestry and Wood Technology in Zvolen / → p. 442 /; and indirectly on the Bratislava exhibition facility Incheba / → p. 424 /. The module differs for each programmatic section. In the pavilions with administrative and teacher offices (pavilions M and PA) the module grid is 018 600 × 480 and 600 × 720 cm, with a construction height of 3,600 cm. Departmental sections with small-scale laboratories have modules of 600 × 720 cm. The lecture rooms sections with capacities of 30, 60, 80, 100, 200 and 300 seats have 300 × 1,800 cm, 600 × 1,800 cm and more; laboratories and workshops have 600 × 1,800 cm and 600 × 2,760 cm. So the architect also employed some deeper module grid fields than those approved for typification and unification of universities, which set the maximum at 600 cm. Dedeček had verified the use of deeper module fields in Nitra in S ­ lovakia; in Prague, Karel Prager had considered them – it was to his typification results that Dedeček referred in his text, the “Architect's Statement”. Consequently Dedeček innovated the module grid in Mlynská dolina campus, testing a square grid module of 720 × 720 cm, which better suited the laboratories' design and differentiation in building tracts. With an identical planar/area standard, the architect used a deeper module grid to shorten the facade length, and indoors increased the volume for built-in furniture that Jaroslav Nemec had begun testing in Nitra's university campus. Using a square module grid, Dedeček economized the area of the mosaic ­cladded f­ acades. The faculty pavilions construction system is analogous to Nitra's ferro-concrete frame (skeleton). The masonry of the storeys above ground is of metric-format bricks, and the prefabricated floors comprise ceramic panels. The staircases are ferro-concrete monolithic, covered in marble. Partitions are of bricks (12.5 cm). Indoor wall plastering is stucco and partially gypsum. The outdoor facades and their projecting elements are faced in glass mosaic. 019 Bratislava-Mlynská dolina. University campus. Construction of faculties – Comenius University Faculty of Arts, physics pavilion and workshops. Project for building permit. Signed by Dedeček, Gašparovič. Dated 1965. Scale 1:200. Reproduction on paper. Vladimír Dedeček’s archive. 01 6 Plan at terrain level +720. 01 7 Plan at terrain level +360. Bratislava-Mlynská dolina. University campus. Construction of faculties – Comenius University Faculty of Arts, University center. Project for building permit. Signed by Dedeček, Gašparovič. Dated 1965. Scale 1:200. Reproduction on paper. Vladimír Dedeček’s archive. 01 8 Plan of level ±0 (ground floor). 01 9 Plan at terrain level -360. 020 Bratislava-Mlynská dolina. University campus. Construction of faculties – Comenius University Faculty of Arts, radioisotope pavilion with particle accelerator. Project for building permit. Signed by Dedeček, Gašparovič. Dated 1965. Plan at terrain level -360. Scale 1:200. Reproduction on paper. Vladimír Dedeček’s archive. 020 416 | 417 k seg 6 b2 Floor covering is marble in the entry spaces, and tile cladding and PVC elsewhere. Workmanship concerning finishing and details was atypical, with “few standardized executions”. The flat roof with heat insulation has bitumen cap sheets. The roofs of workshops and the computer centre are of steel construction.(DEDEČEK undated [after 1970], p. 12) Building, operation and utility costs of spaces localized in the meandering pavilions ­ were lower than they would have been had the faculties been in separate pavilions. The issue of the building tracts in the meandering row of pavilions deserves particular attention. The prismatic pavilions' long wings have different tract arrangements than those perpendicular to them. The structural two- or three-tract is operationally interpreted in a different number programmatic tracts in the longer or shorter wings: the latter have 5 programmatic tracts and the former 2. This makes for better arrangement of office spaces and service ­spaces, and enables both circumferential and cross-­ circulation in the meandering pavilions. The pavilions' mass is articulated by atria inside, and outside by continuous loggia. The original window’s glazing and framing was aligned with the facade surface. The delicate dimensions of the thin metal window frames (and their profiles) meant the paned windows appeared as a horizontal strip window. These, together with the white spandrell wall masonry, formed Dedeček's typical tectonics of alternating horizontal lines of light-colour (wall) and dark-colour (glass) strips. The process of projecting loggia/balcony/terrace from the facade is marked in red glass mosaic on the bottom surface (visible from underneath). The pavilions' socle is cladded in grey-black shale. Here is another variation of the architect's colour code, which he fine-tuned in various ways in his Bratislava primary and secondary schools, up ­ until he designed projects for Nitra's university and ­Bratislava's SNG. Compared to the family of meandering pavilions, the family of the scattered and grouped pavilions have facades either completely without continuous loggia/terrace (the maths pavilion), or with continuous loggia/terrace on only three of them, with the fourth articulated in plastic relief into a 6-axis facade. In this case, the plastic reliefs are formed by diagonal shifting of facade components: protruding vertical and horizontal elements, as well as piers projected like brise soleil in Le Corbusier's residential housing L‘Unité d’Habitation (designed 1945, completed 1952). This process of protruding/projecting 0 21 0 22 r­ elief ­elements is marked by red glass mosaic on their side. This is evident indoors as well, where the colour code is applied in differentiating vertical and horizontal planes, or planes receding and protruding in foyers, vestibules and glassed corridors. This colour code of deep spatial facade considers not only the conceptual “syntactics” of spatial plans, but also the perceptive semantics of views-images. 6 As in Nitra, for Bratislava's interiors Jaroslav Nemec designed built-in furniture and furnishings of light-colour lacquered wood, white laminated wood and polished metals. He developed systems of raster and relief wall casings and dropped ceiling, articulating and spatializing the planes analogously to how the meandering pavilions differentiate the mono-block. These gridded and faceted indoor surfaces function like screens 023 024 that both cover and locate the lighting system (originally halogen) and ventilation system. In contrast to Nitra's campus, in Bratislava's (because the possibly-smooth (?) dome surface of the unbuilt particle accelerator, and the complex geometry of the unbuilt aula maxima, provide no actual visual counterbalance) the orthogonal tectonics have no stereotomic counterpoint. In the 4-storey prisms of the atrium residence halls to the north, the layers of terrain influenced the receding top storey with parapet, composed of prefabricated concrete panels. The atrium residence module grid is 600 × 600 cm with height of 3,000 cm. Continual loggias/­ terraces are cantilevered and intended to function as fire escape routes. Based on Dedeček’s repeated project of three residential pavilions, eighteen of them were located in accordance with IPO ŠS instructions. In other words, Dedeček as architect did not complete the intended differentiation of residences by section, which would have enabled a more individualized operation of spaces with separate entrances to residence hall 025 sections 14 – i.e. a greater degree of individualized living in a common cluster. Dedeček's cluster of residential pavilions was an alternative to both a modern panel housing estate without streets and a classical city. It tested and offered a system of loggias/terraces, some of them continuous all around the building (“streets and squares in the air"), and other modes of utilization for a range of internal courtyard, rooftop and inter-pavilion spaces with greenery. The uncreative, mechanical localization of the three residential pavilions (by IPO ŠS) inhibited this. Furthermore, rooms designed as 1- and 2-bed residences were operated with ­2-to-3 beds just after the approval of building occupancy because of insufficient capacities; this meant appropriately-dimensioned common and hygiene facilities were deficient from the start of operations. The “quality” and “coherence” of construction work and materials over two decades of building could only finish off what had started with the shuffling of projects from one project ­institution to another. Interview with Vladimír Dedeček, 14 in Bratislava, summer of 2014. 021 II. Construction of Bratislava-Mlynská dolina residence halls. Coordinating plan. Signed by Dedeček. Dated 1968. Scale 1:500. Reproduction on paper. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 022 Dedeček's unbuilt project of atrium-based residence halls, with social and shopping centre, central catering and laundry and underground parking. Working polystyrene model and black and white photograph unsigned. Undated. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 023 Students on the walkway gallery of the completed residence hall. Black and white photograph by TASR/Magda Borodáčová. Photo dated 13 April 1973. TASR archives in Bratislava. 024 025 Atrium residence halls in construction and in operation. Black and white photographs by TASR/Magda Borodáčová. Photos dated 13 April 1973 and 30 November 1977. TASR archives in Bratislava. 418 | 419 k seg 6 026 027 0 28 029 030 0 31 032 characterization The committee formulated critical suggestions to Švaniga and Černý's high-rise mono-block residential hall, and appreciated Dedeček's urban plan for the faculty area (designs for the low-rise atrium residences were still in process): “An integral aspect of the project design's high quality is the overarching principle of the mass distribution or layout of the building complex. Besides satisfying the individual faculties' and facilities' ­operational needs, such a layout actively and with a rare inventiveness utilizes the terrain's features. This all while completely allowing for prospective f­urther growth of the faculties or institutes without disturbing the firm backbone of the urban design conception.” For Švaniga and Černý's mono-­ block residence, the committee ­ recommended “... moving to such a concept that would better ­accommodate to the landscape environs...” (KOMISIA SSA 1965, p. 5) This text did not categorize the campus in terms of movement or style, merely holding to the characteristic of “new era”. The incomplete campus' first reviewer, the architect Iľja Skoček sr, likewise did not formulate any characterizations of movement or style. Formal-stylistic b2 In its 1965 written approval, the committee of the Association of Slovak Architects (ASA) [Zväz slovenských architektov (also known by the ­abbreviation SSA)] 15 noted the project satisfied “… all requirements of the new era, applied on an international scale for resolving university campuses”. In design and equipment, it was the most innovative university workplace in Slovakia. 6 two institutions functioning as general designer (­Stavoprojekt and IPO ŠS), and the activity of two different commissioning investors (the rectorates of Comenius University and the University of Technology), who after 1968 lost their independent voice as investors. And what is more, there was the action of several different construction contractors, all of them “... constantly ­demanding – naturally – they get building technology of the given period” (ZÁHORSKÝ 1982, p. 21) – or to be more precise, the technology actually available at the given time. A book publication by Tibor Zalčík and Matúš Dulla 16 gave the atrium residence its first characterization in terms of architectural movement or style – horizontalism – in 1982. Vladimír Dedeček himself, seventeen years before, had characterized the Mlynská dolina campus with → m cv He focused on the overall organization, and detailed solution for chemistry, biology and geology pavilions. He appreciated departing from the standard scheme of “1 faculty = 1 building” and noted that assigning pavilions by study disciplines and their grouping into school units facilitated an appropriate functional organization in the terrain, largely with regard to changes “… arising from a variety of unknown future needs”. (SKOČEK 1966, p. 189) He also raised the possibility of a more elaborated terrain solution for the university quadrangle and the architecture of its buildings. And he concluded that given continued “concentrated engagement”, the public could expect a completed work of high architectural quality. (SKOČEK 1966, p. 189) Marian Záhorský, who reviewed the residential hall area planned for 9,500 students, in 1982 wrote that although the atrium hall had ­ rticulation of the architectural form. After 1989 a the proposed term horizontalism gave way to new characterization in terms of movement or ­without such ­terminology / → pp. 788–789 /. Where in the 1970s and early 1980s the atrium residence halls were regarded as advantageous in innovation and style, in the late 1980s their continuous loggia specific arrangement and realization in construction came in for harsh criticism by the architects-historians Janka Krivošová and Elena Lukáčová: “The concept is on the one hand economical, being of a lower standard than [Belluš'] Mladá garda, but is on the other hand costly, having led to experiences that might have been expected given young people's psychology. Here we have several identical pavilion units, with no indication of passage into the central administration building – eighteen uncontrolled entrances, incapacitating the institution of residential discipline, resulting in problems with undesirables. What is more, they have arcades, enabling easy access to visitors with no verification, and waste-collection and rubbish container placement is likewise unresolved. Such architecture has no positive impact on young people's formative years, indeed it s­ ooner helps deform their character.” 17 The planned individualized pavilions and their specified ­allocation, which Dedeček foresaw would lead to “... every student having ‘his or her own key’ to their very first student lodging”,18 was never built. The ASA committee opinion 15 was developed based on opponent assessments by Martin Kusý, Eugen Kramár, Ján Steller, Vladimír Karfík and Štefan Svetko. ZALČÍK, Tibor – DULLA, Matúš. 16 Slovenská architektúra 1976–1980. Bratislava : Veda, 1982, p. 65. KRIVOŠOVÁ, Janka – LUKÁČOVÁ, 17 Elena. Premeny súčasnej architektúry Slovenska. Bratislava : Alfa, 1990, pp. 116–118. Interview with Vladimír Dedeček, 18 in Bratislava, summer of 2014. 026 033 Beginnings of campus construction. Black and white photograph by Gejza Podhorský. Photo dated 1970. Archive of Comenius its operational issues, “... its unconventional solution represents a boon in architectural production” (ZÁHORSKÝ 1982, p. 21) ; at the same time, he pointed out that the differing stages of building the residence halls designed and/or supervised by various architects meant “... three solutions have come out, mutually distinct in their basic construct and dissonant approaches to composition, mass, disposition, operation and expressive conception...”. The construction process, twenty years in the making, interfered with Dedeček's concept in ­multiple ways: the work of several architects, the this term in his “Architect's Statement”. In its conclusion he summarized in individual point form: “The end of the architecture as monument, and its subjugation to environment and operation. The buildings' horizontalism as an architectural expression that makes possible a terraced structure”. (DEDEČEK 1965, p. 5) Horizontalism in the architect's opinion describes how the university pavilion “... gives value to the terrain in the third dimension, transcribing its relief into the silhouette of the university city.” (DEDEČEK 1965, p. 2) So the horizontal-ism should not be confused with ­horizontal University in Bratislava, inv. č. 5/11, č. foto 10. 027 032 Construction of pavilions, Comenius University Natural Sciences Faculty. Black and white photographs by TASR/Štefan Petráš and unsigned. Photos dated 2 January 1970, 23 October 1980 and undated. TASR archives in Bratislava, Archive of Comenius University in Bratislava, inv. č. 5/11, č. foto 15 and Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 033 Completed area of mathematics and physics pavilions, with Nicolaus Copernicus sculpture (1973) by Tibor Bártfay in foreground. Black and white photograph unsigned. Undated. Archive of Comenius University in Bratislava, inv. č. 10/1, č. foto 3. 420 | 421 k seg 6 034 However, in the context of recent discus­ sions on monumentality, it is worth noting Dedeček's cited effort at ending the architecture of the monument. Apart from being reminiscent of and echoing Loos' ideas and Teige's victory of the instrument over the monument in modern architecture, this foreshadows the international discourse of Aldo van Eyck and Team 10 ­architects on “breaking through monuments”.19 Krajský projektový ústav Bratislava and unsigned, undated Relationship of form-stylistic and sign-symbolic characteristics Thus far, formal-stylistic characterizations have predominated over sign-symbolic. / Inv. č. A 1623/1-8 /. V [Bratislava-Mlynská dolina University Campus.] Black and white photographs of competition project model with comb-shaped layout of high-rise slab buildings of faculties, high-rise rectorate on plinth and aula maxima with faceted roof, and separate meandering triple-pavilion with pyramid and documentation archived at the sng atrium layout, and four high-rise slab buildings of residence halls on plinths [Dedeček – Adamec]. Model unsigned and undated, Project documentation/project model photographs signed by M. Ľ. Mihalovič a unsigned, undated / Inv. č. A 1623/9–18, 29, 30 /. Sign-symbolic b2 In part because the campus was never completed, and the academic forum never built, its symbolic meanings are inhibited. Still, it is necessary to rethink the symbolic meaning of the research atrium (experimental laboratory, exposition of natural science collections, rooftop garden) as a voluntary seclusion for researchers, and the symbolic meaning of the continuous loggia/terrace on the Natural Science pavilions as analogous to “streets and squares in the air”, i.e. semi-public community spaces. The British architects Alison and Peter Smithson regarded such in late modern residential buildings, in London and in third-world colonies, as a spatial manifestation of the new humanism. Ia Bratislava Mlynská dolina University Campus. VI [Bratislava-Mlynská dolina University Campus.] Black and Construction of Faculties and Student Residences. Project for white photographs of wooden working model of comb-shaped building permit. Signed by Dedeček, dated 31 December 1965 variant for university faculties with differentiated lecture rooms, (building site [situation]; scale 1:2,000). Ozalid reproduction high-rise rectorate and prismatic aula maxima. Model and on paper / Inv. č. A 1622/1/. photographs unsigned, undated / Inv. č. A 1623/19-23422 /. II Bratislava-Mlynská dolina University Campus. [Project]. VII [Bratislava-Mlynská dolina University Campus.] Signed by Dedeček, dated 15 May 1966 (urban plan, scale Black and white photographs of wooden (?) working model 1:2,000). Ozalid reproduction on paper / Inv. č. A 1622/2, 3 /. featuring meandering layout of pavilions, high-rise rectorate III II. Residential Hall Building Bratislava-Mlynská dolina. [Project]. Signed by Dedeček, dated September 1968 and prismatic aula maxima. Model and photographs unsigned, undated / Inv. č. A 1623/24-26/. (coordination drawing, scale 1:500). Ozalid reproduction on VIII paper/ Inv. č. A 1624 /. Black and white photographs of presentation model, variant IV [VŠ. areál Bratislava-Mlynská dolina]. Black and white [Bratislava-Mlynská dolina University Campus.] featuring meander layout of pavilions, high-rise rectorate and photographs of project documentation. Unsigned, undated prismatic aula maxima located on on the university quadrangle. (plans for dean's office pavilion with library and aula; plans for Model and photograph unsigned, undated / Inv. č. A 1623/27/. sports pavilion; plans for pavilion with canteen and for physics IX pavilion, scale not given). Photographs signed by M. L. Mihalovič, white photograph of working model of atrium residence halls 6 [Bratislava-Mlynská dolina University Campus.] Black and 035 in white polystyrene. Model and photograph unsigned, undated XV / Inv. č. A 1623/28 /. Comenius Faculty of Arts.] Signed by Dedeček, dated 1967. X [Bratislava-Mlynská dolina University Campus.] [University Campus, Construction of Faculties for DEDEČEK, Vladimír. Vysokoškolské centrá. Projekt. Revue slovenskej architektúry, 14, 1972, 9, pp. 20–29. Report on technical solution, 1-3 typewritten pages. XVI with atrium residence halls in white polystyrene. Model ekonomické vyhodnotenie I. a II. stavby Vysokoškolských and photograph unsigned, undated / Inv. č. A 1623/45 /. internátov v Mlynskej doline v Bratislave. Rektorát Univerzity Architect's Statement. Projekt. Revue slovenskej architektúry, J. A. Komenského v Bratislave, Bratislava November 1980, 17, 1975, 7–8, p. 19. XI [Bratislava-Mlynská dolina University Campus.] Black and white photograph of working model of university rectorate [unsigned, multiple authors.] Záverečné technicko- BEŇUŠKA, Milan. Vysokoškolské mestečko rastie. Black and white photograph of working model of campus Projekt. Revue slovenskej architektúry, 17, 1975, 7–8, pp. 18–19. DEDEČEK, Vladimír. [Vysokoškolské mestečko rastie.] 52 numbered pages and attachments. building with aula in white polystyrene, glass mosaic and paper. J.K. [KALUŠ, Jaroslav (?).] Investičná výstavba univerzity Komenského. Naša univerzita, 23, 2, pp. 7–8. Model and photograph unsigned, undated / Inv. č. A 1623/46 /. XII [Bratislava-Mlynská dolina University Campus.] DEDEČEK, Vladimír. Východiská a činitele architektonickej Literature Black and white photograph of presentation model of campus in white laminate. Model and photograph unsigned, undated / Inv. č. A 1623/44 /. XIII [Bratislava-Mlynská dolina University Campus.] 26, 1984, 2, pp. 22–24. MARCINKA, Marián. Poznámky k výstavbe vysokých škôl. Projekt. Časopis Sväzu slovenských architektov, 5, 1964, 1, pp. 9–12. architektov k urbanistickej koncepcii osídlenia Karlovej Vsi Sciences Faculty pavilions and atrium residence halls. a areálu vysokých škôl a internátov v Mlynskej doline v Bratislave. Unsigned, undated / Inv. č. A 1623/31-36, 43 /. In: attachment to letter from Miloš Chorvát, SSA secretary, [Bratislava-Mlynská dolina University Campus.] Black and white photographs of completed Natural Sciences Faculty pavilions. Unsigned, undated / Inv. č. A 1623/37-42 /. MRÁZEK, Pavol – SKALA, Jozef (eds.). Stavoprojekt, Bratislava 1949 – 1989. Bratislava : Alfa, unpaginated. [Komisia SSA/ASA committee.] Závery Sväzu slovenských Black and white photographs of partially complete Natural XIV tvorby troch desaťročí. Projekt. Revue slovenskej architektúry, to Vladimír Dedeček, pp. 4–5. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection 19 EYCK, Aldo van. On breaking through monuments (interview 1974). In: Collected Articles and Other Writings 1947–1998. Vincent Ligtelijn – Francis Strauven (eds.) Amsterdam : Sun Publishers, 2006, pp. 512–513. of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG, unprocessed. SKOČEK, Iľja. Výstavba areálu vysokých škôl v Bratislave (review). Architektura ČSSR, 25, 3, pp. 185–190. [unsigned. DEDEČEK, Vladimír.] I. Cieľ typizačnej práce Textual part of project 034 Dated 1977. Reproduction on paper. Vladimír Dedeček’s archive. sekcia, vzorová fakulta/ (documentation for typification Ib University Campus, Construction of Faculties for Comenius research study). [Stavoprojekt: Bratislava]. Typewritten, University campus and residence halls. Bratislava-Mlynská dolina. Urban plan. Wider context. Signed by Kančev, Tesák (Studio 1, IPO ŠS). v oblasti projekcie vysokých škôl. /Základná skladobná jednotka, 035 View of university campus under construction. Faculty of Arts. B – Overall building solution. Project for building undated (after 1970), 36 pages. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Black and white photograph by Rajmund Müller. permit. Signed by Dedeček, dated 1965, 9 pages typewritten. Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. Photo undated. Courtesy of Rajmund Müller – heirs. 422 | 423 k seg 7 Multi-purpose exhibition facility in Bratislava-Petržalka, later Incheba, currently Incheba Expo Bratislava b2 Possible interpretations 7 Location 7 Viedenská cesta č. 3–7, 851 01 Bratislava-Petržalka Study Vladimír Dedeček, 1973–1974 1 Study of building complex (Stage I, II and III) and Study for Stage I, 1st structure 1975 2 Stage I Project for building permission Structural engineering project Interior architecture project Execution project, Stage I (Sectors A, B, C, D) 1977 3 Jozef Bučko, Ľudovít Farkaš, Miloš Hartl, Karol Mesík, Jozef Poštulka (ferro-concrete construction) and Otokar Pečený (steel construction and mechanic equipment of sports hall) Jaroslav Nemec Vladimír Dedeček (chief architect), Rudolf Fresser (supervising architect of Stage I, 1st structure), Alojz Tekula (supervising architect of Stage I, 2nd structure) and Studio IV/04 for university and cultural construction 1st structure (client institution: Park of culture and relaxation Bratislava), 1979 4 Architect's dating: Viacúčelové 1 Sector A Sector B _ Building A 1/3, utilities centre _ Building B 2/2, connecting exhibition pavilion _ Buildings B 2/1 and B 3, interconnected exhibition pavilions (redesign of congress hall, with extendable stepped floor and acoustic ceiling, 1990 5) _ Buildings B 4/1 and B 4/2, outdoor exhibition area výstavné zariadenie v Petržalke 1975-v realizácii, Športová hala v Bratislave – VVZ 1987- , Ubytovňa FMZO – 500 lôžok Petržalka 1983-v realizácii. In: Životopis z 26. novembra 1987. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. Dating verified based on the published text DEDEČEK, Vladimír: Viacúčelové výstavné zariadenie v bratislavskej Petržalke. Projekt. Revue slovenskej architektúry, 23, 1981, 4, p. 28; and the unpublished 2nd structure (client institutions of these and subsequent structures: Incheba and Podnik zahraničného obchodu) text: [Odbor posudzovania dokumentácie a expertízy, Riaditeľstvo výstavby hl. mesta SSR Bratislavy.]. Posudzovací protokol číslo 227/PÚ – 332/75 projektovej úlohy 1. Stavby I. etapy viacúčelového výstavného zariadenia, Bratislava-Petržalka. Bratislava, July 1976, p. 4. Dated based on the unpublished 2 text: Viacúčelový výstavný areál Bratislava-Petržalka. I., II. a III. etapa Sector A _ Building A 1/1, high-rise administrative building _ Building A 1/2, production-assembly centre (study of building complex). Signed by Dedeček, Fresser, Nemec. Dated August 1975. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. Dated based on project 3 documentation: Viacúčelové výstavné zariadenie v Bratislave-Petržalke. 3rd structure (unbuilt) 1. etapa, 2. stavba: výrobno-prevádzková budova Incheba (project for building permission). Signed by Dedeček, Fresser, Nemec. Dated April Sector A _ Building A 2/1, sale of commemorative objects _ Building A 2/2, smaller conference centre by A 1/1 Sector B _ Building B 1/2, conference and action centre (information, post office, security) _ Building B 1/1, exhibition pavilion Sector C _ Building C 1, conference hall and canteen for congress/sports hall _ Building C 2, dining facilities (restaurant for 600 and café for 200) _ Building C 3, entry areas from Danube and Sad Janka Kráľa Sector E (client institution: Park of culture and relaxation Bratislava) _ Building E1, exterior entertainment area _ Building E2, amusement park _ Building E3, children's entertainment Sector F _ Amphitheatre building (auditorium capacity approx. 20,000) 1977. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. Dated based on project 4 documentation: Viacúčelové výstavné zariadenie Bratislava-Petržalka. 1. etapa. 1. stavba. Výstavný pavilón B2/1 – Building 3 (project). Signed by Dedeček, Fresser. Dated December 1979. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. Dated based on project 5 documentation: Viacúčelový výstavný areál v Bratislave-Petržalke. 1. etapa – 1. stavba: pavilóny B2/1, B3 – sekcie B a D: viacúčelová hala (execution project). Signed by Dedeček, Fresser, dated March and April 1990. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 001 Design for exhibition facility. Presentation model in laminate, and black and white photograph, unsigned. Undated. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 424 | 425 k seg 7 Stage II Localization and volumetric study Sector A 1983 6 _ Building A2/2 – FMZO housing – hotel type: project for building permission 1986–1987 7 (unbuilt) Study and urban plan for Sectors B and D Sector B 1986 8 _ Building B1/1, international exhibition pavilion (reassigned from Stage I): project for planning permission 1986–1987,9 1989 and 1990 10 _ Building B 1/2, international exhibition pavilion (reassigned from Stage I): project for planning permission 1986,11 1989 and 1990 12 _ Building B 1/3, sales and exhibition building, alternative 1 _ Building B 1/4, sales and exhibition building, alternative 2 _ Building B1/5, interconnecting exhibition pavilion – action centre 2 Sector D (unbuilt) _ Building D1, passenger port _ Building D2, restaurant for 500 _ Building D3/1, covered parking _ Building D3/2, exterior exhibition space at ground level _ Building D4, storage VZ (VZ1–4), VZ5–VZ9: workshops, waste container storage, canopy, garages _ Building D5, DC1-DC5 (transport centre): garages, transport storage, workshops, temporary transport parking, offices _ Building D6 – storage MTZ (MTZ1–MTZ4): covered storage hall, covered storage, canopy, storage of flammables and oil Stage IiI (unbuilt) Sector C 1st Project for building permission and study for Multi-purpose sports hall, 1st and 2nd variant Urban study 1988 14 2nd Project for building permission for Multi-purpose sports hall (reclassified to culture and sporting hall) Study for sports hall 1st and 2nd variant 1988 16 Project for planning permission 1990 17 1985 13 1988–1989 15 _ Building C1, gym _ Building C2, multi-sports hall _ Building C3, entry areas from Danube _ Building C4, practice ice rink 40 × 65 m General contractor Stavoprojekt Bratislava Investor Stage I ( 1st structure): Investing, an investment/construction organization of the National Committee of the City of Bratislava, Slovak Socialist Republic (2nd structure): Federal Ministry of Foreign Trade, represented by the concern Podnik zahraničného obchodu – Incheba Construction Priemstav, národný podnik, Bratislava, Stage I, 1st structure 1978–1984 18 (proposed) Building volume (total built space) 2,260,506 m3 (Stage I-III total, per calculation requirements); 643,126 m3 (Stage I Buildings A-E total, per calculation requirements, including high-rise A2: 118,030 m3 and congress-sporting hall C1: 54,120 m3) Expenses 455 mil. 563 thou. Kčs (Stage I, 1st structure, per calculation requirements) b2 7 6 Building type  xhibition space, predominantly for cultural, sporting E and administrative/commercial purposes. In addition to ground transportation, the complex was designed to be linked to river transport after construction of a small passenger port for a water bus (unbuilt). For the exhibition area, the architect planned a locally operated straddle-beam “Urba” monorail (an alternative of the Swedish Alweg; unbuilt). In its final stage, the project also included a heliport (unbuilt). Dated based on project documentation: Viacúčelové výstavné zariadenie Bratislava-Petržalka. Ubytovňa FMZO (comparative construction and volumetric study). Signed by Dedeček, dated June 1983. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 7 Dated based on project documentation: Viacúčelové výstavné zariadenie Bratislava-Petržalka. Ubytovňa FMZO – hotelový typ (project for building permission). Signed by Dedeček, Fresser, dated March 1986. [Execution project dated 1987]. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 8 Dated based on project documentation: Viacúčelový výstavný areál v Bratislave-Petržalke. 2. etapa (study of Sectors B and D and overall urban plan). Signed by Dedeček, Fresser, dated March 1986. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 9 Dated based on project documentation: Viacúčelové výstavné zariadenie v BratislavePetržalke. Pavilón vystavovateľov v Sectore B a D – 2. etapa VVZ (study). Signed by Dedeček, Fresser, dated 1986 and March 1987. [Execution project dated 1989]. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 10 Dated based on project documentation: Viacúčelové výstavné zariadenie v Bratislave-Petržalke. Výstavné pavilóny B1/1 a B1/2 v Sectore B – II. etapa VVZ BratislavaPetržalka (project). Signed by Dedeček, Fresser, dated 1986, 1989, January 1990. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 11 Dated based on project documentation: Viacúčelové výstavné zariadenie v Bratislave-Petržalke. Výstavné pavilóny B1/1 a B1/2 v Sectore B – II. etapa VVZ BratislavaPetržalka (project and study). Signed by Dedeček, Fresser, dated 1986. [Execution project dated 1989, 1990]. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 12 Dated based on project documentation: Viacúčelový výstavný areál v Bratislave-Petržalke. 1. etapa – 1. stavba: pavilóny B2/1, B3 – sekcie B a D: viacúčelová hala (project). /Cited in Note 5.  / 13 Viacúčelové výstavné zariadenie v Bratislave-Petržalke. Viacúčelová športová hala (project), signed by Dedeček, Fresser, dated 1985 and 1987. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 14 Viacúčelový výstavný areál v Bratislave-Petržalke (study of broader context). Report dated November 1988. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 15 Viacúčelová športová hala v areáli VVZ Bratislava-Petržalka (project), signed by Dedeček, Fresser, dated November 1988. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 16 Viacúčelové výstavné zariadenie Bratislava-Petržalka. Viacúčelová športová hala 1. a 2. stavba (overall project design), signed by Dedeček, Fresser, dated March 1988 and 1988. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 17 Dated based on project documentation: Viacúčelové výstavné zariadenie v Bratislave-Petržalke. Viacúčelová športová hala (study). Signed by Dedeček, Fresser, dated November 1985. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 18 [Odbor 33.] Posudzovací protokol číslo 330/ÚP-332/77 úvodného projektu 1. stavby, I. etapy Viacúčelového výstavného zariadenia, Bratislava-Petržalka. Bratislava: Riaditeľstvo výstavby hlavného mesta SSR Bratislavy, August 1977, p. 2. The beginning of construction is stated based in part on the unpublished text [unsigned.] Areál Viacúčelového výstavného zariadenia v BratislavePetržalke, undated [post 1978], one typewritten page. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 426 | 427 k seg 7 002 b2 003 7 005 004 public spaces and open-air exhibition ­spaces on the terrace. Northward, toward the river and the Castle hill, the tallness of the pavilions decreases, increasing in the opposite, southward direction toward the concrete panel housing estate. The highest feature of the middle area is the asymmetrically-placed administrative building to the west (Sector A). A pavilion-bridge structure connects it to the exhibition pavilions to the east (Sector A and B), affording views of the river and the city's historical centre: “The complex's entrance is the 'Incheba' administrative building, which is ­located in the form of a bridge on four vertical supports, thus forming the entry gate to the area. The 45 m spans will be resolved using steel [Vierendeel] trusses according to the design by the Vítkovice concern project team led by dr. Ing. Kozák. The entry sector will include the high-rise hotel, with its steel floors suspended on two ferro-concrete supporting towers [unbuilt].” (DEDEČEK undated, p. 3)  19 The compositional focal point of the middle area was localized at the crossing of the site's main entry and operational axes (a 10 m high monumental sculpture designed by the architect Dušan Kuzma, Homage to the Danube River [Pocta Dunaju]; concrete and steel, made 1990). Because the surrounding buildings toward the ­ river and the housing estate went unbuilt, this focal point marked/signed by the sculpture is now at the northwest edge of the completed part of the ­exhibition facility. Like the unbuilt structures of the north frontal-entering zone near the river, the buildings of the site's southern and southwestern enclosing zone nearby the Danube River branch were never DEDEČEK, Vladimír. Viacúčelový 19 výstavný areál v Bratislave. Undated typewritten document intended for publication with photograph captions, 5 pages. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 002 005 Multi-purpose exhibition facility Bratislava-Petržalka. Urban plan. Signed by Dedeček. Undated. Scale 1:2,000. Reproduction on paper. This extensive site comprised 3 zones of exhibition buildings spreading along the main flow of the river and its arms. The areas were to have been built in a time-frame of three stages; of these, even the first was not built in full (some pavilions, including the sports hall and dormitory/ hotel, were postponed to the second, ultimately unbuilt stage). The third stage too, to construct sporting facilities (a multi-sports area), went unbuilt. Thus of the overall design, only selected 002 001 building(s) and its/their spatial relationships buildings of the first stage, in the middle zone of the planned area, were built. The architect conceptually divided the middle zone into 4 sectors (A, B, C, D) by their “functional interrelation”. (­DEDEČEK undated, p. 1) A terrace for pedestrians and transport connects the built structures of sectors A and B. The individual exhibition pavilions are placed on the periphery of concentric compositions of building groups; in pairs and triads (Sectors A and B) they run parallel to the river, i.e. east-to-west. This design forms a zigzag margin, and within the groups creates zigzag In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 003 Study of broader context – Multi-purpose exhibition facility Bratislava-Petržalka. Signed by Dedeček. Dated 1988. Scale 1:2,000. Reproduction on paper. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 004 005 The river bank before the start of construction, with the exhibition facility area drawn in silhouette of the Petržalka housing estate. Black and white photographs unsigned. Undated. Drawing on photograph unsigned. Undated. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 428 | 429 k seg 7 007 0 0 2, 0 0 5 006 built. Neither the southern exhibition pavilions nor the southwestern multi-sports centre are built: “... flexibly interconnected, and utilizable in an alternative function as an indoor sports facility for all types of sport, a stadium, heliport, commercial auction centre and an Interhotel de luxe and department store.” (DEDEČEK 1981, p. 33–34) That is why the above-ground terrace designed as town square, with its main southern entry from the housing estate to the exhibition site, was not built. It was this town square, located on the terrace over the east-west highway, that was to connect the southern zone with that to the north by the river. building site (situation) b2 The group of buildings built, together with the open-air public spaces on the exhibition pavilions terrace, is situated on the Petržalka bank of the 008 Danube between the Viedenská cesta road and the approach road (D1) to the Most SNP bridge. To the northwest it is diagonally bordered by Viedenská cesta, which the exhibition site was meant to integrate as a breakwater as well as outdoor exhibition space running to the monumental entry staircase by the Danube. To the west, this site overlooks the old Dunajský háj, the meadow forests of the ­Danube's 7 Rybárske and Pečnianske arms at the Austrian border; the exhibition area's port and amphitheatre were to have extended to this point, up to the limit of the water sources zone. The amphitheatre design was a reaction to the slope of terrain, to be supplemented by natural backfill from the building site. To the south the area terminates with the former Makarenkova ulica (now ­Einsteinova, Route E571), over and ­warehouse spaces, 179 apartment flats and a pre-school for 30 children, along with a “Protective f­acility of the Interior Ministry of the Slovak Socialist Republic” (i.e. a prison). These buildings were not registered for conservation, no agricultural land was taken away; only surface peat layers were removed. To the question published by Professor Š ­ tefan Šlachta: “Why did [Vladimír Dedeček] want to demolish the rowing clubs by E. Belluš and I. ­Konrad as part of the Incheba project?” 20 the architect answered: “Why would I want to demolish them? It's a pity he never asked me such an excellent question when we spoke. I suppose he knew they lay outside the planned exhibition site.” [V.D.] Neither of these rowing clubs appears in any available documentation of the three phases of Dedeček's exhibition area project for the vacant Danube bank near the Most SNP bridge (Viedenská cesta 22 and 24). They likewise do not appear in the physical models of 1972 competition project designs by architects ­Vincent Trnkus or Milan Beňuška, who likewise did not plan to build on their land. Does this mean that Trnkus' and Beňuška's projects would also have razed these functionalist buildings from the 1930s? Or was it that these architects, like Dedeček, never had to concern themselves with them? By contrast, the Liberec architects of SIAL, Václav Králíček and Mirko Baum, situated the small passenger port with water bus station near the clubs; their competition design placed this station so as to connect the port with the exhibition area by a bridge over the Petržalka riverfront promenade. Therefore, their model shows the functionalist rowing clubs; they detailed these buildings' surroundings as the new port access was located in their vicinity. (→ BODICKÝ 1972, p. 39) 009 ŠLACHTA, Štefan. 20 Nefalšujeme dejiny? Fórum architektúry, 18, 2009, 12, p. 15. 006 Vladimír Dedeček holding a working polystyrene model of the exhibition facility. Black and white photograph unsigned. Undated. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 007 010 which an a ­ bove-ground square was planned, to connect the exhibition area with the Petržalka-­ Dvory housing estate. This southern part is built over razed buildings of the old Petržalka village, including the small farmyards of Kapitula (the ­Kapitulský dvor yard). During the Second World War (in 1944), some of these buildings were ­exploited for use as a Petržalka (Engerau) ­concentration camp, with six sub-camps. The exhibition area is bordered on the east by the Panónska cesta road (D1), a continuation of the Most SNP bridge. Additional road structures, parking areas and connecting buildings were to have been built under the bridge and extending to the Sad Janka Kráľa park (unbuilt). On the site where the selected buildings were actually built, a number of buildings were razed, including manufacturing, administrative Incheba – VVA 1 – Petržalka. Project for planning permit. Signed by Dedeček. Undated. Building site (Situation). Scale 1:2,000. Reproduction on paper. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. Multi-purpose exhibition facility Bratislava-Petržalka. Study of building complex – stages I and II. Signed by Dedeček. Undated. Scale 1:500. Ozalid reproduction on paper. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 008 Plan of p ±0 storey (ground floor). 009 Plan of p +1 storey. 01 0 Plan of p +2 storey. 430 | 431 003 , 007 002 k seg 7 Vladimír Dedeček, who did not participate in this competition, later designed the passenger port further to the west. To the east of the Most SNP bridge, he placed the culture and sporting hall (C1) on the other side of the Viedenská cesta road and toward the housing estate, not on the side toward the river. The question therefore arises: what would possibly have led him, because of terrain modification or urban and ­architectural design, to propose demolishing the rowing clubs? If there exists any Dedeček project or text that would have led Professor Šlachta to pose this question, it will have to be found and made ­public, so there can be public discussion about it. Dedeček's urban layout of north-south and east-west axis crossing (cardo-decumanus), appearing in his projects from the university in ­Nitra to this exhibition site in Petržalka, underwent several compositional transformations; still, the role of the ordering cross (marked in Nitra by the aula maxima and in Petržalka with ­Kuzma's sculpture) was a constant, with particular differences in each case: “This [exhibit space] design draws on two main ideas. The first is creation of a pedestrian circulation plane for visitors, some 5.5 m above ground level. This plane makes it possible to separate the main operations from transport and technical operations. The pedestrian plane connects to bridges over the highway, enabling an uninterrupted path to the Petržalka residential zone. The design takes into consideration hydrological and geological research anticipating a critical rise of the Danube's waters to above the current ground level. The second main idea is [writing added above the text: a central composition] of direct lining up of pavilions, intended to ­facilitate smooth interconnection, and thus multi­purpose occupancy. This part of the area is composed of 4 sectors. Sector A features the ­20-storey Incheba administrative building, workshop hall for production and assembly, and 650-room hotel with restaurant. Sector B consists of the exhibit spaces, at the core of which is a ­multi-purpose hall for 2,550 spectators. For Sector C, a fully-equipped multi-­purpose sports hall for 15,550 spectators was planned. Sector 0 11 0 12 b2 013 7 D was to include a passenger port, and both self- and full-service restaurants, with seating for a total of 1,200. Exhibit spaces were to be at the centre. Completing the 1st part of the building complex... would offer 42,000 m2 of covered exhibit space, along with a major cultural and social sporting facility directly linked to the centre of Slovakia's capital. However, we still don't know the fate the current pragmatic occupants have in mind for it.” (DEDEČEK, undated manuscript [post 1986], pp. 2–3) Thus via imaginary crossing of the circulation and operational axes of the exhibition area on the Petržalka side of the Danube, the architect set out asymmetric quadrants in two levels, such that the groups and clusters of pavilions rising above the terrace level (the office building and unbuilt hotel and sports hall) and the pavilions built under the terrace at ground level provided a new vertical distribution or layout of the circulation and action, and new vista horizons: they would have given the residents and visitors of Bratislava – this growing metropolis on the Danube – new and alternative stratification of the riverfront's urban and archi­ tectural terrain: an entry staircase, a terrace, ramps, service staircases and a raised observation bridge-pavilion, or even panoramic views from a planned monorail, which the architect dislocated from the Danube bank ground and raised above Petržalka's ground-level highway: “Views from the terrace and the staircase pointed toward Bratislava Castle and the Cathedral of Saint Martin”.[V.D.] 21 The unbuilt monumental entry staircase was intended to connect the exhibition area terrace with Petržalka's new passenger port (to be dug into the riverbank near where the administrative high-rise was built), continuing to the Petržalka riverfront promenade from the Sad Janka Kráľa park (formerly Tyršove sady, and earlier ­Petržalské sady, also Sady za Dunajom or Sady na nive – A ­ upark). The frontal staircase was thus also a long and narrow “riverfront amphi­ theatre”, providing views of the river, life on both banks with its river rhythm specific to the urban riverscape dynamic. In this sense, the monumentalization of views from the entry “staircaseamphitheatre” was both a new intra-architec­ tural monument-symbol and extra-architectural monument-form. Additionally, Stage I provided yet another key societal and cultural space: the overbridging of Petržalka's highway (E157), which cut off this territory east to west. The spanning of this with a pedestrian level established a new architectural horizon: a square in the air (an “airborne public forum”), intended to join the exhibition area to the north with the populated housing estate of Petržalka-Dvory. This raised town square was yet another symbolic and formal monument in the sense of homage to the promenade or pedestrian connection of the riverfront with the concrete panel housing estate beyond the highway. In other words, the zones of the exhibition area were designed from the urban and architectural perspective as: A. new north-south pedestrian connections between the concrete panel blocks of Petržalka and the riverfront, B. a new east-west observation terrace, and C. ultimately the establishment of an autonomous Petržalka “city of culture and sport”, with its own squares localized on the second bank of the river. 014 Interview with Vladimír Dedeček, 21 in Bratislava, summer of 2014. 01 1 Multi-purpose exhibition facility Bratislava-Petržalka I. etapa 1. stavba. Výstavný pavilón B2/1, objekt č. 3, sekcia „A“. Project. Signed by Dedeček, Fresser. Dated 1979. Plan of ±0 storey. Scale 1:50. Black and white photograph unsigned. Undated. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 01 2 Multi-purpose exhibition facility Bratislava-Petržalka I. etapa 1. stavba. Výstavný pavilón B3, objekt č. 4, sekcia „E“. Project. Signed by Dedeček, Fresser, Čellár. Dated 1979. Plan of ±0 storey. Scale 1:50. Black and white photograph unsigned. Undated. In: Fond Vladimír 015 Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 01 3 Multi-purpose exhibition facility Bratislava-Petržalka I. etapa 1. stavba. Výstavný pavilón B3, objekt č. 4. Project. Signed by Dedeček, Fresser, Čellár. Dated 1979. Section G-G‘. Scale 1:50. Black and white photograph unsigned. Undated. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 01 4 01 6 Multi-purpose exhibition facility Bratislava-Petržalka. Study of building complex. I. II. etapa. Signed by Dedeček. Undated. Sections r1, r2 and r4. Scale 1:500. Reproduction and ozalid reproduction on paper. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 016 432 | 433 k seg 7 007– 010 programmatic and spatial solution b2 The modern tradition of holding autumn (September) international Danube trade fairs at the Bratislava river port – which lasted from 1921 to 1942 – were successfully renewed under provisional conditions only in 1963. The temporary utilization of exhibition facilities at the Park of culture and relaxation (PKO, recently demolished) satisfied neither the spatial nor technical requirements for international trade shows, geared mainly for members and observers of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (RVHP / SEV 22 / COMECON,23 1949–1991). This led the Slovak Socialist Republic (SSR) government to decide on 23 December 1970 on a resolution to provide for construction of a new Multi-purpose exhibition ­facility in Bratislava-Petržalka. The SSR Ministry of Industry assigned the development of the exhibition area's requirements to the Slovchémia concern. The trade fairs were primarily to be focused on industrial products, especially chemical, petrochemical and associated branches. Additionally, there were to be trade exhibitions for food-processing and consumer industries, particularly of processing and consumer cooperatives. According to the opinion of the individual relevant ministries, and the commentary of the Federal committee for exhibiting, the international chemical industry shows (INCHEBA, every year in June) were to share the space with other national and international exhibitions: FLÓRA Bratislava for floral production (with symposia for greenery and the orchid symposium, in May of even-numbered years); the spring and fall SUPERMARKET commercial expo, with close-out sales (­ annually); commercial biennials or triennials (in unspecified seasons); the BRATISLAVSKÉ TRHY exhibition of agricultural cooperatives (every year in November); for furniture (unspecified seasons, annually); CONECO for architecture and the environment (in May, annually); SANHYGA for sanitary, hygiene and catering facilities (in October, every second year); INTERŠPORT for travel, tourism, sporting and camping goods and services (in September, every second year); for costume jewellery (unspecified seasons, every third year) and glass and porcelain (in off years in between triennials). Additionally, the site was to host DANUBE SURFACE expos for composition and anti-corrosive coating (unspecified seasons, every second year) and an exhibition for forest and water protection, paradoxically combined with exhibitions for hunting ­trophies (in May, annually). (KORYTÁR – TALÁN et al. 1974, pp. 8–10) 24 In total, the anticipated run times of annual exhibitions came to 121 days per year. In between these events, the area was to serve as the political, cultural-sporting and social facility Incheba and PKO, for the residents of the federal republic's capital city and its surroundings. The international trading organization Podnik zahraničného obchodu in Bratislava was to be the office building's year-round occupier. Based on these preliminary formulations, in 1972 the Association of Slovak Architects announced an urban and architectural competition, for the area “between the Kapitulský les forest and the SNP bridge... In respect to the specified area of the exhibition complex, it was necessary to firstly pay attention to the symbiosis between the creative arrangement of pavilions and the environment, and secondly to the relationship between the exhibition complex and the Danube, the city, and the green mass of the Kapitulský les. In addition to the area’s composition and the natural features, it was necessary to respect the possible water sources, the proximity of the future centre of Petržalka and other influencing factors, such as transportation connections to the city, the differentiation of transportation, etc.” (BODICKÝ 1972, p. 39) From the brief report on this competition in the architectural press titled “Synthesis or Compromise? [Syntéza alebo kompromis?]” besides the cited information it is now clear that unidentified jury members – “despite the very good level of the competition” – did not award a first prize, because none of the designs “... came close to an optimal solution in the sense that it could be utilized as a graphic documentation basis for the development of future [stages of architectural] documentation. That is why a first prize was not even granted.” (BODICKÝ 1972, p. 39) The competition jury recommended that further variants of studies be developed on the basis of the highest-evaluated designs. These further studies were to draw on the results of the competition, and “... employ some of the themes in the best-evaluated designs”. This related to the aforementioned competition entries by the urban planner Vincent Trnkus of the architecture faculty of the University of Technology in Bratislava (upper second prize), the Czech Machinist architects Václav Králíček and Mirek Baum of SIAL in Liberec (lower second prize), and a team of the urban planners of Milan Beňuška (lower third prize). The jury regarded Králíček and Baum's project, of a colony of cell-like pavilions, influenced by the Dutch Structuralists and Japanese Metabolists (and by Louis Kahn), to be “... original, specific, and unfortunately overly Technicist” – and lacking in respect for the city's d ­ ominant 7 ­features. It seems the jury missed t­ aking into consideration the differences between Technicist, ­Machinist and ­Metabolist. The ways technique and technology is reconsidered in the archi­ tecture of the Japanese Metabolists and SIAL in Liberec refer, among other things, to the self-­ organization of life process esand not just to technology per se. Moreover, the Czech ­Machinists (SIAL from Liberec), in contrast to the Japanese Metabolists, did not take such a critical reconsideration of the ongoing endurance (or return) of predefined functions of architecture; this meant some of them were later to incline to Czech ­Neofunctionalism (in the 1980s and 1990s). Vincent Trnkus' concentrated exhibition complex proposal interested the jury in part because of the viewing terrace facing the city's skyline. However, the jury criticized the inappropriate incorporation of the area into the “differentiated environment” of the riverscape. (BODICKÝ 1972, p. 39) In part because of the aforementioned conclusions by the jury, the position of the SSR M ­ inistry of Construction on the competition's results was negative: the building complex's ­relationship to the city's river banks was not resolved, nor was its precise localization: “... all the winning designs took up the P ­ ečenské rameno ­water source area.” (DEDEČEK 1981, p. 28) A study for the Petržalka master plan by the architects Jozef Chovanec and Stanislav Talaš of Bratislava's Stavo­projekt placed the exhibition area site between the Most SNP bridge and the southeastern border of the Pečenské rameno water sources; half the territory comprised the space of the ­Rybárske and Pečnianske arms of the river, which would only be available for construction after the Danube's flood control barrier was built. The SSR Ministry of Construction approved their solution, and commissioned Vladimír Dedeček and Stavoprojekt's IV/04 studio for an alternative study for the exhibition building complex. Considering the study's parameters, the architect worked on his project from late in 1973, and in the following year on a study for the whole building complex. (DEDEČEK 1981, p. 28) Before construction of the Gabčíkovo-Nagymaros Dams, the subterranean water table to the south and east of the Viedenská cesta road fluctuated with the Danube water levels; for this reason the architect based the design on the thousand-year flood water level (134.5–135.5 m above sea level). In Dedeček's project, the Viedenská cesta was to remain not as a mere road structure, but after modifications as part of a suitable flood-control barrier, through which the new infrastructure of Petržalka's housing complexes already ran. For these reasons of both hydrology and construction, the architect planned situating the exhibition area's pedestrian and in part also automobile routes on a walking and transport terrace on “pilotis” 6–5.5 m above the highway ground level, i.e. about 2–1.5 m above Viedenská 017 018 cesta road. He placed exposition pavilions and outdoor uncovered exhibition space on the terrace and above it. Underneath, at ground level, he situated the area's open public gathering spaces, transportation lines, parking, production, and storage, and part of the technical infrastructure. During the discussion about announcing the urban and architectural competition (1972), and afterwards when Dedeček's project proposals were under consideration (from 1973), the most discussed view of the new exhibition complex was that from Bratislava Castle toward Petržalka and conversely: an image of integrating the new building complex into the skyline of the ­Castle and the modernized riverfront. These northsouth prospects crucially influenced Dedeček's localization of Incheba's 20-storey ­administrative high-rise. It led him to shift the high-rise slab building asymmetrically to the west, as a “frame for the Castle hill”, turning the thinnest side ­facade toward the towers of the Old Town (with a vertical, glassed caesura at the building’s central corridor with vista). Above the terrace, only low-rise terraced exhibition pavilions protruded. The bridging pavilion (with a horizontal glassed caesura of horizontal strip window) connecting the administrative building and the exhibition halls was another framing, this time horizontal, of the preferred perspective views. The maximum extent of 3 zones of Dede­ ček's exhibition site assumed the reconditioning and extension of international flood control barriers, the draining of mud terrain layers and stabilizing of the alluvial fan and expansion to the southwest: “It must be noted that to build Stage II of the Multi-purpose exhibition facility it is not important merely to secure minimums in terms of initiated construction and finances, but above all the resolution of land planning... Sector D (for storage and transportation) has at the investor's request been planned to be within the Rybárske river arm, between the existing Viedenská cesta road and the Danube, and construction of a new protective Petržalka-Wolfstahl dam is what enables building in this space... The territory of Sector D is crossed by a water-condiut system from the ­ Pečenský Совет Экономической 22 Взаимопомощи / Sovet ekonomicheskoy vzaimopomoshchi. 019 The Council for Mutual 23 Economic Assistance. 24 KORYTÁR – TALÁN. Investičný zámer Viacúčelového výstavného zariadenia Bratislava-Petržalka. Vybrané stavby. Bratislava : Odbor riadenia a expertízy. Riaditeľstvo výstavby hlavného mesta SSR Bratislavy, February 1974, 25 pages and appendices. 01 7 020 Multi-purpose exhibition facility Bratislava-Petržalka. Study of structures. Stages I and II. Signed by Dedeček. Undated. Elevations P1 – P3 and P4 [front, with entry staircase from river bank promenade]. Scale 1:500. Reproduction and ozalid reproduction on paper. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 020 434 | 435 k seg 7 021 les f­orest. The urban plan, which was subject to the state's experts and has been approved by the ­National Committee Council, takes this into consideration. So it ought not to be a problem to get approval for the planned construction from authorities for water management and hygiene. Sector D extends 35 m into the Pečenský les forest's lower green belt. This problem will be resolved in tandem with the water-conduit system. The area of Viedenská cesta road is [the Slovak-Austrian] border territory. It will be necessary to consult the appropriation of this land with the office for state border protection, but there will be a change in the border territory protection limits anyway, because of construction of the protective flood barrier and transportation system: highways D1 and D61, including the road bridge over the Lafranconi area.” (DEDEČEK, undated typewritten document, pp. 10–11) The exhibition site's total area was to cover around 66.6 hectares (666,000 m2). Part of Stage I, and all of Stages II and III, of this challenging and extensive work of urban planning went unbuilt because of both the economic pressures of the state central plan and the focused resistance of nature conservation groups; in other words both a gradual change in 022 b2 023 7 021– 025 → m cv environmental opinion and the shift in overall socio-political attitudes in Czechoslovakia and Central Europe in the 1980s and 1990s / → p. 765 /. By comparison, the areas of the completed middle zone is about 13.5 hectares (135,000 m2). Its main components are the utilities building (A1/3), the central stepped-floor covered multi-purpose hall (6,850 m2 of exhibition space), and 3 smaller halls (1665 + 1665 + 2990 m2 of exhibition space) in the adjacent B2/1 and B3 pavilions. There is also the high-rise 20-storey administrative building of Incheba (A1/1). The aforementioned covered “bridge-building” (B2/2) connects all these; during trade fairs it served as exhibition pavilion and a so-called “action centre” (spaces for exhibition hostesses, information, post, and a police station). Another building that was built is the terrace structure itself, on “pilotis”, designed as a “pedestrian zone” (DEDEČEK, undated, p. 1) and open-air exhibition space. Part of the pedestrian terrace was designed for automobile transport with parking (600 automobiles). Under the terrace is situated a pavilion for a production and assembly workshop (A1/2). To various degrees, the exhibition buildings later underwent modifications and extensions. In the 1990s the open-air exhibition spaces were roofed (project by the architect Karol Kállay). The unbuilt 25 culture and sporting hall (C1) drew on Dedeček’s concept of the Palace of ­Culture and Sports in Ostrava-Vítkovice “... although there is no way to describe it as a repetition of the design”. Two alternatives were designed for the Petržalka building. The second featured an open space central hall. The entry and respírium spaces were integrated with cloakrooms and hygiene facilities on the ground floor of the entry level. The auditorium circulation spaces were connected to the entry level only via vertical circulation cores (“towers”). “This alternative anticipates an austere hall, in an exposed ferro-concrete both outdoors and indoors, with no acoustic panels; the exposed steel construction, with no dropped ceilings, and all the bases [floor surfacing?] of the main spaces are of 'Matador' plastic rubber. It is typical of sporting halls we know from several projects built in the West (­Basel, Düsseldorf, Essen and so on).” 26 The ­sporting area's basic dimensions were 95 × 45 m. The play area's treatment arose from two limiting requirements: for ice hockey and light athletics. Other sports (figure skating, ball games, boxing, judo and wrestling, weight lifting, gymnastics...) could be played by adjusting the surface: after removing the barriers between the telescopic columns the ice surface would have been smoothed, to be covered with wooden floor boards “... of Scandinavian type (design by Stavo­ projekt) with a thermal protection layer – floor ­installation was possible in less than 3 hours”.27 Even after the design was altered, the hall with the ice surface (and storable surfaces for light athletics/cultural events/trade shows) was to have moveable auditorium areas and rolling bleachers and adjustable play areas with accessories (12,100 seats, 2,000 standing ­places, 6,887.5 m2 of play area, 75.0 m2 of water surface...). The main function was to have been events both sporting (195 days per year) and cultural (115 days, with 30 days for servicing). The accompanying practice and training hall would have been open year round. Part of the indoor ­facilities were high and low barriers, mechanized sport and safety nets, a collapsible construction for light athletics, a gymnastic platform, and a multi-purpose platform 28. At the urban planning scale, the exhibition area's spatial concept offered a “trade fair/­ exhibit town” both above and below the terrace. The planning commission 25 in Prague, Štátna plánovacia komisia, proposed on 29 July 1989 to reschedule its construction from the 8th to the 9th five-year plan. Viacúčelové výstavné zariadenie 26 Bratislava-Petržalka. Viacúčelová športová hala. Project for planning permit. Author’s Report, dated 1988, signed by Vladimír Dedeček, I. Kramár, P. Fischer, G. Tupý, Z. Horváth, F. Písečný, O. Pečený. Chapters: overall design, overall technical report, technology chapter, construction chapter, operations chapter; Multi-purpose exhibition facility in Bratislava-Petržalka. Multi-purpose sports hall. Project for planning permit. Addendum 1. Utilization possibilities for cultural and social events. Technical report, dated 1988 and 1989, signed by Pečený. Here cited: 2. variant. Zásady celkového technického riešenia stavby. Typewritten document, p. 2. Ibid., p. 3. 27 024 021 Sports hall – Multi-purpose exhibition facility Bratislava-Petržalka. Situation – variant without section “D”. Project for planning permit. Signed by Dedeček. Dated 1990. Scale 1:200. Ozalid reproduction on paper. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 022 023 Two variants of interior, multi-purpose sports hall. Perspectives. Both signed by Nemec. First dated ’85, second ’87. Black and white photograph by Igor Bačík. Photo undated. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 024 025 Two alternative proposals for multi-purpose sports hall. Perspectives. Signed by Nemec. Both dated ’85. Black and white photographs by Igor Bačík and unsigned. Undated. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG and Archive of Jaroslav Nemec. 025 436 | 437 k seg 7 It included public forums that were partially openair exhibit surfaces (a horizontal counterpart to the gallery squares and unbuilt terrace gardens – the SNG outdoor sculpture gallery – on the opposite bank of the Danube River). At the architectural scale, the exhibition area offered either concentric pavilion groups or tree-type pavilion structures, both individual pavilions and groups, and connecting bridges: i.e. spatially differentiated yet continuous clusters or bunches in a grid modular field, oriented according to an imaginary compositional cardo-­decumanus crossing. Zigzag pavilion groups were not localized in module grids just according to pre-defined functions (the clusters are poly- or multi-functional). They were also laid out such that alternative and variable interconnections were possible through their zigzag shifts and close, dense connections, forming pertinent relationships between public space and the exhibition program. Thus exhibiting is considered an event – a process of the display becoming public and the public becoming part of displays – in both a discrete place and time and its continuation: a sequence of events in a continuum of time and space, but above all a process of perpetually adapting show spaces, for a variety of running, concluding and upcoming occasions. The exhibition area is thus not a mere frame and matrix for events, it is itself an event in ongoing re-distribution of relationships and distances among the commercial, cultural, sporting and political programs in the public ­forum. → m cv module, construction, volume, surfacing b2 0 26 0 27 The module grid (M = 500) for the exhibition pavilions was determined based on the requested dimension of each exhibition stand: 500 × 1,000 cm. Such a module, and its multiples (500 × 500, 500 × 750, 500 × 1,000 and 1,000 × 1,000 cm), came from the Czechoslovak state norms then valid, and from the parameters of European international exhibition sites the architect visited while designing this exhibition complex / → p. 737 /. The construction of the pavilions built is based on ferro-concrete structure combined with a steel-construction roof (in the document approving building permission for the Stage I, 1st structure, the Directorate for construction stated requirements to “... – limit the use of steel construction / – limit the import of machinery and technology from KŠ [kapitalistických štátov = capitalist states]...” DEDEČEK 1981, p. 6 ). The quotas for steel utilization in the Czechoslovak construction industry in the given investment period was 0 28 7 The base structure is of ferro-concrete strip, pad and raft foundations. On the subsoil gravel horizon the foundation is pilotis. The high-rise hotel building (of 20 aboveground storeys) was designed in monolithic ­ferro-concrete structure, with a 12 m construction module grid and column span of 14 × 2.5 m. The curtain wall 1.5 m from the axis was designed in ceramic panelling. Construction of the unbuilt culture and sporting hall C1 was to combine a steel and a monolithic ferro-concrete structure (steel tribunes, truss girders with span of 100 m and height of 7–9 m) using IS NOE formwork and Combi 20/70 systems. The light-weight athletics flooring was to be storable, and assembled on the plane suspended above the ice surface.29 The architect and engineers recommended a cable roof construction, or other appropriate structure requiring no steel elements. Only for subsidiary construction was the use of typified elements planned. The ­architects designed a foundation on pilotis.30 029 characterization Formal-stylistic The daily press, and some texts by the architect both published and unpublished, gave information on the partially built exhibition complex. There was no review published of the whole project, nor another ­reason the construction of some of the site's pavilions and facilities was postponed. The exhibition pavilion B1/1 was (temporarily) built as an unroofed, paved exhibition area (of about 7,000 m2). The linked pavilions B2/1 and B3 were intended as stepped-floor exhibition space with alternative congress hall seating (with spectator capacity of 500 seats). This was why the mechanisms planned for the hall included electric-controlled, storable, telescopically retractable stands (with projection facilities, and spaces for commentators, interpreters, and television production; however none of this was built: like the acoustic ceiling, the building of these was postponed to a later stage). In Stage II, the provisionally-functional pavilions were to receive the interior equipment as planned. The covered ­pavilions B1/2, C1 and C2 were to be added. Buildings B 4/1 and B 4/2 were designed as outdoor exhibition space on ferro-concrete podium. Building B 4/Ib transformed the old Viedenská cesta road into an open-air exhibition 0 2 6 – 0 30 030 area, complete with utilities (uncovered exhibition spaces on a terrace 5.5 m above ground level were to amount to about 34,185 m2, and on ground level about 11,955 m2). In the steel-construction roof of the pavilions built are pre-stressed, prefabricated roof panels of TT-type. For the monolithic concrete construction, IS NOE formwork with Combi 20 and 70 systems was used. The building complex ferro-concrete construction is designed as exposed concrete with outdoor surface stamped patterns designed and manufactured in the former Czechoslovakia and appropriate interior coatings, facings and atypical interior furnishings (Jaroslav Nemec) in light-coloured wood and white-and-red or whiteand-black flooring or wall/ceiling panelling as well as furnishings combining atypical elements with mass-produced furniture (additionally, the interiors were to feature unrealized ­monumental artworks by the sculptors Ján Kulich, Ivan ­Vychlopen and Milan Lukáč). Technická správa viacúčelového 28 využitia športovej plochy z.č. 88763/155. Typewritten document, 4 pages, signed by Pečený. Ibid., pp. 3-4. 026 Interior of entrance hall of exhibition facility's administrative building. Perspective. Signed by Nemec. Dated ’88. Black and white photograph unsigned. Undated. Archive of Jaroslav Nemec. 027 Interior design of entrance hall. Variant. Perspective. Signed by Nemec. Dated ’87. Black and white photograph unsigned. Undated. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 028 Proposed artwork for entrance hall of exhibition facility's administrative building. Black and white photograph unsigned. Undated. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 029 Interior of conference hall. Perspective. Signed by Nemec. Dated ’87. Black and white photograph unsigned. Undated. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 030 Interior of restaurant. Perspective. Signed by Nemec. Dated ’87. Black and white photograph unsigned. Undated. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 438 | 439 k seg 7 of the built part, at the time it came about. The ­architectural style was not characterized. As with the SNG complex, the architect and the press gave this large-scale building complex project the adjective ample. (DEDEČEK, undated p. 5; and ­ŠAJDÍKOVÁ 1982, p. 5) In 1977, the architect Stanislav Talaš included photos of Dedeček's model of all 3 zones of the exhibition complex, together with competition models and later models for Petržalka's residential complex, in his text “Finally a step over the river. The right-bank part of a whole city's centre” [“Konečne krok cez rieku. Pravobrežná časť celomestského centra”].(TALAŠ 1977, pp. 22–25) He pointed to the problematic circumstances in which the Petržalka “centre” projects were designed: “'The city', both literally and figuratively, treated Petržalka as a place that could endure anything we couldn't manage on the left bank. Until recently this resulted in an unbelievable mass of household waste (and unfortunately of industrial waste as well, which nature itself didn't know what to do with); and now we have run through it high-speed automobile transportation from eastern and western reaches of the city. Only the Sad Janka Kráľa park keeps these odds and ends of Bratislava's development from running right to the riverbank... The extensive and continuous greenspaces have become significantly reduced, because of our unusually hasty and thorough drive to satisfy international agreements on flood plain management. Gone too is the hope that the new Chorvátske rameno arm might become an impressive visual element; now it is little different from any typical outlying canal around Komárno.” To these shortcomings he brought in the issue of connecting the riverbank with Petržalka: “Except for the renovated Gallery, not a single entrance of the architecturally significant buildings faces the riverbank. Apart from a small space by Reduta [concert hall], we have no fitting access to the Danube... As if that weren't enough, we add the parapet panel barriers with very modest open sections and the scale of activity along the river, completing a sorry picture of the relationship so far between the city and the Danube.” (TALAŠ 1977, p. 25) In this context, Talaš presented Dedeček's SNG building complex and Incheba exhibition area as examples of facilities for the whole city and beyond, creating a new connection between the two banks and their adjacent settlements, making Bratislava a new metropolis, no longer symbolically bounded by the river just because the historical Old Town had once ended there. Sign-symbolic As with all his large-scale projects, the architect here implied a symbolic impact, in this case in relation between the exhibition area's dominant feature and the riverbank. As noted, he considered the high-rise Incheba building with its connecting pavilion-bridge as “the entry gate to the area”. The emphasis he placed on vistas, too, ­indicate that he regarded these vertical and horizontal buildings with terraces as the city's amphi­ theatre and observation terrace/tower. Relationship of form-stylistic and sign-symbolic characteristics The literature of the period offers no formulation. documentation archived at the sng Project documentation/project model and Textual part of project 31 Literature BODICKÝ, Vladimír[?]. Syntéza alebo kompromis? Projekt. Revue slovenskej architektúry, 14, 1972, 3, pp. 38–39. TALAŠ, Stanislav. Konečne krok cez rieku. Pravobrežná časť celomestského centra. Projekt. Revue slovenskej architektúry, 19, 1977, 4, pp. 22–25. DEDEČEK, Vladimír. Nedatované. Analýza riešenia a využitia VVZ Petržalka, I. a II. etapa z pohľadu generálneho projektanta, Typewritten, 16 pages. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Zbierka architektúry, úžitkového umenia a dizajnu SNG. DEDEČEK, Vladimír. Viacúčelový výstavný areál v Bratislave. Nedatované [1981]. Typewritten, 5 pages. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Zbierka architektúry, úžitkového umenia a dizajnu SNG.Text publikovaný ako DEDEČEK, Vladimír. Viacúčelové výstavné zariadenie v bratislavskej Petržalke. Projekt. Revue slovenskej architektúry, 23, 1981, 4, pp. 28–35. ŠAJDÍKOVÁ, Saskia. Veľkorysý projekt. Práca, 31. marca 1982, p. 5. DEDEČEK, Vladimír. Východiská a činitele architektonickej tvorby troch desaťročí. Projekt. Revue slovenskej architektúry, 26, 1984, 2, pp. 22–24. b2 7 031 /Cited in Note 26, p. 2. / 29 30 Ibid., p. 6 and 12. 31 All the exhibition facility's project and photographic documentation included documents numbered Inv. č. A 1645 – A 1674/1-107, i.e. 29 items and hundreds of pieces, which are not itemized here for reasons of space. For detailed information see Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 031 View of exhibition complex from Petržalka, against the skyline featuring Bratislava Castle, the Kamzík transmitter tower, the Cathedral tower and the Most SNP bridge. Perspective. Signed by Nemec. Dated ’86. Black and white photograph unsigned. Undated. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 440 | 441 k seg 8 University of Forestry and Wood Technology in Zvolen, currently Technical University in Zvolen b2 Possible interpretations 8 Location 8 Ulica T. G. Masaryka 2117/24, 960 53 Zvolen Štúdia Vladimír Dedeček, 1968–1969 1 Projektová úloha Vladimír Dedeček, 1970 2 Structural engineering project Karol Mesík, M.[?] Augustin, Mária Rothová Interior architecture project Jaroslav Nemec Execution project Vladimír Dedeček (chief architect), Alojz Tekula (supervising architect) and Studio X/IV for school and cultural buildings, 1975–1978 3 Stage I _ First building of University of Forestry and Wood Technology, with rectorate, deans' offices and external lecture rooms _ Aula maxima _ State Scientific Library _ Garages and service buildings _ Bus station Stage Ii _ Second building of faculties, deans' offices and external lecture rooms _ Residence halls and residences of school staff _ Sports hall, stadium and other physical education facilities _ New Museum of Forestry and Wood Technology pavilions General contractor Investor Construction Stavoprojekt Bratislava  inistry of Education of the Slovak Socialist Republic, M as represented by the rectorate of the University of Forestry and Wood Technology in Zvolen Pozemné stavby, n. p., Banská Bystrica, 1977–1984 4 _ First building of Faculties of Forestry and Wood Technology, with rectorate, deans' offices and external lecture rooms _ Aula maxima _ Part of garages and service buildings Building volume (total built space) Expenses 130 mil. 210 thou. Kčs Building type 120.777 m3  niversity campus, with expansions U and new university building Dated based on the publication: 1 ŠIMKO, Ivan. Vysoká škola lesnícka a drevárska vo Zvolene (review). Projekt. Revue slovenskej architektúry, 27, 1985, 6, p. 28. Dated based on project 2 documentation: Vysoká škola lesnícka a drevárska. C7 Stavebná časť. Project for planning permit, signed by Dedeček, dated 1970, pp. 1-4. In: File 64-70, 1334/70, State District Archives Zvolen. Dated based on the publication: 3 ŠIMKO, Ivan. Vysoká škola lesnícka a drevárska vo Zvolene (review). /Cited in Note 1, p. 28. / Architect's dating 1976–1984. 4 In: Životopis z 26. novembra 1987. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. Verified based on: ŠIMKO, Ivan. Vysoká škola lesnícka a drevárska vo Zvolene (review). /Cited in Note 1, p. 28./ 001  Project for university campus. Presentation model in white laminate unsigned. Undated. Black and white photograph by Stavoprojekt. Photo undated. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 442 | 443 k seg 8 002 b2 8 building site (situation) → k seg 5 The left-bank area was to have comprised mid-rise residence pavilions, a sports hall, stadium, and a second high-rise faculty building (all unbuilt; the Bariny residence hall was later built according a different project, and the incomplete ferro-concrete construction of the Lanice university sport centre based on a different ­project has since 2002 remained unfinished). To the park's east – near the Zvolen ­castle – the city commissioned Dedeček to design as well the new Museum of Forestry and Wood Technology building (museum founded 1942, new building not built). To the north of campus the Bratislava-based State Company for Administration ­ Rationalization and Computing [Podnik­ racionalizácie riadenia a výpočtovej techniky]­ commissioned from him a branch office (designed and built 1975–1981, after 1989 the re-cladded building become the seat of the newly-established Faculty of Ecology and Environmental Sciences of the Technical University in Zvolen). Part of the design of the academic city is the road circuit on the perimeter joining the town of Zvolen to the westward highway. ­ Garages planned toward the north and west were built in reduced scope. The faculties building and p ­ avilions in the park are ­mostly accessed on foot and other non-motorized ­ transportation. → k seg 5 / → k seg 6 This academic campus was to have spread to both sides of a canal and include a bridge. The body of water would have divided it into the right bank, mainly for faculties (to the southeast), and the left bank, mostly for residences and sports (to the southwest). Only part of the faculty area was built, in the park on the right bank. At the centre of this right bank area, a highrise faceted mono-block was built, for the technical faculties and the rectorate, with a low-rise octagonal prismatic aula maxima pavilion at the focal point of the high-rise faceted building. The latter is in fact a diagonal addition to the low-rise workshops and laboratories to the north (Jozef Lacko, designed 1955–1958, construction up to 1971). The faculty and rectorate building is added to these workshops/laboratories through the cumulation of lecture pavilions of three varying heights. The agglomeration of Lacko's older and Dedeček's newer buildings was to have been supplemented by a low-rise library pavilion in the form of an inverted pyramid (unbuilt). From here a partly-recessed triangular bus station (later built according to a different project) was to have been accessible. The unbuilt bus station would have led, at the park's level, over a suspended terrace and bridge into the foreground area of the faculties and aula in the park. 002 001 –002 building(s) and its/their spatial relationships The university buildings are situated in southwestern Zvolen, under the Pustý hrad (formerly Starý Zvolen) castle hill, to the north of the confluence of the meandering Slatina River and the River Hron. The Hron canal arm or flume (of a hydroelectric power station) runs southwest through the alluvium between the Hron and the Slatina, dividing the land between into two unequal riverside areas. It was here that the architect located the two new areas of the campus; he considered the Hron canal as the new orientating and compositional axis of the coming academic city. He planned further landscaping to integrate the canal's bed into the university's park (currently the canal's surroundings are overgrown). Deciding to take the artificial stream as an orientating element, the architect expanded the university pavilion area to the west, away from Zvolen's castle and park, and tying it to the River Hron's main natural trough. So as in Nitra / → p. 388 /, in Zvolen the campus was designed on the other side of the river – though here only in one portion. Where in Nitra and Bratislava / → p. 390 / → p. 409 / the university campuses include botanical garden or an urbanized valley, and are encircled by a road, in Zvolen water flows around and articulates the campus. This unique landscape situation facilitates autonomy from and connection to the town. The buildings 003 004 programmatic and spatial solution in this setting provide striking views of the town and surroundings – northeast to Zvolen's Roman Catholic and Lutheran church towers, east to the castle, southwest to the Pustý hrad castle hill and south to the railway along the Slatina valley. The terrain between the Bariny residence hall to the west and the railway to the south is one of the town's most significant archaeological sites (Krivá púť, currently in the Zvolen-Balkán quarter, with its excavations of an Early Bronze Age settlement and urnified cemetery belonging to Lusatian Urnfield Culture, 1200–1100 BC – 800–650 BC. In the architect's words, the campus' programmatic and visual focal points of the faceted line of the high-rise mono-block with the aula While in the southern part of town 5 003 004 From the school's founding in 1952, its first rector – the forestry economist Prof. Dr. techn. Ing. JUDr. František Papánek – prepared its preliminary localization and construction program. He based the school in the Coburg-Koháry palace in the town of Sv. Anton. Later the City of Zvolen gave the school the building of the former “reform gymnazium” [Československé reformné reálne gymnázium] on the north end of the site, which had been selected as a new campus area in the zoning plan. In 1955 the first rector was forced to resign, and Prof. Ing. Víťazoslav Sprock (rector, 1955–1962) continued with preparations. Jozef Lacko, an architect originally from Zvolen, designed the localization plan (1956–1958 6 ) and first, provisional buildings. To the north, in the maxima in the middle were designed to be a contemporary “dignified counterpart” to the historical Zvolen castle, “such that both dominant features – historical and modern – created a balance full of tension from mutual confrontation”. The architect formed the period’s counterpoints to the historical layers of the area and the castle. The castle itself represents layers of the Gothic tower, refurbished in 1370– 1382 as a hunting lodge in the style of an Italian urban castello, with layers of a 1548 refurbishment that changed it to a fortified ­Renaissance residence with a Late Baroque ­chapel (1784). The newer layers include a refurbishment based on the research and design by a team led by the conservationist Karol Chudomelka of ­Stavo­projekt in Bratislava (1955–1968); this renewed the building in its Renaissance and Baroque phases, for a Medieval art permanent ­ ­exposition of ­the Slovak National Gallery. In Dedeček's Zvolen campus project, he responded to the interaction of a variety of buildings historical and contemporary, including the nearby archaeological research findings from the Early and Middle Bronze Age. So he saw the aforementioned “tension from mutual confrontation” in terms of the current and modern architecture and the historical strata of buildings and archaeological excavations of early settlements, and underground and over-ground layers of graves and memorials,5 both near the campus and in the centre of Zvolen. The tension came from the town's older vis-à-vis younger urban and architectural strata (with inspiration from the early builders of the town and Zvolen castle, and later from modern architects Stockar-Bernkopf, Belluš, Lacko, Chrobák...). at the Krivá púť area archaeological excavations are partly under family houses, the Jewish cemetery and the bus station structures; the northern part is under the former town cemetery (1906–1967) with graves removed from one of the parks near the castle. In 1998 the Jewish cemetery was reconstructed, and is now a National Cultural Heritage Site. In 2006 a Memorial to the Victims of the Roma Holocaust by Jaroslava and Ján Šicko was unveiled. In 2006–2007 near the cemetery, the municipality, university and Israeli Chamber of Commerce created the small Park of Generous Souls, dedicated to all Slovakia's citizens who helped protect the Jewish population during the Second World War. The Obelisk of Hope of layered glass plates was constructed on a design by the artist Palo Macho (2009); in it the Path of Humility monument was set into the ground by the architect Peter Abonyi (2010), with an installation by Peter Kalmus of stones in a glass sarcophagus on a railway track. Stepping on the last stair under the sarcophagus activates lights and a recording of the funerary Kel Maleh Rachamim. On the north side of town, in 1958 in the military Cemetery of Fallen Romanian Army Soldiers by the Zlatý potok housing estate, a Memorial of the Romanian Army (artist unknown) was unveiled; and in 1945 at the Cemetery of Fallen Russian Army Soldiers a memorial of the Russian army by the architect Mikuláš Buda was unveiled. Both these cemeteries are National Cultural Heritage Sites. → MATISKOVÁ, Elena. Pamätníky a pamätné tabule mesta Zvolen. Zvolen: Krajská knižnica Ľudovíta Štúra, 2013 and [GAJDOŠ, Milan (ed.)] Historické pamiatky okresu Zvolen. Zvolen: Vlastivedné múzeum, 1985. 002  University of Forestry and Wood Technology, Zvolen. [Urban plan]. Signed by Dedeček. Undated. Scale 1:1,000. Reproduction on paper. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 003  First seat of University of Forestry and Wood Technology – the former “reform gymnazium” Československé reformné reálne gymnázium, designed by the Czech architect Jaroslav František Stockar-Bernkopf. Post card issued in 1945. Fond Lesníckeho a drevárskeho múzea in Zvolen. 004  The university's first rector Prof. František Papánek with wife (at right) and guests in front of the “reform gymnasium” building entrance. Black and white photograph unsigned. Dated 1959 (?). Archive of František Papánek – heirs. 444 | 445 k seg 8 005 b2 organizácia Školských stavieb] planning institutions in Bratislava. The jury, assigned by the ­Association of Slovak Architects (ASA), was headed by the architect Dr. Martin Kusý. It selected Dedeček's design as the winner,14 and after 1969 Dedeček's Studio X for school and cultural buildings in Stavoprojekt set to work on the school's further phases. Dedeček respected Lacko's northsouth layout, expanding it to the east and west. Though the floor plans of Lacko's educational buildings here drew on his earlier functionalist administration and educational buildings, often characterized as rational (or scientific) functionalism (in contrast to poetic functionalism),15 in tectonics they are more of a response to Belluš' classicizing solutions for the Main Forestry Office (later Main State Forests and Properties Office, or Lesoprojekt – designed 1928, built 1931–1932 / → p. 454 /). In this sense, Lacko's first Zvolen campus buildings are “little homages” to Belluš, with whom he had briefly collaborated as a junior instructor at Faculty of Architecture at the Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava. Dedeček picked up on his teacher Belluš' buildings in a different kind of dialogue with him, i.e. a ­further differentiation of the school mono-block, and a new concept of the university city by and among ­rivers. 8 005 broader context of the “reform gymnazium”, he sited two buildings considered provisional: the Wood Technology Faculty and rectorate with common departments (designed and built 1955–1958) and a residence hall with cafeteria (designed 1957)7. The residence hall was built later on the basis of a project by Jozef Chrobák from Stavoprojekt in Zvolen (designed 1957,8 built 1957–1962 9 ). Another building of Lacko's, the Forestry Research Institute of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences was designed in 1959–1960 10 and built in 1968 11. Not until 1971 12–1972 13 were his workshop and laboratory buildings approved for occupation, built further to the south. In addition to educational and research institutions, Jozef Lacko also designed the train station to the south of this area (built 1959, currently Zvolen osobná stanica) by the Slatina River. Thus he and Jozef Chrobák delineated the whole north-south interval of the future university, and its connection to local and long-distance transportation. In the 1960s, while Prof. Ing. Pavol Višňovský served as rector (1965–1969), the Ministry of Education announced a competition for a new campus design. Because there was a requirement that the general designer had experience designing university buildings, the only participants were Stavoprojekt and IPO ŠS [Inžiniersko-projektová → k seg 9 006 Dedeček organically integrated Lacko's workshop and laboratory halls into a plan for a new academic city, but without continuing the school mono-blocks design. He built more on opportunities to refer to the character of stratified layers present in the campus area and the town, in a manner characteristic of this environment but never before so formulated. The first design, captured in a small picture of a working model, shows the distant view of two high-rise long bent buildings of different heights, with the low-rise cylinder of an aula maxima and a triangular bus station. The high-rise bent slabs of the faculty buildings faced their convex bend south, toward the Slatina river, i.e. also toward Lacko's railway station, and southwest toward the castle. The architect based the view axis of the building’s outer edge on these two focal points. The concave bend of the faculty buildings turned to town's silhouette toward the northwest, Lacko's workshops and the school's first seat in the First-Republic “reform gymnazium”. Thus the buildings’ inner edge focal points were Lacko's school buildings and the “reform gymnazium” (1921–1926, first students started in 1923) built in a late phase of ­Cubism: Rondocubism, i.e. in the official architectural style of the First Czechoslovak Republic (1918–1938). The “reform gymnazium” building was based on the design 16 by Ing. Dr. techn. Jaroslav František Stockar-Bernkopf,17 the older brother of the major Czech Cubist, Rondocubist and functionalist Rudolf Maria Jan Stockar (von ­Bernkopf), who designed the master plan for the Sliač spa and hotel Palace. Whether the elder Stockar's design for the Rondocubist gymnazium buildings consciously or unconsciously influenced Dedeček's bent/ curved university buildings (Dedeček even now regards Rondocubism as a “closed phase of the first Czecho­slovak Republic's legionnaire architecture” 18 ) far more probably the influence came from Le ­Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret's project for the Plan Obus “A” curvilinear housing complex (in Algeria, 1931–1932, unbuilt). In any case, Dedeček altered his early version of this project. When asked why, he now answers: “I figured out that the drawing compass was not an instrument for building production during communism.” 19 In the second variant, he reinterpreted a smooth curve of linear buildings in a set (variety) of discrete points of a faceted line. And he reversed the focal point: not toward the town's silhouette, but toward the castle. He layered the three faculty slabs differentiated into three-tract planar disposition or layout, similar to his design for the unbuilt high-rise rectorate 001 → k seg 5 006 0 0 7 – 0 10 ­pavilion at Comenius University in Mlynská dolina, B ­ ratislava. In that earlier design, however, he applied no curves or faceted lines, but rather a few straight line segments shifted ­diagonally. In Zvolen, he ultimately arrived – despite the change from a smooth curve to a trio of polygonal facets, or perhaps because of it – at the point he had sought: “The school catches the first glance of Zvolen's visitors just as they depart the station, and then the school's shape 'bounces' the glance toward the castle.” (DEDEČEK 1985, p. 30) Rounded walls would direct the visitor’s eye and movement in the park along the concave surface; faceted walls direct views and movement via 3 polygonal flat surfaces. The architects and historians Janka ­ Krivošová and Elena Lukáčová stated it aptly when they considered the faceted faculty building and aula in their haptic as well as optical metaphor: “[the faculty building] seeming to embrace” 20 the aula, castle, park... the whole town. And this faceted-line embrace of the town and the school site remains perpetually semi-open. Further buildings in this campus of Dede­ ček's are based on orthogonal lines, planes and volumes and their segments, and not on the differential geometry of ellipsoids, hyperboloids and similar rotated conic sections in space; the first time Dedeček had had to surrender this point was in Nitra, when he changed the aula maxima's ellipsoid diagonal localization and the laboratory pavilion's hyperboloid roof / → p. 396 /. In other words, the problem of socialist central planning and mass-produced construction lay not just in the drawing compass, differential geometry and construction of rotated/twisted cone sections in space, but also in a general unwillingness to build the asymmetrical equilibrium of a program, of human motion/activity and vision/sight, that went beyond both convention and innovation, to improvisation and undecidability. The final variant of the 6- to 9-storey mono­ block for the faculties (of Forestry 21 and Wood Technology 22 ) with the octagonal prism of the aula maxima was linked with a cluster of diagonal pavilions: the right prisms of two large lecture halls (150 seats), four medium (2 × 120 and 2 × 100 seats) and four small (4 × 60 seats). These are accessible from Lacko's large workshop halls and from the cells of the new faculties building's offices. ­Together they form a single differentiated cluster. Regardless of whether this architecture of sharp spatial folding and clustering of minutely scaled prismatic spaces originated exclusively intentionally, or under the pressure of Czechoslovakia's planning and construction conditions between the rebellious 1960s and “normalized” 1970s as well, it crystallized in a notable period version of “right, bevelled or faceted” prisms and various polyhedra. This facilitated relationships between the historical and period buildings by and between the rivers: an octagonal aula, squared lecture halls (prismatic) and library (inverted pyramid) and triangular bus station. The prismatic cell and hall spaces emerged from a layering and shifting: vertically (residence halls), horizontally (staff housing, sporting facilities), and diagonally (lecture halls). They call to mind, in addition to the tree-type and lattice-type structures of Aldo van Eyck buildings from 1969, efforts by many European architects to revisit monumentality as a relationship between the historical, current and future European society and regional cultures (here we might mention e.g. the Catalan architect Juan José Estellés – Ceba,23 both for his faceted Centro de recuperación y rehabilitación del Levante building and in connection with how he formulated relations between an organically dynamized architecture and monumentality). It could be that Zvolen also represents a transformation of the question the Czech modern architect Pavel Janák (1882–1956) posed on the relationship of the prism and the pyramid, i.e. between the ancient southern (polytheist) and the northern Christian (monotheist) cultures within European architecture. Yet Janák's pole of “French Gothic around 1300” is absent from Zvolen’s architecture; here we see rather a layer of a late Italianate Renaissance fortified and refurbished hunting lodge. What according to Dedeček could architecturally complement and modify it, in the Zvolen of the late 1960s? Not just nature alone. Not just the region's folk and historical architecture. In Dedeček's project this complement, paradoxically, came in the form of a library in a quadrilateral prism, with three storeys descending into an atrium (in fact more of an inverted ziggurat than a pyramid). The four-winged library building storeys descended/ projected somewhat like the southern bridging wing of the SNG in Bratislava. In other words, the inverted ziggurat in Zvolen would have been the SNG bridge times four. (“The pyramidal Zvolen library is like the SNG bridging turned around a central axis...” [M.M.] “But I've already told you that all my life I've been building a single project. Do you know why? It was improving/getting perfected.” [V.D.] 24 ) In contrast to the SNG bridging (exhibition space with top daylight), the library’s glassed walls faced an atrium. So another of the possible aforementioned tensions is that between the enclosed quadrilateral and triangular prismatic structures (or P ­ latonic Dated based on the publication: 6 –7 SOMORA, Branislav. Jozef Lacko. Architektonická tvorba 1941–1978. Projekt. Revue slovenskej architektúry, 49, 2007, 7, p. 85. Dated based on the publication: 8 CHROBÁK, Jozef. Internát Vysokej školy lesníckej a drevárskej vo Zvolene. Projekt. Časopis štátnych projektových ústavov pre výstavbu miest a dedín na Slovensku, 4, 1958, 4, pp. 6–7. Dated based on the publication: 9 PISOŇ, Štefan. 20 rokov Vysokej školy lesníckej a drevárskej vo Zvolene. Vlastivedný časopis, 21, 1972, 2, p. 62. Dated based on the publication: 10 SOMORA, Branislav. Jozef Lacko. Architektonická tvorba 1941–1978 / cited in Note 6 /. KONÔPKA, Jozef et al. Lesnícky 11 výskumný ústav Zvolen. 115. výročie organizovaného lesníckeho výskumu na Slovensku. História a súčasnosť. Zvolen : Národné lesnícke centrum – Lesnícky výskumný ústav Zvolen, 2013, p. 23. TUČEK, Ján. Dve významné jubileá 12 Technickej univerzity vo Zvolene. Lesnícky časopis, 54, 2008, 1, p. 91. Vladimír Dedeček wrote in 1972: 13 “At present the experimental workshops and laboratories building is being built.” In: DEDEČEK, Vladimír. Vysokoškolské centrá. Projekt. Revue slovenskej architektúry, 14, 1972, 9, p. 29. Interview with Vladimír Dedeček, 14 in Bratislava, summer of 2014. SOMORA, Branislav. Moje roky 15 s profesorom Lackom, alebo obdobie 1966–1978 a čosi viac. Projekt. Revue slovenskej architektúry, 41, 2007, 4, p. 28. Editors of a special periodical 16 edition. Pôvod a počiatky. Univerzitné noviny, 20, 2012, 6, p. 2. [Special edition celebrating the 60th anniversary of the founding of the University of Forestry and Wood Technology in Zvolen, currently Technical University in Zvolen, 205 years of university forestry studies in Slovakia, and 250 years of technical university education in Slovakia.] Ing. Dr. techn. Jaroslav František 17 Stockar-Bernkopf (also Stockar von Bernkopf, b. 1890 – d. 1977). He studied architecture and construction at the Prague polytechnic (1908–1913). After graduating he was named the the Principality of Liechtenstein's court architect in Vienna. He was called up to the Prague war ministry (1915), first in the planning department of the balloon corps and a year later as an independent clerk in the department for industrial construction control. After the war he was awarded a teaching position for forest civil engineering at the agriculture university in Brno. From 1919 he lived and worked in Brno as an authorized civil engineer for architecture and construction. He designed some 130–150 projects, most of which were built. Of his extensive expert publications, dictionaries still note his Dobrozdání o stavebních poruchách v poddolovaném území ostravsko-karvinské pánve. → SEKANINA, František (ed.). Album representantů všech oborů veřejného života československého. Prague : Umělecké nakladatelství J. Zeibrdlich, 1927, p. 171; SMALL-ŠEWČIK. Ottův slovník naučný nové doby. Dodatky k velikému Ottovu slovníku naučnému. Díl VI. 1. Prague : Jan Otto, 1940, p. 201; TOMAN, Prokop. Nový slovník československých výtvarných umělců II. (L-Ž). Prague : Tvar, 1950, p. 72. 18 – 19 Interview with Vladimír Dedeček, in Bratislava, summer of 2014. 20, 21, 22, 23, 24 005 →  First variant of faculty buildings design. Black and white photograph and paper working model unsigned (Vladimír Dedeček). Undated (1968?). In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 006  Second variant of faculty buildings design. Presentation model signed illegibly. Black and white photograph unsigned. Undated. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 446 | 447 01 0–01 1 , 01 5–01 6 k seg 8 solids: the castle with courtyard, the library pyramid with atrium), the semi-open embrace of the faceted faculties, and the geometry of the pavilions' tree-type structure and lattice-type structure. This tension directs the architecture to rise both upwards (in a Cubist ideal of pyramidal, vertical motion of the spirit overcoming the burden of matter) and also laterally and downwards: thus in various directions with many focal points. To some extent, it is what Pavel Janák calls “... a history facet/ break to a new, unaccustomed direction”,25 or more precisely to a new direction in polycentric order. This new campus is more than Dedeček's homage to the early Zvolen Castle's European masters, to the French master of the five points of modern architecture and his auto/criticism (Le Corbusier, Musée à croissance illimitée/­ Museum of Unlimited Growth, design 1939), or to the proponents of the First Czechoslovak ­Republic style of J. F. Stockar and his post-avantgarde critics Belluš, Lacko, Chrobák etc. Above all, it ­ reinterprets their concepts of organization/order of both architectural place and space. Dedeček supplements the corridor/atrium-based mono-block with clusters of pavilions and the high-rise building with layers oriented toward increasingly distant focal points (aula, castle, city, valley...). The relatively small scale Lecorbusian brise soleil from the Nitra and Bratislava universities are here developed and transformed to become relatively autonomus suspended rectilinear curtain wall structure – a raster/membrane we might with the Smithsons call a “mat building”. As in the Bratislava campus, the Zvolen campus was only partially built, and with fundamental changes to the project in production and material; and with a different design for the bus station, which encroached “motorway and railway ­structures” on the valuable territory of the university park to the south. (DEDEČEK 1985, p. 30) The connection to the greenery and the river canal was cut off. 007 008 0 0 7 –0 0 9 module, construction, volume, surfacing b2 The department and laboratory section has a module grid of 600 × 600 cm, the lecture halls of 60, 100, 120, 150 up to 900 × 900 cm, or 300 × 1700, 240 × 1500 and 240 × 1300 cm. The section of larger laboratories and workshops' module grids measure 600 × 900 and 600 × 1200 cm. The octagonal aula with 500 seats has a radius of 1800 cm (d = 3600 cm). Construction heights are 3600 cm. The faculty mono-block construction is a monolithic ferro-concrete steel frame (skeleton), concreted into a steel detachable ­formwork 009 8 010 ­ anufactured at the time in West Germany. Thanks m to the use of imported technology, the floor panels were also concrete (PZD panels), and not ceramic block monolithic floors as in N ­ itra, or prefabricated ceramic blocks as in B ­ ratislava-Mlynská ­dolina. The lecture hall roofs are of steel girders and ­ferro-concrete roof panels. Above-ground ­stories are of metric brick masonry, with partitions of 12.5 cm bricks. The staircases are ferro-concrete monolithic, faced in marble. “Close by the rail station and in 20 visual contact with the Zvolen Castle, as a counterpoint to it, the university campus sprung up. It is composed in a faceted mono-block of departments, seeming to embrace the aula's central octagon.” In: KRIVOŠOVÁ, Janka – LUKÁČOVÁ, Elena. Premeny súčasnej architektúry Slovenska. Bratislava : Alfa, 1990, pp. 156–157. The Faculty of Forestry comprised 21 departments for: a) Marxism-Leninism, b) forest botany and plant ecology, c) dendrology and grafting, d) forest cultivation, e) economic adaptation of forests, f) surveying and photogrammetry, g) soil science and geology, h) forestry mechanization, i) forest harvesting, j) forestry building, k) zoology and forest protection, and l) economics and forest management. There were also dean's offices and a forestry research institute. The Faculty of Wood Technology 22 comprised departments for: a) furnishing and operating woodworking plants, b) mechanical wood technology, c) mathematics and descriptive geometry, d) chemistry, e) woodworking machines and automation, f) chemical technology, h) wood products, i) wood, j) physics and electrotechnics, k) mechanics and heat technology, and l) international forestry and wood, and the rectorate, deans' offices and a woods research institute. Juan José Estellés Ceba (b. 1920 – 23 d. 2012, Valencia), Catalan Modernist. After working as a plasterer 011 and draughtsman, he completed architectural studies in Barcelona in 1948. In 1957 he, Roberto Soler and Pablo Navarro joined Grupo Parpalló, whose program was interdisciplinary and integration of arts. In the aftermath of Breuer's UNESCO headquarters, Estellés' review criticized its monumentality (calling it colossialism) but also praised its: “... organic development of its structure... the natural way in which its surfaces unfold... gives one the satisfaction of viewing an object that... will undoubtedly join the repertory of eternal architectonic forms”. Estellés' Centro de recuperación y rehabilitación del Levante building was a two-wing, faceted transformation and interpretation of Breuer's work. See JULIÁN, Emilio Gimenéz. The Culture of Survival. Juan José Estellés, architect. Accessible at: <http://www.via-arquitectura.net/01_prem/01p-138.htm> Interview with Vladimír Dedeček, 24 in Bratislava, summer of 2014. JANÁK, Pavel. Hranol a pyramida. 25 Umělecký měsíčník, 1, 1912, 6, p. 163. University of Forestry and Wood Technology in Zvolen. Project. Unsigned. Undated. Scale 1:200. Black and white photograph unsigned. Undated. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 007 Plan, subterranean level. 008 Plan, ground floor. 009 Plan of typical storey. 01 0 Section r1. 01 1 01 2 012 Construction of faculty building. Black and white photographs unsigned. Undated. Fond Lesníckeho a drevárskeho múzea vo Zvolene. 448 | 449 k seg 8 b2 0 13 0 14 featured a one-storey plinth similar to Nitra's). The Zvolen aula does not – in contrast to Nitra's ellipsoid – get indoor daylight. An acoustic drop ceiling is suspended in a frame construction from roof panels that diagonally “partly overlap like wood shingles” [V.D.]. Jaroslav Nemec interpreted these triangular roof panels as a drop ceiling with eight separate fields of triangular panels alternatively set in 20˚-angles inclining 8 → p seg 9 The skeleton is operationally (in layout) interpreted as a three-tract. At the facets where the slabs of high-rise faculty buildings overlap, they form an operational five-tract with vertical circulation cores, from which all departments are accessible. The faceting of the mono-block (with heights graded from the lowest front plane to the tallest rear plane) reacts to the walls of the octagonal aula maxima, but the faculty building's facets do not run parallel to the aula's walls (their walls do not contain the same angles). The space between the faculty building and aula is a zone that mutually differentiates them in a single unit. The external walls are in stucco; the roof is flat with heat insulation and bitumen roofing, and the aula roof is of protruding ferro-concrete segments covered in glass mosaic. The floor covering is Izoflor and PVC, and marble tiles in the entry hall. Most of the craft work was atypical, with the rest having “standard elaboration”.26 The main entry to the departmental and rectorate building is through an extensive hall [respírium], where Jaroslav Nemec covered the columns with a system of atypically designed showcases for permanent and short-term exhibits of individual departments. From this respírium/exhibition hall, the lecture pavilions, Lacko's workshop and laboratory halls, and the aula maxima are accessible. Workshop interiors are furnished in mass-produced furniture, with atypical interiors in the entry hall, rector's and deans' offices, classrooms, lecture halls, some labora­ tories and the aula maxima. Like the ­Comenius University pavilions in Bratislava, the Zvolen laboratories also featured innovatively-designed lab tables equipped with water, gas, electricity supplies and compressed air at each student's work station. In the work rooms, consoles were installed with utility lines on two walls and also joined to the parapet wall. This formed a U-shaped built-in work station around three of the walls; to the fourth were fixed built-in cabinets. Additionally these laboratories featured both atypical and mass-produced lab furniture (work tables, adjustable lab chairs and the like). Departments were equipped partly with standard mass produced and partly with atypical weighing rooms, drawing rooms and prep stations, photographic laboratories and storage (NEMEC 1970, pp. 3–4) Vladimír Dedeček sometimes referred to the aula maxima as an “octagonal dipyramid” (DEDEČEK 1985, p. 30) , referring to the pyramidal roof and inverted pyramid of the auditorium symmetrically touching at their bases. The dipyramid is situated on a substructure (alternative designs inwards/outwards / → pp. 617–619 /. A stage footlight at the apex “interconnects” the eight fields like a keystone. In addition to ventilation and lighting, the drop ceiling incorporates auxiliary acoustic speakers. The reverberation time is favourably influenced by the overlapping slanted ceiling panels (­diffuse reflective: hard surfaces), as well as chipboard acoustic panels covered in white laminate (reflective/absorptive: soft wood characterization Formal-stylistic This project was not characterized in terms of movement or style, in either the first or later reviews. In the first review, the architect Ivan Šimko concentrated mostly on evaluating individual indicators of layout, function and economics: “The architectural solution is quite sophisticated and articulated at both complex and detailed levels; despite the great differentiation, the building in its milieu comes across as balanced and calming... The overall solution can be deemed very successful, as ­urban planning and architecture”. (ŠIMKO 1985, p. 29) In the late 1980s the architects and historians Janka Krivošová and Elena Lukáčová stated objections: “Yet some parts of the solution are problematic. The lecture ­spaces with audio-visual equipment are set in concrete cubes with no direct lighting and ventilation. The aula is accessed only by means of two humbly-­proportioned staircases; the wooden panelling in the entrance spaces e ­ nvelops many cubic meters of v ­ acant space – hence such a work from the point of view of interior design development is highly disputable. This project preferred form over content. Compared to Nitra we can posit that this newer building is no step forward.” 27 When the respírium is now utilized as a gallery of the school's forefathers and founders, it becomes monumentalizing like a wall of honour and a memorial. When it is utilized also as a gallery for the rich forestry and wood collections it comes across, in the words of Juan José ­Estellés, without colossalism and as an organic part of the academic environment's cultural program. 015 Sign-symbolic The pyramidal roof of the octagonal aula maxima, which the university features in its logo, has been interpreted in various ways, among others as 26 [unsigned. DEDEČEK, Vladimír.] I. Cieľ typizačnej práce v oblasti projekcie vysokých škôl. /Základná skladobná jednotka, sekcia, vzorová fakulta/ (documentation for 016 typification research study). [Stavoprojekt: Bratislava]. Typewritten, s­urfaces) and wall covering with acoustic absorptive ­insulation.(OHRABLO 1985, p. 30) The brise soleil grid was a separate element of the faculty building's facade. The architect designed versions in three possible materials, stating a preference for the first: A. prefabricated ferro-concrete, B. anodized aluminium, and C. zinc galvanized steel “U" (open) profiles. What was built was D., the cheapest and least durable ­ ersion: Jäkl (closed) steel profile, painted. This v was to cause long-term corrosion problems. The oversimplified technology, lower-quality and lessdurable materials substituted for higher-quality, non-compliance with building process sequences, time and duration of construction work all combined to give rise to many of the operational and occupancy difficulties that often plagued 1970s and 1980s architecture in Czechoslovakia. undated (after 1970)], pp. 24–25. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 27 KRIVOŠOVÁ, Janka – LUKÁČOVÁ, Elena. Premeny súčasnej architektúry Slovenska /cited in Note 20 /. 01 3 01 6 Interiors of entrance spaces with showcases and lecture room. Exteriors of completed faculty building with aula maxima. Black and white photographs unsigned. Undated. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 450 | 451 → m cv k seg 8 “... a cogwheel of a circular saw”.28 This characterization by the historian Peter Szalay refers primarily to the Socialist-Realist imagination's repertoire, in contrast to the architect’s choice between both a geometric characterization (here the dipyramid with roof formed of segments) and signs of wooden folk architecture (a “shingled roof” of triangular concrete panels). Based on this and similar kinds of Socialist Realist signs, rather than on architectural signs, the Zvolen aula today – along with other Dedeček buildings – has been chiefly characterized in the context of modern and/or totalitarian architecture in ­Slovakia / → p. 802 /. V [University of Forestry and Wood Technology Zvolen.] Black and white photographs of white laminate presentation model with aula on subterranean structure, differentiated lecture rooms, residence halls and reversed pyramidal library. Model unsigned, undated. Photographs signed Stavoprojekt and unsigned, undated / Inv. č. A 1634 /11, 12, 19, 20, 39, 48–53, 68/. VI [University of Forestry and Wood Technology Zvolen.] Black and white photographs of white laminate presentation model of computer centre. Model unsigned, undated. Photographs signed Stavoprojekt, undated /Inv. č. A 1634/54–59/. VII [University of Forestry and Wood Technology Zvolen.] Black and white photographs of white laminate presentation model with cluster of 3 residence halls without plinth. Modelmaker Rudolf (?), undated. Photographs signed Stavoprojekt, undated / Inv. č. A 1634/40–47/. Relationship of form-stylistic and sign-symbolic characteristics VIII [University of Forestry and Wood Technology Zvolen.] Black and white photographs of taller buildings under → m cv construction. Unsigned, undated / Inv. č. A 1634/60/. Both types of architectural characterizations have been restrained in interpretations of this project. Rather, many questions of the relationship between form and content have been addressed (and less or not at all addressed have been questions of the relationship of the autonomous and the contextual, or of generalized and specific form). Also articulated are issues of the relationship between this work, the Zeitgeist and the genius loci of the park and castle in Zvolen / → p. 802 /. IX [University of Forestry and Wood Technology Zvolen.] Black and white photographs of the completed buildings: exterior, interior of entry hall and lecture room. Unsigned, undated / Inv. č. A 1634 /61–63, 69–71/. X Campus for University of Forestry and Wood Technology in Zvolen. Building complex. Signed by Dedeček, undated. Black and white photographs of model as adjusted on boards. Unsigned, undated / Inv. č. A 1634/1–3/. Textual part of project There is no textual part in the collection. documentation archived at the sng Project documentation/project model I University of Forestry and Wood Technology Zvolen. Vysoká škola lesnícka a drevárska. C7 Stavebná časť. Project for building permit. Signed by Dedeček, undated (roads Technická správa. Projektová úloha, signovaná Nemec, datovaná and terrain adjustments, scale 1:1,000; situation, scale 1:2,000 1970, pp. 1-4. In: File 64–70, 1334/70, MV SR, State District and scale 1:1,000; plan of levels p-1, p±0, p+1, p+7, scale 1:200; Archives Zvolen. cross section of classrooms, administration and aula maxima, scale not given). Ozalid reproduction on paper / Inv. č. A 1633/1–8 /. II [University of Forestry and Wood Technology Zvolen.] Black and white photographs of project documentation. Unsigned, undated (plan of rectorate pavilion basement; plan DEDEČEK, Vladimír. Vysokoškolské centrá. Projekt. Revue slovenskej architektúry, 14, 1972, 9, pp. 20–29. PISOŇ, Štefan. 20 rokov Vysokej školy lesníckej a drevárskej vo Zvolene. Vlastivedný časopis, 21, 1972, 2, pp. 57–62. DEDEČEK, Vladimír. Východiská a činitele architektonickej of level p±0, typical storey plan, section of aula, lecture halls tvorby troch desaťročí. Projekt. Revue slovenskej architektúry, and part of taller pavilion, scale 1:200). Photographs unsigned, 26, 1984, 2, pp. 22–24. undated / Inv. č. A 1634/4, 5, 64–67/. III [University of Forestry and Wood Technology Zvolen.] Black and white photographs of initial project’s presentation model – first campus variant with the aula on plinth and ŠIMKO, Ivan. Vysoká škola lesnícka a drevárska vo Zvolene (review). Projekt. Revue slovenskej architektúry, 27, 1985, 6, pp. 28–29. DEDEČEK, Vladimír. [Vysoká škola lesnícka a drevárska integrated lecture rooms. Modelmaker and photographer not vo Zvolene.] Architect's Statement. Projekt. Revue slovenskej specified, undated / Inv. č. A 1634/6–10/. architektúry, 27, 1985, 6, p. 30. IV b2 Literature [University of Forestry and Wood Technology Zvolen.] OHRABLO, František. Stropný podhľad prednáškovej auly. Black and white photographs of white laminate presentation Regular column Detail. Projekt. Revue slovenskej architektúry, 27, model with aula on plinth, integrated lecture rooms, reversed 1985, 6, pp. 31–33. pyramidal library and no residence halls. Model and photographs unsigned, undated /Inv. č. A 1634 /13–18, 21–38 /. MRÁZEK, Pavol – SKALA, Jozef (eds.). Stavoprojekt, Bratislava 1949 – 1989. Bratislava : Alfa, 1989, unpaginated. 8 017 SZALAY, Peter. 28 Architekt Vladimír Dedeček (thesis). Supervised by Dana Bořutová. FF UK, Bratislava, 2005, p. 103. 01 7 Aula maxima with Zvolen Castle on the horizon. Black and white photograph by Ľubo Stacho. Photo undated (about 1984). Courtesy of the photographer. 452 | 453 k seg 9 Extension to Forest Economy Institute in Zvolen, currently National Forest Centre in Zvolen b2 Possible interpretations 9 Location Úvodný a Execution project Structural engineering project Interior architecture project Execution project General contractor 9 Sokolská 2, 960 52 Zvolen Vladimír Dedeček, 1972  1 Otokar Pečený Jaroslav Nemec Vladimír Dedeček (chief architect), Jozef Stohl (supervising architect) and Studio X/IV for university and cultural construction, 1973, project alterations 1974 2 Stavoprojekt Bratislava Investor Construction Ministry of Forest and Water Management, through Lesoprojekt – Forest Economy Institute in Zvolen Štátne lesy, stavebný závod Zvolen, 1974–1977 (anticipated duration of construction including construction permission 1974) 3 Building volume (total built space) (?) Expenses 7 mil. 946 thou. Kčs (anticipated) 4 Building type Administrative building with archives Dated based on the published 1 text: ŠIMKO, Ivan. Vysoká škola lesnícka a drevárska vo Zvolene (review). Projekt. Revue slovenskej architektúry, 27, 1985, 6, p. 28. Dated based on project 2 documentation: Vysoká škola lesnícka a drevárska. C7 Stavebná časť. Projektová úloha. Signovaná Dedeček, dated 1970, pp. 1-4. In: File 64-70, 1334/70, MV SR, State Archives in Banská Bystrica – Zvolen branch. Dated based on the published 3 text: ŠIMKO, Ivan. Vysoká škola lesnícka a drevárska vo Zvolene (review). /Cited in Note 1, p. 28. / Architect's dating 1976–1984. 4 In: Životopis z 26. novembra 1987. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. Unverified. 001  Project for institute extension to Belluš' Administration of state forests and properties building. View from rear of block. Presentation cardboard model and black and white photograph unsigned. Undated. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 454 | 455 k seg 9 building(s) and its/their spatial relationships A mono-block extension to one of the three existing wings of an administrative building accessible northwest wing. building site (situation) b2 The new building is an extension to an older structure by Prof. Emil Belluš (Forestry administration, later Administration of state forests and properties, or Lesoprojekta/Lesoprojekt, design 1928, construction 1931–1932). In 1926 Belluš had proposed in Zvolen the classicizing District Court building (design 1926, construction 1929). Two years later he designed the Forestry administration building, which compared to the District Court was to be a more modern arrangement, an asymmetrically-­ composed functionalist building. However the classicizing version was ultimately approved and built, formed more like the Zvolen court or the ­National House [Národný dom] (­ designed 1926, built 1930) in Banská Bystrica,5 i.e. in a more historicized manner than Belluš originally considered. At the same time, the key urban impact of this building remained unchanged. Belluš situated the three-wing “palace” of the Forestry administration opposite the historical, so called “small” train station (currently called the Zvolen mesto station) perpendicular to a three-way (fork) junction – of the radial streets now called Sokolská, Švermova and Cígera Hronského – before they meet by the rail tracks. That is, the new building overarched Švermova, the middle of the streets, enclosing the station's foreground space. The courtyard part of the new ­Forestry administration “palace” enclosed two radial city blocs, and the middle of the three streets remained traffic-worthy. This gave Zvolen's urban order a new larger-scale arrangement: not in the sense of a large-scale, imposing building with French three-wing disposition or layout, but rather a new type of modern “urban interior” – here with a covered or “bridged” part of the street, which could be the basis for other city passages, forming a modern “interior city” in a multi-layered “exterior city”, and contributing to the formation of a new scale of public urban spaces in a modernizing Slovakia. Dedeček's extension of the northwest wing of Belluš' Forestry administration transforms and advances this urban planning aim. In extending the mono-block Dedeček aligned with the street's line, and continued it with the addition of the city block. He did not attempt further passages and 002 003 004 9 other covered outdoor street spaces, but rather transformed the axially symmetric administrative palace with a new asymmetric wing. It respects both the three-wing plan and the new programmatic requirements for an administration and archive mono-block (a strongbox for stored documents). It responds to the hybrid program (of offices and archives) in an articulated “buildingfortress” with variable layouts of indoor spaces. It points up Belluš' aim of connecting two residential blocks into a single building; at the same time, instead of adding a new type of palace (or anti-palace), it brings in a semi-transparent, compact but still articulated “archive-office wing”. In it Belluš' building undergoes a reinterpretation in all its dimensions, from urban to architectural: “I felt obliged to honour him [Belluš] in my own way.” [ V.D. ] 6 → k int II 002–004 programmatic and spatial solution As Dedeček recalls, in the early 1970s the University of Forestry and Wood Technology leadership recommended to the city's mayor Július Mokoš 7 that, in regards to the anticipated extension for the Forest Economy Institute 8, he contact Vladimír Dedeček and his Studio X at Bratislava's Stavoprojekt. The architect designed the extension while working on the State Archives (Slovak National Archives in Bratislava, designed 1972; / → p. 64 / ) and the unbuilt State Archives in Nitra (designed 1972). Thus among other projects he was working in parallel on three related “archives” of varying character in three of Slovakia's cities. These designs influenced one another, but resulted in locally-specific solutions (­Bratislava, Nitra, Zvolen) of Dedeček's general program of the mono-block archives as a compact concentric space, while being differentiated inside and out. While he differentiated school mono-blocks into wings and pavilions if the site and program allowed it (and if not he would concentrate them into atrium-based buildings), for archives he preferred compact, concentric layouts and forms of mono-block, with differentiated interiors. Thus his program of disintegrating the mono-block was not universal, but ever subject to new verification and reassessment. Something specific to Dedeček's interpretive task of designing central or regional archives was his understanding – in the spirit of Belluš' training – of an archives as a typologically classified cultural building, while also taking its arranging and organizing strength to lie in the depository's partially automated operation. This gave rise to the depository's floor plan distribution or l­ayout, i.e. the chance to work with archive materials in their storage space, which could then become not just a solid and static warehouse, a mechanized “machinery hall”, but a computerized workplace enabling swift distribution and accessibility of archival documents within a small space, with ­ both mobile shelving and fixed archive cabinets. The architect designed the Zvolen archives as a receptacle for forestry and wood science ­archive materials. This means it was an homage to archiving as such, as well as an expression of respect for the original building's architect, the founder of Slovakia's post-war school of modern architecture and Dedeček's main teacher, the ­Slovak Academy of Sciences member Emil Belluš. The 5-storey archives wing design includes a depository with mechanically-controlled mobile shelving only in the underground spaces and selected areas of the first, second and third above-ground levels. The other parts featured a variety of interrelated offices and storage space, with office furniture and various kinds of archive cabinets (such as those for storing maps and other large print documents). Thus the layout is a reconsideration of variability in relation to the mono-functional and poly-functional spaces, of mechanization of movement to the stasis and the dynamic of archive operation. The plans of all storeys are, similar to the Bratislava Archives, guided by the varying ways of the sections' differentiation. Each storey, including the attic, is a specific and non-standard relationship between spatial concentration and dispersion (both the cluster and the open space), within a repeating, standard constructionally two-tract building. Only the attic is a constructional one-tract: a central open space, with a wreath of small rooms/ cells on the perimeter, facilitates the localization of the ­meeting hall in the middle. Although the facades produce an initial impression of regularly alternating masonry (spandrel wall) and windows, rather than altering regularly they vary considerably (more than in the Bratislava Archives). Looking at it more closely makes this discernible, and understandable, in the variances, shifts and changes on the facades (glass displays at ground level, two different kinds of outer walls and several differing types of windows on the upper storeys, the tall attic wall, etc). In keeping with the archival function, the building's walls are of semi-trasparent U-profiled channel glass and parapet masonry. The third feature that interlinks, and again differentiates, the masonry and the glass wall is windows with a deep framing (chambranle). There are two window forms: each chambranle frames either an active, operable glass window or a blind window. In other words: the office space is lit and ventilated by transparent windows, while the depository is equipped with regulated ventilation (air conditioning) and artificial lighting and enclosed by masonry and blind windows. Here again, the building is a partly closed ("walled") and partly open (glassed) fortress with variable static/mobile interior furnishing. The building’s mass and volume are articulated by spatial arrangement of four elements: opaque brick wall, semi-transparent U-profiled glass wall, and opaque blind window or transparent window. Together they interact as layers of screens, by means of which the facade admits, directs, absorbs and reflects/refracts daylight ­ in respect of the lighting and ventilation parameters of the variable interiors. Thus neither the spatial ­order nor the form of the building indicate the variability of the interiors' functional and programmatic layout, because this multi-functional layout can be changed with no relation to the form (in contrast to predefined mono- or poly-function in both early and late functionalist buildings); nor do they give a theme to the construction such that the exposed frame structure (skeleton) would dominate the building surface. Indeed the opposite is true: the space and form give the theme to a spectrum of semi-transparency, t­ ransparency Both of Belluš' buildings are dated 5 according to DULLA, Matúš. Architekt Emil Belluš. Bratislava : Slovart, 2010, p. 309. Interview with Vladimír Dedeček, 6 in Bratislava, summer of 2014. Ing. Július Mokoš (b. 1929, Zvolen). 7 In 1954–1970 chairman of the District National Committee and member of the Regional National Committee in Banská Bystrica. For his work efforts in state agencies, Czechoslovak President Ludvík Svoboda awarded him honours For Services to Construction in 1969. From 1970 he worked for the State Bank of Czechoslovakia. From 1991 he served in the district authority leadership on the opening of four new banks in Zvolen. In 1989 his employer awarded him the title of State Bank Model Worker; in 1992 the Academic Senate and rector of the Technical University in Zvolen gave him the Gold Medal, for fostering educational development and construction. In 2003 he received the City of Zvolen Award. Interview with Vladimír Dedeček, 8 in Bratislava, summer of 2014. Neither the National Forest Centre's archives in Zvolen nor the State District Archives in Zvolen have identified archive documents that could be used to compare and confirm these statements. The Technical University in Zvolen has also declared it has no such documentation. Personal correspondence with these institutions, Bratislava – Zvolen, spring-summer 2014. Forest Economy Institute – Zvolen extension. Execution project. Signed by Stohl on behalf of Dedeček. Undated (1973). Scale 1:50. Ozalid reproduction on paper. File 201-74, 2001/73-74. MV SR State Archives in Banská Bystrica – Zvolen branch. 002 Plan of ±0 storey (ground floor). 003 1st storey plan. 004 2nd storey plan. 456 | 457 0 0 5 –0 0 8 b2 005 006 and non-­transparency of the activities of archiving and administering. Space and form articulate a relationship to the cultural monument of the archives and the architectural monument of Belluš' Court and Forestry administration, building a tension between monumentalization and ­de-monumentalization. In this sense, the Zvolen archives' space and form is in fact monumentalizingly de-monumentalizing; and the natural force [živel] that draws attention to it is the action of daylight and shadow and the natural/forced flow of air in the building. Another nod to this in the architect's design of windows/walls. “Windows”, both operable and fixed, sit inside deep prefabricated chambranles, which could even be understood as niches in the facade. Such a “deep window” is an element interrelating the facade's recessing glassed surfaces and protruding masonry surfaces – it gives a two-relief facade a third level of depth. This solution is one of the aspects showing that the elementary binary oppositions (surface/volume, height/depth, empty/filled, heavy/light-weight, closed/open, dark/ light...) are being problematized and reconsidered in “third”, alternating or indecisive figures. This is equally true of the building's overall figure, or mass-volume layout. Belluš’ F ­ orestry administration mono-block is articulated into horizontal segments of stories and roof; the extension builds off it with an analogous gable roof. The partitions of the attic's peripheral cells protrude through the pitch of the roof outward in the form of two vertical attic wall elements. These indoor-outdoor “walls” have several roles in the vertically-­ segmented attic wall. Whereas indoors they physically divide the attic space into rooms, outdoors they geometrically “square” the gable roof into an imaginary prism: this is how the perception of the “house with gable roof” (prism + pitched roof) ­alternates with that of the conceptual geometry of “house with 'flat roof'” (­geometry of ideal cuboid). The gable roof's slope thus occurs only beyond the vertically segmented “attic wall”, as if in the second plane. Thanks to this, Belluš' morphological type (prism + gable) forms a single cluster with Dedeček's dispositional or layout type characterized by an ambivalent geometry (prism + ­gable in an ideal but segmented cuboid) – it means without the extension becoming an (archive) box. Thus the raised vertical segments of the attic wall and the deep window chambranle allow the experience of an ideal cuboid in alternation with the experience of a gabled house: Belluš' modern urban type of a “building over a road” so as to provide new covered space to the railroad station area and the entire city. It is not decidable in what the segmented attic and deep window chambranle participate: whether in creating the ideal cuboid form or a gable-roofed building, or both. They are part of both, and call attention to the close ­relationships and exchanges between them. Dedeček's plastic-relief facade, covered in glass mosaic, ties into Belluš' smoothly plastered facades, including in how the window treatment metamorphoses. The individual windows of B ­ elluš' original building recede into the facade's depths; in his grid windows are slightly protruding stone chambranles. The use of identical material (Spiš travertine) was intended to mark/sign the relationship between Dedeček's deep window chambranle and Belluš' slightly-protruding stone chambranles. Although a lack of sufficientgrade travertine slabs meant that the ­ window ­chambranle ­ultimately received glass mosaic cov- 9 → k int III k seg 9 ering, their transformational force and affinity to Belluš' tectonics remains clear. We could even say that, beyond just individual windows, the new extension's entire facades grew out of metamorphosis of and departures from Belluš' large-scale paned windows.9 One possible hypothesis is that the extension's facing is a transformation of ­Belluš' windows turned 90° within the extension of the same facade. “­Belluš drew [his windows] on the ­facade [in low relief] and I transformed them into mass and space [in high relief]. But the principle – even the compositional principle – is the same.” 10 We see another “window” dialogue b ­ etween teacher and student in Dedeček's design for the Supreme Court building in Bratislava, which responds to the French windows with balcony on Belluš' Technický dom/Dom novinárov house ­facade opposite / → p. 82 /. This too is a reference to Dedeček’s evolved, long-term conversation with his teacher within his own program. Module, construction, volume, surfacing The architect originally planned a ferro-concrete structure with lift slab floor construction, but the contractor refused to build it. This led to the change to a steel frame (skeleton). (DEDEČEK 1972–1974, p. 1) The steel skeleton (with concrete encased columns) is filled with Titán brick blocks (for ­parapet masonry, the expansion wall, and some partitions), metric-format bricks or partition blocks. The glassed portions of the facade are of Copilit U-profiled glass (at this time Czechoslovakia started importing them from East ­Germany within Comecon). Two rows of U-profiles are fixed facing each other’s concave side in steel 007 008 framing. The volume (3 cm) between them served for i­nstallation of diagonal steel braces. The roof frame was designed with Vierendeel trusses. The prefabricated concrete window chambranles 11 are covered in pale blue (blueish white) glass mosaic. In places where the architect designed side-facade blind windows in a kind of mono­ chrome alternative to trompe-l’oeil, he used an ink blue glass mosaic, emphasizing the sense of depth. Indoors in the entry hall and on the staircase there was meant to be white marble wall covering with a base of black ceramics. The archives' rooms were to have had poured flooring (Terodur) in red. These would have created another variation of the white/red/black colour scale Dedeček used in his urban buildings. Aluminium profiles (FEAL) were planned for the ceiling soffits. At present the floors are covered in various types of PVC (the original flooring and light-colour wood parapet facing with circular apertures have been covered over, removed or replaced; similarly, most of the metal window frames have been substituted by plastic – the only exception are the extremely narrow atypical window openings, for which there is currently no inexpensive plastic equivalent available). in his thesis: “Typical of the architect’s work, the whole of the building addition draws a ­ ttention to ­itself and creates a gesture that, against the austere architecture of the 30s, effects a shock, a parody on classically understood architecture. It is a joke worthy of a postmodern creator, whose concepts are nonetheless distant from Dedeček’s philosophy. When we follow this architecture of overdone, overexposed forms, which seem to be crammed by force into the form of a room, it can seem as though the architect had to hold his signature dynamic, plastic style in check against his will.” 12 characterization Formal-stylistic In contrast to the Bratislava Archives neither the period's criticism nor historiography gave any attention to this small building. In 2005 the historian Peter Szalay noted form and style parallels with the post-modern (in the sense of wit and ­parody) → k int II Sign-symbolic As of now these correspond primarily, as in the National Archives in Bratislava / → pp. 71–72 /, to the iconic symbol of the strongbox. If Dedeček considers Nitra's and Zvolen's aula maxima the “jewel” among his work, the buildings themselves can be understood as iconic signs (as for instance for the similarity, in the Nitra dome's triangular ribbing, to lacework or a woven basket; or the Zvolen aula's roof and its analogy to a circular saw...). In the context of the campuses in which they were built, their impact is unique and therefore estranges the whole – as signs referring to their immediate neighbourhoods and to the affiliations they facilitate. Here the “jewel” serves as an index sign, or as an icon-index sign complex. This also holds true of Dedeček's deep window chambranle, which came about as a metamorphosed citation of Belluš' alluded chambranles. Dedeček's chambranles overexpose depiction of Belluš’ chambranles, resembling them and thus referring back to them – both individually and in the sense of bringing into play all the wings of Belluš' U-shape building. It must be conceded that this “jewel” can be read as a sign of its time, or of movement or style, and in this sense it would take on symbolic values. Specification of individual types of signs within an iconic-sybolic-indexcial complex is the reason for the oscillation between form and sign. However, iconic-sybolic-indexcial clusters and “­ hybrids” render both the materiality and formal qualities of the chambranle in both buildings meaningful and poetic. Indeed, if we understand an architectural “jewel” as something that appears in a building on occasion (which is perceived as external decoration, though it may be associated with a certain kind of homage or even reverence), such a “jewel” may be seen as an ornament. This does not necessarily indicate Interview with Vladimír Dedeček, 9 – 11 in Bratislava, summer of 2014. Relationship of form-stylistic and sign-symbolic characteristics The characterization in terms of form and style yielded to the paramount sign of the strongbox and “jewel” – cited as usual in the architect's own statements. As Vladimír Dedeček often underlined: “When we were working on the planar disposition or layout diagram, Belluš would always stress the crossing – the intersection of the compositional and programmatic/operational axes... And it was above such an intersection that what he called the 'jewel' belonged.” 13 The question is what other interpretations might be made of Belluš', and Dedeček's, metaphor of “jewellery rather than costume jewellery”. In: SZALAY, Peter. Architekt 12 Vladimír Dedeček (thesis). Supervised by Dana Bořutová. FF UK, Bratislava, 2005, p. 123. Kultura vzniká společenstvím 13 (Eva Novotná and Marian Zervan interview with Vladimír Dedeček, 17 July 2009). In: JIRKALOVÁ, Kateřina – NOVOTNÁ, Eva – STEINBACHOVÁ, Marcela. matadoři junioři. texty o architektuře 2006–2009 (compilation). Prague : Kruh, 2010, p. 74. The architect's answers are cited based on their original Slovak wording.  Forest Economy Institute – Zvolen extension. Execution project. Signed by Stohl on behalf of Dedeček. Undated (1973). Scale 1:50. Ozalid reproduction on paper. File 201-74, 2001/73-74. MV SR State Archives in Banská Bystrica – Zvolen branch. 005 Section b-b‘. 006 Section c-c‘, d-d‘. 007 Courtyard elevation. 008 Side elevation. 458 | 459 k seg 9 a preference for external form, but it is a symbolic ­expression of respect for a certain person or tradition. Naturally, even an ornament as an external form may grow to create an internal form (constructionally and spatially) and thus become an integrating force. Therefore again the relationship of form to sign appears in a new light. For instance the ribbed attic walls of the Zvolen archives have a constructional and spatial – and beyond that poeticizing – ­ character, and thus are not mere external ornamentation. Even Dedeček's deep window chambranles, which are not necessarily constructional, can appear to be pure ornament only if we completely ignore their role of symbolizing the homage, of giving space and autonomy to the facade. It is through autonomizing that the building's “complication of the form” [“erschwerte form/sťažená forma/zatrudnenaja forma” (­Viktor Shklovsky)] manifests itself, and index signs come back into play – this time as indicators of the design and project planning processes that established the construction and facade relationship. Thus in this building we can observe index signs in the role of the jewel, but also symbolic signs in multiple functions, in various types of indicators; and their proliferation and density may obscure the aforementioned iconic relations between Dedeček's building and its ­facade (e.g. Dedeček's facade strictly as imitation of ­Belluš' large window rotated by 90°). Documentation archived at the SNG Project documentation/project model I [Forest Economy Institute in Zvolen.] Black and white photographs of cardboard model. Model and photographs unsigned, undated /Inv. č. A 1643/1–30/. Textual part of project There is no textual part in the collection. Literature ÚHÚL Zvolen. Prístavba. C1 Stavebná časť. Architektúra. Report on complex project documentation. Signed by Dedeček, Stohl, undated [project documentation dated 1973, annotated 1974]. In: Fond 64-70, 1334/70. MV SR State Archives in Banská Bystrica – Zvolen branch. DEDEČEK, Vladimír. Východiská a činitele architektonickej tvorby troch desaťročí. Projekt. Revue slovenskej architektúry, b2 26, 1984, 2, pp. 22–24. 9 460 | 461 k seg 10 Institute of the Interior Ministry of the Slovak Socialist Republic for Local National Committees, currently Institute for Public administration in Bratislava, Horné Krčace b2 Possible interpretations 10 Location Komplexná projektová štúdia Interior architecture project Structural engineering project Execution project General contractor 10 Ulica Mikuláša Schneidera-Trnavského 1/a, 841 01 Bratislava-Dúbravka Vladimír Dedeček, 1974 1 (studies for expansion in 1977 2 and 1981 3 ) Jaroslav Nemec (?) Vladimír Dedeček, Peter Mazanec (supervising architect) and Studio IV for school and cultural buildings, from 1974 Stavoprojekt Bratislava Investor  inistry of the Interior of the Slovak Socialist Republic, M as represented by the Local National Committee office for Bratislava IV Construction 1976–1979,4 expanded from 1979 to the mid 1980s Building volume (total built space) (?) Expenses 27 mil. 376 thou. Kčs Building type Educational facility with lodging and catering Listed in the architect's 1 CV as Inštitút MV SSR v Bratislave, dated: 1976-84. In: Životopis z 26. novembra 1987. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. Dating verified based on project documentation, see Literature item 1. In: Archives of Institute for Public administration in Bratislava. Dated based on project 2 documentation: Architektonická štúdia na rozšírenie stavby. Inštitút pre národné výbory /INV2/. Signed by Dedeček, dated July 1977. In: Archives of Institute for Public administration in Bratislava. Dated based on project 3 documentation of INV Bratislava, Horné Krčace. Projekt. Signed by Dedeček, Mazanec, undated. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG / Inv. č. A 1738 /. Alternative dating based on list 4 of Jaroslav Nemec projects and realizations in his archives. Unverified. 001  Design of institute complex. Perspective drawing. Signed by Nemec. Dated ’86. Black and white photograph unsigned. Undated. Archives of Institute for Public administration in Bratislava. 462 | 463 k seg 10 001– 002 building(s) and its/their spatial relationships A chain of four stepped lecture room pavilions is lined up to the left of the main low-rise atrium training building's entry with an access staircase. On the opposite side the right of the entry the main building connects to an additional series of 3 diagonally arranged administrative buildings differentiated by height. Of the sports areas proposed, only a tennis court was built. On the main building's front to the right of the entrance, a bronze sculptural relief was to have been installed, of two joined hands holding a five-petal flower or five-pointed star, according to alternatives by the sculptor Anna Kišáková. (uninstalled, DEDEČEK 1980, p. 4) building site (situation) The building is situated in western Bratislava, on the northeastern slopes of the Bratislava-Horné Krčace neighbourhood. It is close to the junction of roads connecting Dúbravka with the city centre (route A) and perpendicularly to the Pražská ulica street and Záluhy residential area (route B). The front of the partially underground main building faces east to route A – the street u ­ lica Mikuláša Schneidera-Trnavského. The rear views to the northwest face a gardening colony and the blocks of flats of the southernmost part of the Dúbravka residential area at its boundary with Karlova Ves. The lecture room pavilions with summer study terraces, linked along the atrium building's side wall, face the parcel's southeast, toward green parkland and the tennis court b2 → k nonseg 13 The localization program anticipated sections for accommodations, training, socializing/administration and operational support: “... the building site at the base of the Krčace hill lies in route A's heavily-travelled noise zone. This is why the INV [institute] building was designed as an atrium composition, with the training and residential spaces' windows facing the atrium.” 5 (­DEDEČEK 1980, p. 3) This is the reason the side as well as the front facades are windowless, while the rear ­facade has paned windows and loggias facing the gardens. “The [atrium] building per se is partly underground, f­ollowing the configuration of the terrain.” 6 (DEDEČEK – MAZANEC 1974, p. 1) The main building's upper part is built into the slope, with the lower part on a rockfill embankment. Dedeček → k int I 0 0 3– 0 0 4 programmatic and spatial solution: designed the lecture room pavilions and the ­articulated administrative building as two side accumulations of pavilions, differentiated in ­ height following the chosen slope's contours: “... on its left side it [the main atrium building] is supplemented by a one-storey training pavilion differentiated by the stepped terrain. On its right side it will be supplemented by an administrative pavilion rising by storeys rearwards at an angle, increasing volume from 3 storeys to 4.” Ultimately this addition was built with 4, 5 and 6 storeys. The main 3-storey atrium building has an entry hall and porter's room and two circulation cores, in each of its front corners. On each of the first and second storeys, in addition to a small kitchen and public hygiene facilities, there are 35 accommodation rooms/cells with individual hygiene facilities, each cell designed for two individuals (70 per storey, for a total of 140). The paned windows in the accommodation units face the atrium, except for those in the rear wing, which face the greenery. The common, societal part comprises the main hall with a stepped auditorium (capacity of 70 seats) built into the atrium area on the ground floor and a canteen zone with kitchen and support features. The main hall is in fact a continuation of the entry hall, where an informal reading-study room and library was proposed behind the porter's and cloak rooms. The instructors' offices and common room were designed in the left pavilion wing near the lecture rooms. In contrast to the earlier Modra-Harmónia institute / → p. 56 / for training employees of the local National 006 002 10 Committee/public policy authorities, this Krčace building for an analogous program features no exhibition space in the entry hall, nor any sports hall. Krčace's institute entry hall, for day and residential training of local authority personnel, is not designed for the general public to access. This part of Bratislava has a separate cultural and societal centre, so the institute was not designed for such multi-function/alternative occupancy. The chain of partially underground one­storey pavilions rise with the terrain, and feature summer study terraces with staircases. Access is possible from outside and from the ground level of the main building, via two connecting corridors, each leading to two lecture rooms (access to a rooftop terrace from the second storey was planned, on the lecture rooms' flat roofs). There is one instructors' room for each two lecture rooms. As in the earlier institute in Modra, the Krčace building's lecture rooms expand to the outdoor summer study terraces, which are part of the site's recreational space with greenery. Where the Modra-Harmónia institute, in its quiet surroundings, has a diagonally-elongated-zigzag plan, with walkway galleries/loggias on the ­facade, the Krčace building, in the noisy environment of a road junction, is concentric in disposition or layout, with an atrium (and in this sense is more of a variation of the Shared administrative building of the Directorate of Poultry Production and Construction/Project Centre of Bridge-Production Plant Brezno / → p. 490 / than of the Modra institute). However, in both training institutes the large lecture hall is oriented inwards (in Modra situated 003 by the entry hall, in Krčace in the atrium), while the smaller lecture rooms face outwards toward the quietest part of the parcel, turning away from the access roads. This results in an asymmetrical balance, with the main building rising upwards with the terrain, in both the building's main axes (lengthwise and breadthways). The Modra institute is not just an interior longitudinal with cells for accommodation: each longitudinal storey has an elongated loggia/walkway gallery with views of the surrounding nature and architecture. The Krčace institute also goes beyond being atrium-­ based, as its corridors join it to the rising chain of lecture room pavilions. Both buildings represent an a/symmetry of centrals and longitudinals, balanced in three directions (height, width and length), though each has a different emphasis: where the former is a linear organization of longitudinals and centrals, the latter has a single centre with circumferential longitudinals and centrals. Both floor plans feature the main socializing and cultural space in clusters-bunches, accessible via circulation cores. Thus even in the Krčace building, the composition of elongated, lateral spaces, rooms/cells, halls, and atrium spaces is integrated with cluster/bunch spaces, particularly where the socializing and cultural program prevails. Proposal for artworks installation 5 at INV building, Bratislava Krčace. Signed by Dedeček [design for relief on front by sculptor Anna Kišáková], dated April 1980. In: Archives of Institute for Public administration in Bratislava. Inštitút MV SSR pre národné 6 výbory. C1 Technická správa. Architektúra. Signed by Dedeček, Mazanec. Dated April 1974. In: Archives of Institute for Public administration 004 in Bratislava. 002  Institute for Local National Committees. Bratislava-Horné Krčace Project. Signed by Dedeček, Mazanec. Undated. Building site (Situation). Scale 1:500. Reproduction on paper. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. Institute of the Interior Ministry of the Slovak Socialist Republic for Local National Committees. Bratislava-Horné Krčace. Project. Signed by Dedeček. Dated 1974. Scale 1:50. Ozalid reproduction on paper. Archives of Institute for Public administration in Bratislava. 003 Plan of ±0 level (ground floor). 004 2nd storey plan. 005 Section 4-4‘. 005 464 | 465 k seg 10 003 – 005 module, construction, volume, surfacing b2 The building is of frame structure (skeleton) from assembled ferro-concrete with a range of modules. The main building's module grid is 240 + 600 × 600 ­ AZANEC 1974, p. 3) and 240 + 600 + 240 × 600 cm. (­DEDEČEK – M The lecture room pavilions, with columns every 300 cm, have a 900 × 990 cm module. The building has reinforced concrete column foundations, with a ferro-concrete retaining wall for the partially underground main building and lecture rooms. The columns (40 × 40 cm) hold girders (30 × 60 cm, 300 and 600 cm long), which carry pre-stressed hollow core SPIROL-type floor slabs. The bearing wall filling is of porous concrete blocks; some bearing walls are of metric format bricks, as are the partitions altered with partitions built with special bricks (10 cm). The staircase is monolithic on the ground floor, and above it is assembled. A skylight provides daylight from above. Most indoor wall and ceiling surfaces are of gravel, gypsum, lime and structured concrete plastering. Hygiene facilities have ceramic covering. In the accommodations the ceiling is plastered, and in the corridors the ceiling is panelled in perforated aluminium (FEAL). Floor covering is of rubber Zlinolit (in the staircase of Superzlinolit) and Izoflor products, with hygiene facilities floored in artificial stone. The entry hall has light marble flooring, and the support spaces cement screed. The main hall and canteen have a wooden panel dropped ceiling. The lecture rooms are panelled in wood, and the entire building has wooden window sills. The staircases have wooden handrails (atypical interior components by Jaroslav Nemec). Wall covering and furniture are a combination of atypical (Jaroslav Nemec) and otherwise unspecified mass-produced.7  (DEDEČEK – dolina university campus and the S ­ lovak ­National Archives in Bratislava. The socle is cladded with grey-black cut slate. Outdoor wall coverings (and the atrium) were of a cement plaster named ­brizolit. In contrast to the administration, in the ­accommodations section the window frames are of atypical wood rather than metal. The retaining walls and planters are of exposed concrete. characterization Formal-stylistic The building was never reviewed or discussed, when completed or later, nor has it been characterized in terms of form or style. Sign-symbolic As with others of the architect's smaller urban buildings, this building (not large though expanded) so far has neither older nor recent sign-­ symbolic characterizations formulated. Relationship of form-stylistic and sign-symbolic characteristics These relationships have not been formulated either. documentation archived at the sng Project documentation/project model I Institute of the Interior Ministry, Bratislava, Horné Krčace. Project. Signed by Dedeček, Mazanec, undated (situation, scale 1:500). Ozalid reproduction on paper / Inv. č. A 1738/. NEMEC et al., undated) Textual part of project The external facade was to be cladded with Spiš travertine. Because of shortages of large-­ format panels, the cladding is of light colour ­Croatian marble from Kanfanar. The terraces and outdoor walkways were meant to have travertine paving blocks as a continuation of the facades (i.e. the articulated surface of the building was to have been unified with it using a continuous, single surface treatment; but this was not achieved). The window casings of the plastered administrative pavilion are covered in black glass mosaic (the project designed the steel windows to have black coating outside and white inside). The black glass mosaic was to have been ­supplemented by red, as in urban primary schools, the M ­ lynská There is no textual part in the collection. Literature 8 10 006 007 008 Inštitút MV SSR pre národné 7 výbory. C Technická správa. Interiéry. Signed by Dedeček, Nemec, Zvada, Krpala. Undated [the text states that the interior architecture project was developed in parallel with the building project]. In: Archives of Institute for Public administration in Bratislava. The literature of the period 8 did not address this project. Institute of the Interior Ministry of the Slovak Socialist Republic for Local National Committees. Bratislava-Horné Krčace. Project. Signed by Dedeček. Dated 1974. Scale 1:50. Ozalid reproduction on paper. Archives of Institute for Public administration in Bratislava. 006 Southeast elevation. 007 Northeast elevation [front]. 008 009  Study of institute complex extension (?). Signed by Dedeček. Dated ’81. Section and elevation. Scale not given. Black pencil on tracing paper fixed on drawing paper. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, 009 Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 466 | 467 k seg 11 Construction replacing buildings demolished on Místecká ulica 1 / Multi-purpose sports hall for Vítkovice steelworks and Klement Gottwald machine plant at Ostrava-Vítkovice, later Vítkovice Palace (Hall) of Culture and Sports, later ČEZ Aréna Ostrava-Zábřeh, currently OSTRAVAR Aréna in Ostrava b2 Possible interpretations 11 Location 11 Ruská 135, 700 30 Ostrava-Zábřeh Project for planning permission and study of building complex Vladimír Dedeček, 1976 2 Project for building permission 1977 3 Structural engineering project Miloš Hartl, Mária Rothová (ferro-concrete construction), Ján Bustin, Jozef Šubr – Bratislava project office of VŽSKG (steel construction), Otokar Pečený (design of hall's auditorium moveable technology) and Jiří Fiala – VŽSKG Ostrava research institute Interior architecture project (and art works installation proposal) Jaroslav Nemec Execution project Vladimír Dedeček (chief architect), Rudolf Fresser (supervising architect and technical support), Mária Oravcová (supervising architect) and Studio IV for school and cultural buildings 1979–1980,4 annexes to project 1986 5 General contractor Stavoprojekt Bratislava Investor  he City of Ostrava's Department of Building Investment, T as represented by the Vítkovice steel works and Klement Gottwald machine plant (VŽSKG) Construction Building and Assembling Unit of VŽSKG, together with the contractor Pozemní stavby, n. p., Ostrava, 1977–1988 6 Building volume (total built space) 324,000 m3 (according to the investor's final evaluation) Expenses (as anticipated in project) 296 mil. 202 thou. Kčs (according to the investor's final evaluation) Building type  uilding for culture and sport and multi-function hall B (function changed to cultural and social facility) This building title is specified 1 in the 1975 preliminary project and in ŠOCH, Jiří [et al.]. Zpráva o závěrečném hodnocení stavby investorem, September 1988, copy of typewritten document, p. 1. Architect's dating: 1976–1978. In: 2–3 Životopis z 26. novembra 1987. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. Dating was confirmed using the unpublished text ŠOCH, Jiří [et al.]. Zpráva o závěrečném hodnocení stavby investorem /cited in Note 1 /, p. 4. Dated based on project 4–5 documentation archived in SNG collections. Dated based on the unpublished 6 text ŠOCH, Jiří [et al.]. Zpráva o závěrečném hodnocení stavby investorem /cited in Note 1 /, p. 3. 001  View of the completed sports hall. Black and white photograph unsigned. Undated. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 468 | 469 k seg 11 002– 003 building(s) and its/their spatial relationships The mono-block of the multi-function hall is located on a terrace, accessible by stairs and ramps. The project design planned for a complex that also included a gym (a smaller hall) for indoor sports (630 seats, unbuilt), a sports hotel (272 beds, built later, elsewhere and from a different project), and two garages (for 1315 and 1110 cars, unbuilt). building site (situation) After the Second World War, and especially after 1948, the mining and metals industry in the city of Ostrava underwent further expansion. For the resulting increased population, the state built, in addition to industrial architecture, new housing and housing estates and public facilities.7 In the 1970s the new VSŽKG 8 company administrative and cultural centre was to become part of the complex, strung along the southeast part of ­Místecká street and the Ostravica R ­ iver. The new company complex was to include a sports and cultural hall to the southwest of the Nové Huty area (in 2002 the Czech Republic proclaimed this area a History of Technology National Monument; in 1998 the metalworks ­ plant was closed 9 ). The plant was to have developed toward the northeast, while to the south company construction of the newly planned culture and sport complex expanded toward the ­residential district of Zábřeh. Ultimately the only part of the planned VSŽKG culture and sport complex built according to Dedeček’s 1970s design was the sports and cultural hall. The hall, its terraced plinth and its parcel (which became available with the ­razing of city housing in the 1970s 10 ) are delimited by Ruská, Závodní and Horní streets. 002 b2 VŽSKG employees formulated the first building program for the new company complex. These were Ings. Dalibor Trpík, Leopold Nytra and (?) Janíková or Janíčková 11. A group under Ing. Karel Kvit developed the design further in a preliminary calculations and volumetric study. They designed the sports hall's first urban and architectural study before 1975, as the architect Dedeček and the Ostrava Stavoprojekt architects Zdeněk Komenda and Josef Ullmann state in their own project design's introduction. → k int IV programmatic and spatial solution Employees of the Bratislava project office of VŽSKG (located on the former Sobranecká street in Bratislava; in the 1990s it became the firm Vítkovice Slovakia, a.s.) recommended for subsequent project stages the architect of the steel bridging construction of the Slovak National Gallery, Vladimír Dedeček and Stavoprojekt's Bratislava Studio X. In the mid-1970s these recommendations led the general director of VŽSKG, Ing. Rudolf Peška 12, to commission directly from Vladimír Dedeček and Studio X a second urban and architectural study.13 This would suggest he was looking for an architectural design based on the progress of that period's mechanical engineering, or more specifically on the current machining and steelworking. Professor Ladislav Beisetzer, too, in his 1978 text on the addition to the Slovak National Gallery, / → p. 88 / wrote: “briefly, it can be said that it expresses the metals industry's current level of achievement.” 14 This abbreviated and laconic formulation clearly puts Beisetzer on the side of those criticizing the SNG addition; however, it underlines the Ostrava investor's vision of the new potential arising from the relations between progressive steel construction and contemporary erection of cultural buildings. In 1975 Dedeček submitted the project for planning permission for the Ostrava culture and sports hall “... as technical support for the investor”. (­DEDEČEK – FRESSER – NEMEC, IIb 1975, p. 9) In the same year, this was approved at a joint meeting at Stavo­ projekt in Bratislava between the commissioning organization and the urban planner Evžen Tošenovský on the part of the City of Ostrava's chief architect. This launched the cooperation between the Ostrava and Bratislava branches of VŽSKG with Vladimír Dedeček and Stavoprojekt's Studio X. As Vladimír Dedeček puts it, VŽSKG was “... a state within a state, led by a hero of the front, who 'entered liberated Ostrava with the very first tank': Colonel Peška”. [ V.D. ] 15 It became clear that VŽSKG, as both commissioning organization and general contractor for the project, was interested not only in building and taking care of the new culture and sports hall. It was also contributing to development, i.e. resolution and verification of innovative elements in the hall's mechanics. The client/contractor was creating an integrated Bratislava/Ostrava project and development group so it could direct the development, production and assembly of the hall's construction and equipment; this could make it 11 These included for example 7 the model housing estate Bělský les in Ostrava-Zábřeh, where besides residential buildings by the architects Jiří Štursa and Otakar Slabý there were three-storey functionalist buildings with glassed staircase sectors by the avant-garde architect Anna Friedlová (built 1946–1951). Their construction was halted, as they were pejoratively classed as “cosmopolitan”, and the project was redesigned into the new socialistic city named after the USSR’s city of Stalingrad. → VALCHÁŘOVÁ, Vladislava. Anna Friedlová-Kanczuská. In: RYNDOVÁ, Soňa (ed.). Povolání: architekt[ka]. Prague : Kruh, 2003, pp. 120–123. In the mid-1950s Ostrava's largest panel housing estate (Nová Poruba at Ostrava-Poruba, built 1951–1955) was designed by a team led by the architect Vladimír Meduna. → for example MATĚJČEK, Jiří – VYTISKA, Josef – PEŠKA, Rudolf. Vítkovice. Železárny a strojírny 8 Klementa Gottwalda (a commemorative book of articles and photographs published for the 150th anniversary of the Vítkovice smelting works' founding). Prague : Práce, 1978, 391 pages. In the former mining area 9 Jižní závod, near the historical site of the Hlubina mine and buildings like the blast furnace, coke furnace, central electric plant, gas and water reservoirs and so on (The History of Technology National Monument Dolní oblast Vítkovice), there is ongoing revitalization and opening up to the public of buildings of historical significance, in keeping with an urban-architectural design of Josef Pleskot. “As far as the historical 10 003 conservation authority is concerned, they certainly never took a position on the building or its demolition, because back then there was no chance for such a structure to have any historical protection. For one thing, the Vítkovice metal works were a state within a state and within Vítkovice itself there was a prohibition of construction in this company's interests. For another, enlightened historical conservation workers and architects could make only timid requests (sometimes successful, sometimes not) for conservation of truly chef-d'oeuvres of modern architecture – like functionalist work by Bohuslav Fuchs, the Bachner department store by Erich Mendelsohn, buildings by the Šlapeta brothers, and the like.” In: digital correspondence with Mgr. Martin Strakoš, 28 August 2014. → also MST [STRAKOŠ, Martin]. Palác kultury a sportu v Ostravě. In: ŠVÁCHA, Rostislav (ed.). Naprej! Česká sportovní architektura 1567–2012. Prague : Prostor, 2012, p. 228. The text of the project for 11 planning permission includes both versions of this name, which it has not yet been possible to verify. → also DEDEČEK, Vladimír – FRESSER, Rudolf – NEMEC, Jaroslav. A. Projektová úloha pre Viacúčelovú športovú halu VŽKG v Ostrave-Vítkoviciach. Dated 1975, 96 typewritten pages. 12, 13, 14, 15 004 a sign of implementing VŽSKG’s innovation and production potential in contemporary construction and architecture. Analogous to other Dedeček aula and halls, the Ostrava project is composed as a multi-functional and variable amphitheatre; the architect noted after its completion: “... [t]he architectural conception reflects the spiritual state of the end of our [20th] century: the large-scale space – a place for cultural, social and sporting gatherings, in the main for the younger generation, an octagonal amphitheatre, with area of over a hectare, with a metallic covering. Such a space makes possible large-scale events, heightening ambiance of social integrity, mainly thanks to its acoustics, as we had the chance → p. 473 to experience at the Karel Kryl concert early in 1989.” (­DEDEČEK after 1989, p. 1 of the published version of a typewritten document) The engineer Otokar Pečený, a former employee of the Mostáreň Brezno concern, and collaborator at Dedeček's studio, had a fundamental share in developing and coordinating the production and assembly of the machinery installed in the hall. He designed the construction of a wide range of the hall's mobile mechanical equipment: the construction of the elevating theatre and concert stages (both space for an orchestra and performance areas); folding auditorium tribunes; moveable lighting support structure (casings); and construction for the collapsible ­ panoramic projection screen, as well as mechanisms for 002  Construction replacing buildings demolished on Místecká ulica – Ostrava. Project for building permit. Signed by Dedeček. Dated 1976. Situation (building site). Scale 1:2,000. Black and white photograph unsigned. Undated. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 003  Practice ice surface and maintenance centre – Ostrava. Project for building permit. Signed by Dedeček, Krampl, Čellár. Dated 1986. Building site coordination. Scale 1:500. Reproduction on paper. Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 004  Sports complex. Presentation model in laminate. Model and black and white photograph unsigned. Undated. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 470 | 471 0 0 5 –0 0 9 k seg 11 b2 spooling the flexible floor covering for the ice surface, and the auditorium's moveable seating block. He further designed the construction of seating levels above the tribune; the television technology platforms; moveable acoustic panels over the concert/sports area, and other moveables: folding staircases, speaker's podia and so on. “... The complex of interior equipment thus gives the hall a tone among the best in the world, in terms of variability and quality in space utilization, the level of mechanization in adapting configurations, and the overall technology and aesthetics.” (FIALA 1984, p. 4) Ing. Pečený and the Bratislava VŽSKG architects (Bustin and Šubr, starting in 1975), and the ­Ostrava Vítkovice research institute team (­FIALA 1984) and production, cooperated on development and construction of the original ­ designs. The firm Pozemní stavby, n.p. Ostrava consulted with him on production ­drawings as well.16 The innovations that the project, researchand-development and construction teams formulated in the design were assessed and evaluated in the hall's architecture. This represented both verification and innovation of Dedeček's ideas and works, in terms of space, construction and building. His projects up to then had been incubated with no such possibilities in development and testing. Never before and never again did Dedeček have such an opportunity to a comparable extent and quality. This too was exceptional for its time in terms of both research and development, though the final evaluation report stated, as in the case of other projects of this era: “... The building built was of average quality, with flaws and incomplete tasks resolved by the contractor in the agreed time frame.” (ŠOCH et al. 1988) Dedeček's design for the multi-purpose sports hall at B ­ ratislava's Incheba, which drew on the Ostrava d ­ esign, was never built. Thus the Ostrava hall's architecture is “... a true expression of construction”  [ V.D. ]  17, but also of a relationship: between its poly-functional program, the hall's variability, and its complex concentric form. The plan of the hall above the plinth (at the level of the terrace) is the aforementioned octagon; yet the hall's spatial form, with all its bevelled edges, is a 25-sided polygon approaching a lens shape, with a horizontal glassed strip caesura in the middle. (ŠOCH et al. 1988) Variations on Dedeček's concentric buildings, based on geometry of conic sections transformed under rotation as well as bevelled prisms, evolved gradually in his early school classroom and sporting hall projects in the 1950s and 1960s. In keeping with the new architectural tasks, and the varied landscapes, he designed their new variations, ranging from the 005 006 007 11 → k int II agricultural university's vaulted lens-shaped aula maxima (design 1959–1960) in the wide riverside terrain of Nitra, through the octagonal dipyramid in Zvolen's aula maxima (study 1968–1969) in a limiting hill-and-valley countryside. Ostrava's industrial landscape that bordered residential districts contributed to the late isohedral (face-­ transitive) figure of this “crystalline” variation. In addition to the surroundings, the other factors that “crystallized” the Ostrava version of the hall were the pressures and tensions of solid structure, the mobile auditorium's mechanisms and the dynamics of the amphitheatre's variable arrangement. Dedeček's stepped auditoriums in all of his halls rise above the ground as cantilevered arenas. Their roofs – whether domed, flat or polyhedrons – feature indoor circumferential walkways at the contact line with the supporting construction. These walkways are externally visible as (glassed) caesurae or roof extensions, referring to both the articulation of form and the indoor circulation space at the building's perimeter: this provides for a panoramic view of both the hall’s interior and exterior. The supported, almost non-load bearing roof has a form analogous to the supporting, load-bearing lower building. The roof is in fact a cantilever auditorium turned 180˚. This is true of the smooth convex lens (ribbed inside) in Nitra, the bipyramid in Zvolen, and the bevelled prism in Ostrava. Whereas the ancient Greek theatron's “dome” was vaulted by the celestial sphere, the domed tops of Dedecek's hall's are various variants of an inverted amphitheatre (forming together with their bases rotational smooth and ribbed solids, or rectangular prisms on the plinth). The architect did not choose the cubic form, even in this project, which of all of his designs came closest to it. / → p. 64 /. The Ostrava hall features 30 possible configurations of seats and stage/playing space for diverse cultural, sporting and political events. The auditorium, with a plan of a bevelled square (for improved sight lines toward the central area), could be arranged lengthwise (longitudinally with proscenium viewing for theatre, cinema or concerts of 6,200 spectators), or in concentric seating around the playing area – which seating allowed 6,300 to 9,200 spectators to watch sporting events (ice hockey, figure skating, volleyball, basketball, team handball, tennis, gymnastics...). Installation of a light athletics track changed the capacity to 7,600 spectators. The hall's full capacity with original seating was 13,500 participants of social events or political gatherings. Four vertical circulation cores (towers) provided access to the hall, with circumferential walkways, and to support areas, where dressing Rudolf Peška (b. 1924, Záporožie, 12 Ukraine – d. 1996, Ostrava), military colonel, mining engineer, Doctor of Technical Science, and party functionary. On 19 February 1942 he and many Volyň Czechs volunteered for Ludvík Svoboda's Czechoslovak Military Unit at Buzuluk, USSR. With the 1st Czechoslovak Army Corps in the USSR – 1st Czechoslovak Tank Brigade – he fought in the Second World War and participated in Ostrava's liberation. In 1948 he went to work as a technical clerk at the Vítkovice steel and machine plant, but was forced out during criticism of Stalin's cult of personality. In 1961, while employed, he graduated from mining university, and in 1970 completed a postgraduate course at the management institute of Prague's University of Economics. A year later he completed a course at the Communist Party's political school in Moscow. He defended his work first as Candidate and later (1975) Doctor of Technical Science. He became general director of the Vítkovice concern in 1970. He held a number of political and public functions. After the 1989 regime change he was relieved of all functions, including the directorship of VŽSKG. In addition to his technical writing, he wrote two memoirs: PEŠKA, Rudolf. V boji za mír. Ostrava: Dům politické výchovy Městského 008 výboru KSČ, 1975 and ibid. Domov na konci bojů. Prague : Naše vojsko, 1986. Interview with Vladimír Dedeček, 13 in Bratislava, summer of 2014. This information has not yet been verified by an independent source. BEISETZER, Ladislav. Väzby 14 architektúry. Dielo a verejnosť. Projekt. Revue slovenskej architektúry, 20, 1978, 9–10, p. 67. Interview with Vladimír Dedeček, 15–17 in Bratislava, summer of 2014. 005 007 [No specification.] Black and white photographs unsigned. Undated. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 008 009 Multi-purpose sports hall, Ostrava-Vítkovice. Project for building permit. Signed by Dedeček. Undated. Steel construction. Plan of auditorium and roof. Scale 1:500. Reproduction on paper. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts 009 and Design SNG. 472 | 473 b2 rooms, warm-up areas, a medical examination room and a sauna were proposed, as well as radio and television production. The stepped auditorium is raised above ground level to an extent enabled by the arena's indoor spatial organization. This is why the decision of the building's current owner to place a new office building under the cantilevered hall auditorium (2004) runs counter to the character of this building. Although the new office building exploits the building capacity of the private land parcel, it hinders the public's orientation and perception of the spatial layers: the street, the terrace and the event areas (both stage and auditorium). That which Petr Kratochvíl called “the lived-in, experienced [and thus meaningful] image” 18 of the Ostrava stadium, i.e. the image where “... the pyramid [of the hall] floats over the terrace” 19 as ­Martin Strakoš states, disappears. And the publiclyaccessible space at the city's ground level disappears too. Along with this, the architect's contribution to the city fades: the building as embodiment and sign of the possibility that sporting, concert or political culture may arise in the dense urban environment from society's gathering around an event in a cantilevered “auditorium in the air”, with no necessity to build additional structures and substructures under it. In contrast to partially underground Greek theatrons in the slope of the terrain, the O ­ strava-Zábřeh stands on a plain land and terrace. The maximum floor plan dimensions of the Ostrava hall is 270 × 112 m at its main axes, but the dimensions above terrace level (4 m above the ground) is just 120 × 110 m (!) (ŠOCH et al. 1988, p. 2) and the minimum dimensions under it is at ground level a mere 50 × 84.5 m. (ŠIMKO 1991, p. 12) If this punchline of the cantilever hall (and the glassed caesura where the roof touches the lower building) is to be filled with new buildings, then the planners of late modern Ostrava needlessly razed the old apartment buildings, because these already gave the site a classical emphasis on horizontal “beams” on vertical “posts” (walls), making it impossible to raise any roads even above ground level to create elevated city layers. A practice hall with a “sportbar” and dormitory (by Radim Václavík of ATOS-6 studio, project 2005, built 2007) 20 was added by horizontally extending the plinth; its height came up only next to the auditorium and not directly under it. This addition also filled in the distance between the audi­ torium and plinth and the road embankment; however it intensifies the built-up space such that new distances and relationships come into play. After all, there also are “successful” efforts to “build into” 0 10 0 11 0 12 → k nonseg 13 → k seg 4 005–007 001 , 010– 012 k seg 11 several of Dedeček's airy walkways and under-­ bridging, on the part of the current “users” of his buildings in Slovakia. It was only in some of Dedeček's design projects that he himself built on the ground level of the cantilevered buildings' upper storeys (see Secondary Political Economy ­ school in Bratislava, / → p. 382/ and Shared administrative building of the Directorate of Poultry Production and ­ Construction/Project Centre of Bridge-Production Plant Brezno in Bratislava / → p. 490/ ). module, construction, volume, surfacing The hall has a steel construction, with no module. The load-bearing towers, vertical and horizontal constructions of the building's other parts are of monolithic ferro-concrete. In part because of the nature of the undermined terrain, the construction consists of two independent parts: 1) auditorium construction (bearing towers and galleries) with an expansion/dilatation joint and 2) roof 11 016– 017 013 of the end truss is adjustable. The roof covering (which was not built according to the project design) rests on I-purlins. The entire steel construction was produced and assembled of ­unified components. In the interior, under the ceiling, fly bridges were installed with infrastructure: lighting and sound systems, and moveable acoustic panels to regulate reverberation or lingering of sound. The systems also included a collapsible panoramic film screen (since removed) and electronic information technology. The auditorium seats were originally of light wood (by Jaroslav Nemec; they have since been replaced). The construction's covering layers were designed to be from Siporex panels, faced with assembled lamelas of white enameled aluminium (for the building's body) and a cladding of greyblack Silesian slate (for the supports and towers). The whole building has now been given a new covering in a different material of analogous colouring. White aluminium panels were also used indoors, in part for the acoustic s­urfaces of the main ceiling supports. To improve the hall's acoustic parameters, vertical wire acoustic panels and moveable wooden panels were installed above the playing area. “Ostrava was built precisely according to the design, except for the roof metal cover. The Supreme Court also comes KRATOCHVÍL, Petr. Sportovní 18 aréna Vítkovice – přístavba. Dostavba v sousedství ČEZ Arény aneb jak vyhlédnout ze stínu většího bratra. Architekt, 53, 2007, 10, p. 23. MST [STRAKOŠ, Martin]. 19 Palác kultury a sportu v Ostravě /cited in Note 10 /, p. 228. VÁCLAVÍK, Radim. 20–21 [Sportovní aréna Vítkovice – přístavba]. Architect's statement Radim Václavík. Architekt, 53, 2007, 10, pp. 24–29. → also KRATOCHVÍL 2007 /cited in Note 18 /, p. 23. 01 0  [No specification.] Black and white photograph unsigned. Undated. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 01 1 Ostrava. Project. Signed by Dedeček. Dated 1980. III/1 Hall section. 014 construction with no dilatation. The lower building and auditorium are divided into 10 dilatation units of 300 × 150 cm. The auditorium construction comprises four ferro-concrete towers with vertical circulation cores, similar to the Supreme Court building solution in Bratislava. In the Ostrava hall, each of the 4 towers holds 2 parallel truss girders with 300 cm distance. Through them run rhombic trusses (span 1,000 cm, height 90 cm, breadth  Construction replacing buildings demolished on Místecká ulica – Section G-G´. Scale 1:50. Ozalid reproduction on paper. In: Fond 50 cm) with a suspension system for holding the tribune console. The tribunes are embedded ­diagonal cantilever girders partially suspended on ties. They bear the load of the auditorium levels with seating and the indoor circumferential walkway/gallery. Thus the roof's main load-bearing construction consists of 2 main truss girders with transverse trusses connected to them, rigid in the middle and hinged at the edge. The external support Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 01 2  [no specification.] Black and white photograph unsigned. Undated. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 01 3 01 4 Front and side view of hall with flags, during 1986 Women's Volleyball World Championships; hall interior. Black and white photographs unsigned, undated. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG 474 | 475 015– 016 k seg 11 close [to its design], but its interior has more cells [­offices] than what I recommended. Some parts of the National Archive come close – except for the film ­archive that was later added underground.” [ V.D. ] characterization Formal-stylistic In the first review, Ivan Šimko considered the Ostrava hall “... a unique piece, unparalleled in our country. In its conception and spatial and technical solutions, it belongs alongside the preeminent works of its type, comparable to German, Dutch, French, Italian and English exemplars.” (ŠIMKO 1991, p. 11) In a ­ recent review of Václavík's extension to Dedeček's hall, Petr Kratochvíl compared it to the cantilever polyhedron of the Delft University auditorium by the van den Broek and Baakema studio (built 1959–1966), thus relating it to the Dutch, or more widely European, Brutalism of the second half of the 20th century. Sign-symbolic The investor's final report [Zpráva o závěrečném hodnocení stavby investorem] already mentions an initial symbolic characterization, in September 1988. According to the general contractor and commissioning organization (as later ­ reflected again in the published architect's report), the hall’s symbolics referred to the qualities preferred by the VŽSKG plant, the municipality and the region: “... the hall's covering symbolizes the interrelation of two exponents of industrial Ostrava (metallic wall covering – the steel works, and cladding with black Silesian slate on the supports and towers – the mines)”.(ŠOCH et al. 1988, p. 11) At some point before 1987, in a newspaper [?] article, Dr. Rudolf Dušek (then the vice-chair of the sports organization ÚV ČSTV) referred to the hall as “Ostrava's beauty”.(DUŠEK before 1987, p. [?]) In a ­later review, Ivan Šimko set the phrase “‘­Ostrava's ­beauty’” in inverted commas, as for a metaphor or a lived-in, experienced image.(ŠIMKO 1991, p. 13) Petr Kratochvíl posited another characterization in his review of Václavík's extension: “We sense the strength of a bold construction solution for the building, and most importantly an ­experiencing of the city's image on the part of hockey and music fans who have flocked to it for years. And these are reasons enough for an attitude of respect, which was manifestly the starting point for the new training hall by Radim Václavík.” 21 ­Václavík b2 015 11 Relationship of form-stylistic and sign-symbolic characteristics As in other representative buildings of his, here too the architect formulated its signs in relation to the aforementioned use of local natural materials and industrial products: “Support for the plastic-relief architectural impact also comes from the contrasting colour of interior and exterior covering: the black Silesian slate and the white enameled aluminium siding from Kovohutě Břidličná; so both of these materials are of north Moravian ­origin.” (DEDEČEK 1991, p. 15) As appears in the conclusion to the architect's text, in Dedeček's words the hall is among other things a celebration of creative cooperation – not just a large-scale space for celebrating, but itself a form of celebration (thanks to its celebratory architectural form). The manuscript of the Architect's Statement includes a passage not published: “I want this form to honour Moravia's technical faculties, of which I became aware during construction. I cannot neglect to mention the dozens of excellent Moravians who with exceptional readiness and enthusiasm built this intricate technological and architectural work, using their skilled hands and truly Czecho-Slovak practical cooperation.” (DEDEČEK undated manuscript, p. 5) However, the relationships between these ­formal-stylistic and sign-symbolic characteristics remain unformulated or suppressed. 016 documentation archived at the sng Project documentation/project model I Multi-purpose sports hall VŽSKG at Ostrava-Vítkovice. Sketch of localization program. Unsigned, undated. Tracing paper, pencil, green and red markers / Inv. č. A 1681/1/. IIa Multi-purpose sports hall VŽSKG at Ostrava-Vítkovice. Project for planning permit. Signed by Dedeček, undated [based on introductory report in December 1975], (situation ‹building site›, scale 1:2,000 and 1:1,000; floor plans p±0, p+1, 017 ­ imself, in the context of discussing ­architecture h in the Czech Republic, calls Dedeček's Ostrava hall “A building-sculpture. Dominant.” 22 For the Vítkovice Machinery Group 2014 company calendar, the architect Josef Pleskot chose the Ostrava hall from among 12 buildings with Vítkovice Group steel construction, as most exemplary of exceptional engineering and architectural merit. From Slovakia, he included the Slovak Radio building, the Television transmitter at Kamzík, and the Most SNP bridge in Bratislava. Of the Vítkovice aréna he then wrote: “The discus of the great discobolus, the architect Vladimír Dedeček, was thrown from Bratislava to Ostrava. In Bratislava Dedeček created a body of work no less original, in the Slovak National Gallery's bridging, and he impressed on this hockey arena the dynamic of a flying disk. The structure, completed in the 1980s, ­expresses the devotion of that era's organizers of the sporting life at Ostrava-Vítkovice to declare most distinctly their sporting zeal at a level sufficient to give birth to this creditable palace of sport”.23 ← p. 475 VÁCLAVÍK 2007 21 22 /cited in Note 20 /, p. 24. PLESKOT, Josef. Vítkovická aréna. 23 In: Slavné vítkovické stavby (calendar). Ostrava: Vítkovice Machinery Group, 2013, unpaginated. [Photographs by Tomáš Souček.] 01 5 01 7 Hall interior. Black and white photograph unsigned. Undated. Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG 476 | 477 k seg 11 p+2, plan of auditorium, plan of roof, sections of hall r1 and r2 folding seating on auditorium's lowest level. Unsigned, undated and multi-storey building r3, elevations p1 and p2, scale 1:500). / Inv. č. A 1682/5–14 a 63–68; 29, 34, 41, 49–62 a 69–75 /. Ozalid reproduction on paper, and text of project documentation, XIII 96 pages and appendices / Inv. č. A 1676/1–17/. Black and white photographs of completed interior, photographs III Multi-purpose sports hall complex, Ostrava-Vítkovice. [Multi-purpose sports hall at Ostrava-Vítkovice.] of whole complex and facade with flags during 1986 Women's Study for building complex. Signed by Dedeček, dated Volleyball World Championships, indoors during volleyball match. March 1976 (building site, scale 1:1,000; floor plans p±0, scale not Unsigned, undated / Inv. č. A 1682/15–28, 30–33, 35–40, 42–48 /. given). Ozalid reproduction on paper / Inv. č. A 1677/ 2, 3 /. IV Replacement construction for buildings razed on Místecká. Project for planning permit. Signed by Dedeček, dated March Textual part of project 1976 (building site, scale 1:1,000; floor plans p±0, p+1, p+2 to p+9, section-elevation r1 with section of substructure and high rise, IIb section-elevation r2 with section of hall, section of hall r3, cross sports hall at Ostrava-Vítkovice. Introductory report. Signed Project for planning permission for Multi-purpose section of high rise r4, elevations p1 and p2, scale not given). by Dedeček, Fresser, Nemec, dated 1975, 96 pages typewritten Ozalid reproduction on paper + textual part of the Project for / Inv. č. A 1676/1 /. planning permit. 86 pages and appendices / Inv. č. A 1677/1 /. V Replacement construction for buildings razed, Místecká ul. – Ostrava. Project for planning permit. Signed by Literature Dedeček, Fresser, Oravcová, dated August 1976 (elevation p2, scale not given). Ozalid reproduction on paper / Inv. č. A 1678 /. VI Extension of political and social complex – replacement construction for buildings razed on Místecká in Ostrava. Výzkum ocelových konstrukcí. Ostrava-Vítkovice, koncern : Project for planning permit. Signed by Dedeček, Oravcová, Železárny a strojírny Klementa Gottwalda, 34 typewritten pages, dated June-July 1979 (plan p-230 to -280, p±0, scale 1:200). 8 A4 photographic appendices. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Ozalid reproduction on paper / Inv. č. A 1679/1–4 /. Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. VII Replacement construction for buildings razed, Místecká DEDEČEK, Vladimír. Východiská a činitele architektonickej ul. Ostrava. Project design. Signed by Dedeček, Oravcová, dated tvorby troch desaťročí. Projekt. Revue slovenskej architektúry, December 1979, December 1980 (section of hall G-G‘ and cross 26, 1984, 2, pp. 22–24. section of hall A-A‘, scale 1:50). Ozalid reproduction on paper / Inv. č. A 1681/2, 3 /. VIII Practice ice surface and maintenance centre – Ostrava. ŠOCH, Jiří [et al.]. Zpráva o závěrečném hodnocení stavby investorem, September 1988, typewritten copy, 15 pages. DUŠEK, Rudolf. Ostravská krasavice. Photocopy of Project for planning permit. Signed by Dedeček, Krampl, newspaper [?] article [prior to 1989] Fond Vladimír Dedeček, dated March 1986 (building site coordination, scale 1:500; Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. floor plans p-1, p+1, cross section and longitudinal section, scale 1:200). Ozalid reproduction on paper / Inv. č. A 1680/1–6 /. IX [Multi-purpose sports hall at Ostrava-Vítkovice.] Black and white photographs of project documentation. Signed by Nemec, DUŠEK, Rudolf. Ostravská krasavice. Photocopy of newspaper [?] article [prior to 1989] Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. DEDEČEK, Vladimír. Palác kultúry a športu-Vítkovice, dated 1985 (view of sports hall with auditorium). Photograph Ostrava. Architektonický koncept a projekt. Undated [after unsigned, undated /Inv. č. A 1682/1/. 1989]. Typewritten, 29 pages. The published Architect's X [Multi-purpose sports hall at Ostrava-Vítkovice.] Negatives of black and white photographs of project Statement draws on this text. ŠIMKO, Ivan. Ostravský palác kultúry a športu “Vítkovice” documentation. Signed by Dedeček and some parts unsigned, (review). Projekt. Revue slovenskej architektúry, 33, 1991, 1–2, dated October 1979 and undated (building site, scale 1:200; pp. 11–13. plans, elevations, sections, scale not given). Negatives unsigned, undated / Inv. č. A 1683/1–6 /. XI [Multi-purpose sports hall at Ostrava-Vítkovice.] Black DEDEČEK, Vladimír. [Ostravský palác kultúry a športu “Vítkovice”.] Architect's Statement. Projekt. Revue slovenskej architektúry, 33, 1991, 1–2, pp. 13-15. Published version from the and white photographs of working model of complex, white text of Palác kultúry a Športu – Vítkovice (Architect's Statement). polystyrene, and photographs of laminated presentation Signed by Vladimír Dedeček, undated, 5 manuscript pages. model. Modelmakers and photographers not specified, undated In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied / Inv. č. A 1682/2 a 3–4 /. Arts and Design SNG. XII [Multi-purpose sports hall at Ostrava-Vítkovice.] Black and white photographs of exterior and interior of hall under construction: ground work: building site; completion of building b2 FIALA, Jiří. Výzkum a vývoj vybraných uzlů ok víceúčelových hal. Studie úkolu hospodářského plánu TR. Výzkumné ústavy. OHRABLO, František. Architekt a konštrukčný dizajn. Projekt. Revue slovenskej architektúry, 32, 1991, 2, pp. 52–55. DEDEČEK, Vladimír – BUSTIN, Ján. The Palace of Culture sub-structure; erection of bearing columns/walls; installation and Sports at Ostrava-Vitkovice, CSFR. Undated. Computer of auditorium metal girders; installation of facade and interior: printout, 2 pages. 11 478 | 479 k seg 11 b2 11 480 | 481 k seg 11 b2 11 01 8 097 Documentation of demolition work before construction began, and construction of sports hall and its surroundings. Black and white photographs unsigned. Undated. Archív Vítkovice Aréna, a.s., and Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 482 | 483 k nonseg 12 Eight-year school with 9 classrooms for primary education, economized design (prototype in Čiližská Radvaň, repeatable project by Stavoprojekt) * b2 Possible interpretations 12 Location (→ Construction ) Project for building permission Structural engineering project Interior architecture project Execution project General contractor  udolf Miňovský, Vladimír Dedeček,1 1956 2 R Ľudovít Farkaš (?), Karol Mesík (?) 3 Jaroslav Nemec  udolf Miňovský, Vladimír Dedeček and Studio II for educational buildings, from 1957 4 R Stavoprojekt Bratislava 12 Investor  inistry of Education and Culture, M represented by Central National Committee in Bratislava and relevant Local National Committee Construction The prototype primary school was built in Čiližská Radvaň (currently Mór Kóczán Primary School 5 with Hungarian language of instruction, Hlavná 258 street, 930 08 Čiližská Radvaň; * Building remodelling has not built 1960,6 building remodelling 2000 7 ). With modifications, been included in the photographic interpretation. the project was repeatedly built at many locations in southern Slovakia, in the Kysuce region and in eastern Slovakia, e.g. in Divina (currently Divina Primary School with Kindergarten, The architects are listed 1 Divina 538, built (?), later remodelled) and in Turzovka-Korňa in the order that Stavoprojekt gave at the time the project originated. (currently Korňa Primary School, Ústredie 533, 023 21 Korňa, As a rule, they were listed in reverse, i.e. alphabetical, order from built 1961,8 later remodelled). the 1960s. Project documentation giving the order of authorship Building volume (total built space) of prototype (anticipated) 9,359.42 m3 and the chief architect is not presently available. Expenses (?) /Cited in Note 4. / 2 Interview with Vladimír Dedeček, 3 in Bratislava, autumn of 2015. Building type school for general education Architect's dating: 1955–1957. 4 In: Životopis z 26. novembra 1987. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. Verified based on the unpublished text DEDEČEK, Vladimír – MIŇOVSKÝ, Rudolf. Problém školských stavieb vo vzťahu k vývoju výučby a nových konštruktívnych systémov s porovnaním obdobnej výstavby v zahraničí (študijná úloha ZSA). [Stavoprojekt – ZSA : Bratislava]. Typewritten, March 1960, pp. 73–74. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. The school is named after 5 the Calvinist pastor and athlete Mór Kóczán (pseudonym Miklós Kovács, b. 1885 in Kocs – d. 1972 in Alsógöd). From 1914 to the origin of Czechoslovakia (1918), he lived and conducted pastoral services in Čiližská Radvaň. There he founded a sporting club. He competed for Austria-Hungary and later Czechoslovakia (Sparta Praha) at world championships and the Olympic Games (1908, 1912, 1914 and 1924) in discus and javelin, later only in the latter. In 1912, under the Miklós Kovács pseudonym, he won an Olympic bronze medal at the Summer Games for javelin, becoming the first Austro-Hungarian athlete to win an Olympic medal. Dated based on information 6 –8 from the school. 001  View of completed Economized-design School. Black and white photograph unsigned. Undated. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 484 | 485 k nonseg 12 building(s) and its/their spatial relationships The economized school building could be composed of two and more quadruples lined up lengthwise: it was “... possible by adding fourcells to enlarge a school as necessary, thus creating a systematic row of school buildings as large as the investor required”. (DEDEČEK – MIŇOVSKÝ 1958, p. 21) The Ministry of Education and local authorities ­never exploited this possibility; there is no The front building of the economizing school, the canteen, after-school club, and gym in a park surround the central schoolyard with accompanying sports areas. Building site (Situation) of prototype b2 002 The prototype for the economizing school eliminates the corridor disposition or layout of the school mono-block, substituting instead a single tract. This single tract is a square quadruple of four classrooms (the architect called it fourcelled [štvorbunka] and four-leaf clover [ďatelinový ­štvorlístok]). The building has two above-ground storeys, and is designed as two quadruples of general classrooms for a primary and lower secondary school on the top storey with skylight. The latter came about at the roof ridge through shifts of differentiated angles of the gable roof. Each quadruple of general classrooms connects, via a separate staircase and short corridor in the centre of the plan, to the respírium on the ground floor. From the respírium, which functions as an entry vestibule (with cloak room cabinets), are accessible the specialized classrooms (with stepped auditorium), workshops, offices, library, hygiene facilities and administrative support space. As the classrooms were designed to be used either lengthwise or widthwise, the teacher could decide between classical ex cathedra teaching and active teaching in groups or a circle (or in the specialized stepped-auditorium classroom). known ­realization of more than two quadruples in any one lengthwise school building in Slovakia, though longitudinal chains and multiples of the (central) quadruple were indeed possible. In the first half of the century, the Austrian architect Franz Schuster, among others, designed double-cell spatial units in avant-garde schools, chiefly in Frankfurt am Main. Here he designed them in a school (1926) that applied the teaching methods of the Italian doctor and educator Maria Montessori. Socialist education techniques rejected the avant-garde reformist school program (“It allows into teaching work haphazardness and often anarchy”, KARFÍK – KARFÍKOVÁ – MARCINKA 1963, p. 21 ), but the architects were influenced by the Frankfurt Franz Schuster Schule’s arrangement of space, forming a generalized type of independent free-standing school building. This became a wide-spread international alternative to mono-block and atrium-based schools / → p. 36–37/. Schustertypen became standardized as double-­cell layouts accessible by a frontal stairway and corridor. They could be an ensemble in variously-­configured structures without lengthening horizontal passageways. Following the → a programmatic and spatial solution → a 004 003–004 The school, with east-west classroom orientation, is situated on flat terrain in an extensive area, with athletics track and football pitch. On the southwest, the site is bounded by mature vegetation, and the southeast by the road between the towns of Baloň and Čiližská Radvaň. Regulated drainage canals (by name Milinovice-Vrbina, Chotárny kanál, Červený kanál) run through the towns. The Báč irrigation canal flows close to the school. The meandering Čiližský potok stream also runs along the edge of Čiližská Radvaň town, flowing to one of the most significant National Nature Reserves in the Podunajské nížiny bottom lands, Číčovské luhy (designated 1964), into the area of the dead Číčovské arm of the Danube. The nearby Čiližské močiare wetlands are also protected. end of Stalinist criticism of avant-garde “formalism”, the reassessed Schustertypen became an integral part of designing typified, atypical and experimental schools in the late 1950s and early 1960s in socialist Czechoslovakia (→ for example Marcinka's experimental Eleven-year school with 23 classrooms in Bratislava-Prievoz, project 1957–1958, execution project 1959,9 built 1961). In contrast to Marcinka's atrium-based interpretation of Schusterprinzip, Dedeček and Miňovský's economizing school doubles the double-cell, and integrates the frontal staircase and short corridor into the middle of the plan. This became a germ or precursor of their later pavilion-based cluster school types, and in this sense is a breakthrough project. Means of differentiating clustering of school space was a key topic in international late modern school architecture in the 1950s. In overview of international schools in their second research study on typification, the architects of the Čiližská Radvaň prototype gave as an international reference the 1954 model cluster school (the “Collier's School”) designed by the American studio of Walter Gropius, The Architects’ Collaborative 10 (TAC), published by the American magazine Collier’s in its April 1954 edition. (DEDEČEK – MIŇOVSKÝ 1960, p. 51) The TAC architects designed this model school as a new spatial interpretation of a ninesquare diagram: as a nonuple (each of nine cells 1100 × 1100 cm). Around the common central cell (the indoor cluster common or open atrium) they designed 4 indoor classrooms in cross layout (a total of five cells), with 4 corner terraces of outdoor classrooms. The model project included diagrams of possible growth, with branching clustered groups of the USA's new school sites... / → p. 36–37/ In 1956, as Dedeček and Miňovský were designing the Čiližská Radvaň prototype, the TAC studio built a cluster school following the aforementioned model project in Waldham, Massachusetts.11 The Slovak architects referred to this school explicitly in their second research study on typification: “This is an alternative arrangement, which within our systemic table can be classified under the variant F6 with no corridor. It is a block of classrooms comprising 2 levels, each composed of 2 4-classroom cells clumped together with no corridor. The school was featured in L ­ ’­Architecture d’Aujourd’hui in July 1957. A project of similar arrangement was made in our country with the ­title Čiližská Radvaň in December 1956, and brought decreased costs per school of 50%.” (DEDEČEK – MIŇOVSKÝ 1960, p. 52) ­In Dedeček's words, they did not know of the Waldham school when ­designing project for 12 003 Čiližská Radvaň: “We didn't know of it, we had no way of knowing. We only saw it when it was published in the L’Architecture d’Aujourd’hui journal in summer of 1957.” [ V.D. ] 12 In the 1970s, he wrote on this problem in his dissertation: “The similarity was determined by the similarity of the efforts by ourselves and by the American group at economizing the 'Schusterprinzip' by adding 2 classrooms to the original 2.” (DEDEČEK 1974, p. III/10) Whether or not the architects of the Čiližská Radvaň prototype had a way of knowing about the American Waldham school in 1956, (Architectural Forum published texts about it in 1954 and 1956 13 ), i.e. at a time when Khrushchev was criticizing the Stalinist cult of personality and its c ­ onsequences, Dedeček and Miňovský's reform of the Stalinist palace-style Socialist Realist types of schools drew on a variety of sources: traditions of international modern architecture, the Necessistic movement in Czechoslovak First Republic architecture (1918–1938), and contemporary architectural thought for building an economizing school in the late 1950s in Slovakia. Zápisnica z porady konanej 9 dňa 14. marca 1959 o technickom režime projektovej prípravy a školskej investičnej výstavby v rokoch 1959–1960, p. 58. In: Fond NVB 1955–1960 (3497) 151 1958 B-T 2686. MV SR, State Archives in Bratislava (originally Archív hlavného mesta SR Bratislavy). In 1946 Walter Gropius founded 10 his studio in Massachusetts with Benjamin Thompson, John C. Harkness, Sarah P. Harkness, Jean B. Fletcher, Norman C. Fletcher, Chester Nagel and Robert S. McMillan. A major American architecture studio of the second half of the 20th century, it went bankrupt in 1995, twenty years after Gropius' death. Northeast Elementary School, 11 Waltham, Massachusetts, built to project plans 1955, expanded 1956. 004 Unless noted otherwise, 12 all of Vladimír Dedeček's statements marked [V.D.] are cited from an interview with him in Bratislava, in summer of 2014. See Architectural Forum, 13 June 1954, pp. 128–129 and Architectural Forum, July 1956, pp. 100–101. 002  Four-leaf of classrooms around one staircase. Plan and section. Sketch. Unsigned (Vladimír Dedeček), undated (2014). Black pen on paper. Architect’s archive. 8/9-classroom economizing school. [Project for building permit]. Unsigned. Undated. Scale 1:200. Black pencil and yellow, green and red pencil on tracing paper. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 003 005 Plan for ±0 level (ground floor). 004 1st storey plan. 005 Front and rear elevation. 486 | 487 k nonseg 12 The economizing came in the shortening of horizontal indoor passageways, and their concentration in the middle of the quadruple-cell, or its shift toward the facade (respírium side) and the outdoors (break-time terrace off of both front and rear facades, to make the school's allocation more flexible in relation to access roads on various sites). This made possible new ways of linking the school to its landscape and its greenery, and finding the most appropriate daylight and ventilation for the indoors. It must be noted that later realizations tended not to come up to their project plans. Thus this first Čiližská Radvaň forerunner of the urban cluster pavilion school was another response to reforming the corridor-based mono-­ block school and the U-shaped palace school with three wings and a Cour d’honneur. It differentiated and condensed preceding mass-­volume distributions or layouts, with a cluster of orthogonal cell spaces in a prismatic building with a gable roof. It merged the planar distribution or layout type of the modern urban school and the morphological type of the country house with gable roof, typical for much of Slovakia. It had the ability to “grow”: an embryo of a developable, autogenerative form of city school for the 1960s, while being buildable in country towns and sites in-between, as was the case of the Čiližská R ­ advaň prototype. 006 module, construction, volume, surfacing b2 The basic module grid is 630 × 300 cm. General classrooms have dimensions of 630 × 870 cm, as multiples of a 300 cm axial module grid. This brick building with no basement had a lower weight than previous school types, thanks mainly to the roof assembly's moderate heaviness: a combination of R-trusses and prefabricated ferro-concrete ceiling panels (PZD-300) manufactured for residential buildings. The staircase with the short corridor was visible on the facade through windows or a glass block/brick wall. The masonry of the socle and spandrel wall could be plastered or cladded using various materials, from stone and wood to glass mosaic. By reorganizing the floor plans and changing the construction, all the functions and the recommended size of the main educational spaces remained the same as before, while the school's volume and expenses were halved. The economizing resulted mainly from reduction in circulation and service spaces. The solution was accepted as a Suggested improvement [Zlepšovací návrh, ZN] and approved as a repeated project of Stavoprojekt (1957). With minor adjustments, it was implemented in various regions of Slovakia into the early 1960s. characterization documentation archived at the sng Project documentation/project model [ Economizing school, with 8/9 classrooms.] Initial project. I Unsigned, undated (plans of levels p±0; p+1 and cross section; Formal-stylistic street/courtyard elevation, scale 1:200). Tracing paper. Pencil and coloured pastels / Inv. č. A 1605/1–3 /. Based on the prototype, the architects formulated the general character of the economizing school: “Schools remain large, heavy and complicated buildings, with the unsuitable monumentality of barracks. However time and finances may be reduced in design, construction lasts an average of 3 years, both in 1950 and now [1957]... a school building should not be a public structure standing on a town square with all such accoutrements, and forcing the building to be uselessly tall. It should be a light-weight, plainly-built and simply furnished building, constructed in a recreational space (ideally a garden or park); here for the cost of a simpler building, the functional relationships between education, nurturing and improving children's health are better satisfied. In our practice we have come to the opinion that such an unpretentious building in a green space will be healthier for youth than costly school barracks, and that together with operational clarification and improvement in health we will achieve less expensive school construction. This is now the central problem in school project planning.” (MIŇOVSKÝ 1947, p. 3) Paradoxically, there is no known review of the prototype in the literature of the period; and neither the general public nor experts discussed it, although the architects requested discussion and a test period. Schools were being developed so quickly in this time, or approved so slowly, that a mere year after its approval in the city and region of Bratislava this repeating project was replaced by more progressive types of pavilion cluster schools in parks. II [ Economizing school, with 8/9 classrooms.] Black and white photograph of project documentation. Unsigned, undated (plans of levels p±0 and p+1; section, scale 1:200). Photographs unsigned, undated / Inv. č. A 1604/11, 12 /. III [ Economizing school, with 8/9 classrooms.] Black and white photographs of school during construction (outdoor units and detail, roof construction units and detail, and blackboards inside school). Unsigned, undated / Inv. č. A 1604/13-42 /. Textual part of project There is no textual part in the SNG collection. Literature MIŇOVSKÝ, Rudolf. Vývoj školského ateliéru ŠPÚ-Bratislava. Projekt. Časopis štátnych projektových ústavov pre výstavbu miest a dedín na Slovensku, 3, 1957, 8, p. 2–3. [“This issue was conceived by: Ing. arch. V. Dedeček and Ing. arch. R. Miňovský in cooperation with a team of employees at Studio II ŠPÚ-Bratislava.” ] DEDEČEK, Vladimír – MIŇOVSKÝ, Rudolf. Typizácia (študijná úloha ZSA). [Stavoprojekt – ZSA : Bratislava]. Typewritten, November 1958. 47 pages. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. KARFÍK, Vladimír – KARFÍKOVÁ, Světla – MARCINKA, Marián. Nové smery vo výstavbe škôl. Bratislava : Vydavateľstvo Slovenského fondu výtvarných umení, 1963. DEDEČEK, Vladimír. Vývoj priestorovej koncepcie základnej školy (postgraduate dissertation). Part 1. FS SVŠT, Bratislava, 1974, pagination by chapter. Sign-symbolic The writing of the period, by the architects and critics or historians, does not formulate any such characterization. Relationship of form-stylistic and sign-symbolic characteristics The relationship between them was not formulated in period writing. 12 006 006  View of school interior being completed. Black and white photograph unsigned. Undated. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 488 | 489 k nonseg 13 Shared administrative building of the Directorate of Poultry Production and Construction/Project Centre of Bridge-Production Plant Brezno, currently head office of Social Insurance Agency * b2 Possible interpretations 13 Location 13 Záhradnícka 153, 829 02 Bratislava 2 Project for building permission Structural engineering project Interior design Execution project General contractor  ladimír Dedeček, 1967 1 V (?) Jaroslav Nemec Vladimír Dedeček (chief architect) and Studio X for university and cultural construction, from 1967 Stavoprojekt Bratislava Investor  inistry of Agriculture and Nutrition in Prague, through the company Poultry Production M [Hydinársky priemysel – odborové riaditeľstvo] Bratislava and co-investor: Mostáreň, n. p. Brezno Construction Stavoindustria, n. p., Bratislava, 1971–1974 2/1976 3 (building was remodelled) Building volume (total built space) (?) Expenses (anticipated) 9,982 thou. Kčs Building type  ulti-purpose administrative and commercial building: office space and UNIGAL grill with retail space M (poultry grill, retail shop for poultry products, and canteen) * Building remodelling has not been included in the photographic interpretation. Architect's dating: 1967–1971. 1 In: Životopis z 26. novembra 1987. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. Verified based on project documentation in the SNG collection. Built 1974, verified in the 2 publication: MRÁZEK, Pavol – SKALA, Jozef (eds.). Stavoprojekt, Bratislava 1949–1989. Bratislava : Alfa, 1989, unpaginated [section on Vyššia občianska vybavenosť]. Alternative dating based on list 3 of Jaroslav Nemec projects and realizations, from his archives. Unverified. 001  Corner view of multi-purpose building from road crossing. Black and white photograph by Ľubo Stacho. Photo undated. Courtesy of the photographer. 490 | 491 k nonseg 13 001 building(s) and its/their spatial relationships Office building with public food services and ground-floor shop. → M work 003 building site (situation) The mono-block is located at the edge of ­Starý Štrkovec and the Ružinov housing estate, on a corner parcel between Bajkalská, Záhradnícka and Sartorisova streets – directly by the Záhradnícka/Bajkalská cloverleaf junction. The nearby Poly­grafické závody, n.p. Bratislava building determined the height; the two buildings share a common car park. Nearby is a school built in the late 1950s, on the basis of Dedeček‘s and ­Miňovský’s project (Eleven-year ­general education school, with 23 classrooms; currently Private primary school for generally-gifted students / → s. 820 /). 002 programmatic and spatial solution 005 b2 003 004 0 0 2– 0 0 4 The orientation as well as the mass-volume distribution or layout is a response to the nearby junction and the building site on its corner: “The building is resolved in four storeys of equal importance. Individual storeys are resolved as form-volume intersections. This relatively differentiated solution is due to the land parcel's corner characteristic. Such a segmented-front corner solution will also have desirable impact in terms of protecting indoor ­operations vis-à-vis traffic noise.” ( DEDEČEK 1967, p. 14 ) The author thought of the building corner near the junction as both an intersection and turn of the storeys. A triangular staircase serving the three-tract administrative section and the ground floor hall is inserted in the angular courtyard-side tract. The linear street-side tract is divided into office rooms/cells. Where the ground-level hall is a spatial interrelation of the two wings, the upper storeys are more of a layering of spaces. If we think of each storey as in the case of the wooden beam analogy in the spirit of the architect’s metaphor, we could say the segmented corner is designed as carpentry joinery: specifically the protruding box joint. It could be said the building combines the planar disposition or layout type of a threetract administrative building with the flat roof and ­morphological type of a log building. While the building's corner binds up and layers the individual protruding storeys, the hollow block fencing encloses it and opens up to the surroundings both visually and haptically. The car park in front of the building transforms into entry and dispersion space. module, construction, volume, surfacing characterization The building's construction is a steel frame (skeleton) with a 600 × 600 cm to 600 × 720 cm module grid. Filling is of ceramic panels. ( DEDEČEK 1967, p. 14 ) This administrative and commercial building was designed to have been cladded in glass mosaic; in contrast to the SNG bridging, the substitute for cladding was not metal sheets finishing but rather the building is plastered. Before its recent renovation, with polystyrene outdoor facade insulation and replacement of windows, the building had steel-frame double-glazed horizontal strip windows. The original interior has been replaced by contemporary mass-produced furniture. Formal-stylistic In his 2005 thesis, the historian Peter Szalay considered the partial overlapping of the floors at the corner “expressive”.4 He later classed the segmented mono-block among the a ­rchitect's concentric, unifying, monumental pieces: “The form of his projects was again becoming compact. He ­unified ­complicated shapes even into a ­monolithic form, whose main characterizing feature was ­monumentality.” So the only existing ­interpretation of building polarities, applying the ­mono-block's disintegration and its reintegration, the two 13 documentation archived at the sng Project documentation/project model Shared administrative building of the Directorate Ia of Poultry Production and Construction/Project Centre of BridgeProduction Plant Brezno. Study. Signed by Dedeček, dated 1967 (situation, scale 1:1,000; plans of levels p-1, p±0, P+1 to P+4, cross section and front elevation, scale 1:500). Ozalid reproduction on paper / Inv. č. A 1632/1 /. [Shared administrative building of the Directorate II of Poultry Production and Construction/Project Centre of BridgeProduction Plant Brezno.] Black and white photographs, exterior of completed building with views of entrance, front corner and car park with perforated architectural concrete fencing. Unsigned, undated / Inv. č. A 1632/2-23 /. Textual part of project Shared administrative building of the Directorate Ib 005 of Poultry Production and Construction/Project Centre of Bridge-Production Plant Brezno. Preliminary project. Signed by Dedeček, dated November 1967, 42 numbered typewritten pages / Inv. č. A 1632/1 /. Literature DEDEČEK, Vladimír. Východiská a činitele architektonickej tvorby troch desaťročí. Projekt. Revue slovenskej architektúry, 26, 1984, 2, pp. 22–24. MRÁZEK, Pavol – SKALA, Jozef (eds.). Stavoprojekt, Bratislava 1949 –1989. Bratislava : Alfa, 1989, unpaginated [Chapter on Vyššia občianska vybavenosť]. SZALAY, Peter. 4 Architekt – Dedeček Vladimír. Administratívna budova Mostární Brezno. In: Register of Modern Architecture in Slovakia. Cited through: <http://www.register.ustarch.sav.sk/index.php/sk/architekt/25-dedecekvladimir/243-administrativna-budova-mostarni-brezno>, retrieved summer 2015. SZALAY, Peter. Architekt Vladimír 5 006 wings' centricity and e ­ ccentricity, the open hall floor plan and three-tract floor plan, the monumentalization and de-monumentalization, always shows a penchant for one of the two ­poles. Dedeček. Architektúra a urbanizmus, 39, 2005, 3–4, p. 141. Administrative building – Bridge-Production Plant Brezno – Poultry Production. Study. Signed by Dedeček. Dated ‘67. Scale 1:500. Ozalid reproduction on paper. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 002 Situation – plan of the building ground. 003 2nd storey plan. 004 View from × [road crossing], Bajkalská – Zahradnícka streets. Sign-symbolic 005 There is no published characterization of this; therefore there is also no published relationship of form-stylistic and sign-symbolic characteristics. 006  Shift and interrelation of storeys. Black and white photographs unsigned. Undated. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 492 | 493 Photographic segment of possible interpretations 1 p seg 1 School in housing estate on Račianska ulica in Bratislava 500 2 p seg 2 Joint school – Secondary Vocational School of Y. A. Gagarin in Bernolákovo and Primary Arts School, Bernolákovo 3 p seg 3 Primary school with pre-school, Cádrová 23, Bratislava 518 4 p seg 4 Business Academy on Račianska ulica in Bratislava 5 p seg 5 Slovak University of Agriculture in Nitra 6 p seg 6 Campus of Comenius University and Ľudovít Štúr residence halls 7 p seg 7 Incheba Expo Bratislava 8 p seg 8 Technical University in Zvolen 9 p seg 9 National Forest Centre in Zvolen 10 p seg 10 Institute for Public administration in Bratislava, Horné Krčace 11 p seg 11 OSTRAVAR Aréna in Ostrava b2 Possible interpretations 524 542 558 590 604 622 644 630 510 b₂ 1–11 Photographic segment of possible interpretations Hertha Hurnaus 498 | 499 p seg 1 b2 Possible interpretations 1 School in housing estate on Račianska ulica in Bratislava 500 | 501 b2 1 → k seg 1 / p. 366/ 502 | 503 b2 1 → k seg 1 / p. 366/ 504 | 505 b2 1 → k seg 1 / p. 366/ 506 | 507 b2 1 → k seg 1 / p. 366/ 508 | 509 p seg 2 b2 Possible interpretations 2 Joint school – Secondary Vocational School of Y. A. Gagarin in Bernolákovo and Primary Arts School, Bernolákovo 510 | 511 b2 2 → k seg 2 / p. 372/ 512 | 513 b2 2 → k seg 2 / p. 372/ 514 | 515 b2 2 → k seg 2 / p. 372/ 516 | 517 p seg 3 b2 Possible interpretations 3 Primary school with pre-school, Cádrová 23, Bratislava 518 | 519 b2 3 → k seg 3 / p. 382/ 520 | 521 b2 3 → k seg 3 / p. 382/ 522 | 523 p seg 4 b2 Possible interpretations 4 Business Academy on Račianska ulica in Bratislava 524 | 525 b2 4 → k seg 4 / p. 382/ 526 | 527 b2 4 → k seg 4 / p. 382/ 528 | 529 b2 4 → k seg 4 / p. 382/ 530 | 531 b2 4 → k seg 4 / p. 382/ 532 | 533 b2 4 → k seg 4 / p. 382/ 534 | 535 b2 4 → k seg 4 / p. 382/ 536 | 537 b2 4 → k seg 4 / p. 382/ 538 | 539 b2 4 → k seg 4 / p. 382/ 540 | 541 p seg 5 b2 Possible interpretations 5 Slovak University of Agriculture in Nitra 542 | 543 b2 5 → k seg 5 / p. 388/ 544 | 545 b2 5 → k seg 5 / p. 388/ 546 | 547 b2 5 → k seg 5 / p. 388/ 548 | 549 b2 5 → k seg 5 / p. 388/ 550 | 551 b2 5 → k seg 5 / p. 388/ 552 | 553 b2 5 → k seg 5 / p. 388/ 554 | 555 b2 5 → k seg 5 / p. 388/ 556 | 557 p seg 6 b2 Possible interpretations 6 Campus of Comenius University and Ľudovít Štúr residence halls 558 | 559 b2 6 → k seg 6 / p. 406/ 560 | 561 b2 6 → k seg 6 / p. 406/ 562 | 563 b2 6 → k seg 6 / p. 406/ 564 | 565 b2 6 → k seg 6 / p. 406/ 566 | 567 b2 6 → k seg 6 / p. 406/ 568 | 569 b2 6 → k seg 6 / p. 406/ 570 | 571 b2 6 → k seg 6 / p. 406/ 572 | 573 b2 6 → k seg 6 / p. 406/ 574 | 575 b2 6 → k seg 6 / p. 406/ 576 | 577 b2 6 → k seg 6 / p. 406/ 578 | 579 b2 6 → k seg 6 / p. 406/ 580 | 581 b2 6 → k seg 6 / p. 406/ 582 | 583 b2 6 → k seg 6 / p. 406/ 584 | 585 b2 6 → k seg 6 / p. 406/ 586 | 587 b2 6 → k seg 6 / p. 406/ 588 | 589 p seg 7 b2 Possible interpretations 7 Incheba Expo Bratislava 590 | 591 b2 7 → k seg 7 / p. 424/ 592 | 593 b2 7 → k seg 7 / p. 424/ 594 | 595 b2 7 → k seg 7 / p. 424/ 596 | 597 b2 7 → k seg 7 / p. 424/ 598 | 599 b2 7 → k seg 7 / p. 424/ 600 | 601 b2 7 → k seg 7 / p. 424/ 602 | 603 p seg 8 b2 Possible interpretations 8 Technical University in Zvolen 604 | 605 b2 8 → k seg 8 / p. 442/ 606 | 607 b2 8 → k seg 8 / p. 442/ 608 | 609 b2 8 → k seg 8 / p. 442/ 610 | 611 b2 8 → k seg 8 / p. 442/ 612 | 613 b2 8 → k seg 8 / p. 442/ 614 | 615 b2 8 → k seg 8 / p. 442/ 616 | 617 b2 8 → k seg 8 / p. 442/ 618 | 619 b2 8 → k seg 8 / p. 442/ 620 | 621 p seg 9 b2 Possible interpretations 9 National Forest Centre in Zvolen 622 | 623 b2 9 → k seg 9 / p. 454/ 624 | 625 b2 9 → k seg 9 / p. 454/ 626 | 627 b2 9 → k seg 9 / p. 454/ 628 | 629 p seg 10 b2 Possible interpretations 10 Institute for Public administration in Bratislava, Horné Krčace 630 | 631 b2 10 → k seg 10 / p. 462/ 632 | 633 b2 10 → k seg 10 / p. 462/ 634 | 635 b2 10 → k seg 10 / p. 462/ 636 | 637 b2 10 → k seg 10 / p. 462/ 638 | 639 b2 10 → k seg 10 / p. 462/ 640 | 641 b2 10 → k seg 10 / p. 462/ 642 | 643 p seg 11 b2 Possible interpretations 11 OSTRAVAR Aréna in Ostrava 644 | 645 b2 11 → k seg 11 / p. 468/ 646 | 647 b2 11 → k seg 11 / p. 468/ 648 | 649 b2 11 → k seg 11 / p. 468/ 650 | 651 b2 11 → k seg 11 / p. 468/ 652 | 653 b2 11 → k seg 11 / p. 468/ 654 | 655 (pp. 503, 508, 509) (pp. 501, 504–507) 1 School in housing estate on Račianska ulica in Bratislava _ photographed : 2011 2 Joint school – Secondary Vocational School of Y. A. Gagarin in Bernolákovo and Primary Arts School, Bernolákovo _ photographed : 2014 3 Primary school with pre-school, Cádrová 23, Bratislava _ photographed : 2014 4 Business Academy on Račianska ulica in Bratislava _ photographed : 2011 5 Slovak University of Agriculture in Nitra _ photographed : 2005 6 Campus of Comenius University and Ľudovít Štúr residence halls _ photographed : 2011 7 Incheba Expo Bratislava _ photographed : 2005 8 Technical University in Zvolen _ photographed : 2012 9 National Forest Centre in Zvolen _ photographed : 2014 10 Institute for Public administration in Bratislava, Horné Krčace _ photographed : 2011 11 OSTRAVAR Aréna in Ostrava _ photographed : 2014 b2 (pp. 593, 594) / 2012 (pp. 519–523) (pp. 530–537) / 2012 (pp. 525–529, 538–541) (pp. 543–547, 549, 555–557) / 2012 (pp. 548, 551–553) / 2012 (pp. 596–603) / 2014 (pp. 581–589) (pp. 591, 595) (pp. 605–621) (pp. 623–629) (pp. 645–655) (pp. 511–517) (pp. 631–643) / 2012 (pp. 561–570, 573, 575) / 2014 (pp. 559, 571, 574, 577–579) c Maps m cv “I can't even remember when I was young. Maybe never. And yet it was a beautiful time. There was friendship and camaraderie between people. You could just walk the countryside for days, and you didn't need anything, just yourself. And people would help you.” [ V.D. ] 1 1 Where not indicated otherwise, quotations of Vladimír Dedečk (marked with the initials V.D.) are from interviews with this text's author, in Bratislava, between summer 2014 and autumn 2015. c Vladimír Dedeček authorized his Maps quotations in autumn 2015. c Biographical map Vladimír Dedeček in contradictions of micro- and macro-histories (or inner and outer histories) Monika Mitášová 662 | 663 1929 [ 26 may ] Vladimír was born in Turčiansky Svätý Martin in the family of typesetter and typographer Vladislav Mikuláš Dedeček (b. 7 February 1905 – d. [?] 1977) and Anna née Kopecká-Šalagová (b. 25 August 1906 – d. [?] 1979), who trained as a seamstress and earned her living in a bookbinder's. His younger sister Mária and older brother Pavol died in childhood. After an accident when he was between four and five, Vladimír stopped speaking. His father taught him to speak again by teaching him to read. His father's family came from Lomnica nad Popelkou in the Liberec region, and his mother from Záturčie, currently Martin-Záturčie in the Žilina region. His maternal grandfather József Jurčík Salaga (Šalaga), after returning from the First Balkan War (1912–1913) and First World War, worked in the Martin town archives. During the First Czechoslovak Republic (1918–1939), his father worked with the border guards. From 1937 to 1940 the army repeatedly called him up. At the end of the 1940s, the Dedeček family moved to Bratislava. From the age of 50, his father worked for the book printers Práca and his mother was a housewife. c 001 Early childhood in Martin. [ © → p. 810 ] 664 | 665 m cv 1935–1939 › 002 S  tylized portrait in folk costume. [ © → p. 810 ]  Vladimír attended elementary school [ľudová škola (similar to Austrian Volksschule)] in Turčiansky Svätý Martin. He exercised with Sokol, sang in students' choir and acted in theatre at the Národný dom community centre in Martin. He drew from his childhood days. The Dedeček family lived in a small family house on Marxova street, and from 1942 in the last of the three apartment houses with studios, built by the chair factory Tatra from 1920 to 1922 (later the property of Tatrabanka) on a parcel between the streets Dr. Karola Kuzmányho and Churchillova 2 (currently Kuzmányho and Novákova), designed by Michal Milan Harminc. While the Dedečeks lived here, the painter Peter WeiszKubínčan worked in one of the two loft studios, and Vladimír would draw and paint under his tutelage (so far none of his childhood or high school works have been found). In the first two houses, Martin Benka and Miloš Alexander Bazovský had studios: “Kubínčan was patient with me, the other two wouldn't be bothered and I didn't bother them. I liked going to watch them paint.” [V.D.] The painter and drawing teacher František Kudláč would later teach him to draw at Martin's gymnazium.3 He also visited the printmaker and illustrator Ján Novák,4 who collaborated with the Martin printing house Neografia, who had an extensive library of world literature and art catalogues and books. Ján's brother Karol, who befriended Vladimír, was his main source of borrowed books. The painter Ladislav Záborský was later to become a favourite teacher,5 and was a drawing class teacher at Martin's gymnazium after 1945. The architect harked back to remembrances of Martin Benka and his studio in 1980, when designing the unbuilt addition to the Benka house museum on Kuzmányho street in Martin (the house was built in 1958 from a design by the Martin architect and builder Ivan Klein6 ). 004 003 In Martin's “ľudová škola” school (third row, second from left). [ © → p. 810 ] First Communion (fourth row, second from left) [ © → p. 810 ] c 005 In a theatrical presentation at the Národný dom in Martin. [ © → p. 810 ] 007 Graphic artist Ján (Janko) Novák (in hat), painter Martin Benka (in white smock), 008 and unidentified craftsmen working on the sgrafitto of Benka's design, front facade, Ján (Janko) Novák (front row, first from left) and Martin Benka (second from left) on scaffolding while finishing sgrafitto. [ © → p. 810 ] Roľnícka vzájomná pokladnica building in Martin (Ján Vrana, project and realization 1938–1940). [ © → p. 810 ] 006 2 5 → HLAVAJ, Jozef. Martin. Stavebný Ladislav Záborský (b. 1921, Tisovec – obraz mesta. (O výstavbe mesta Martina d. 2016, Martin), painter. Graduate do roku 1960). Bratislava : Spolok of the Department of Drawing and architektov Slovenska, 1994, p. 74. Painting at the Slovak University 3 of Technology, and student of Gustáv František Kudláč (b. 1909, Horní Mallý, Ján Mudroch, Jozef Kostka Heršpice – d. 1990, Bratislava), and Martin Benka. Imprisoned painter, printmaker, illustrator, 1953–1957 for religious activities. theatre and film director and He was exonerated in 1968, and spent teacher. He studied at the practical a year in France studying religious arts school with the painter/ art and architecture. Upon returning printmaker Arnošt Hofbauer. to Slovakia the exoneration was Kudláč taught drawing at rescinded. He worked with stations gymnazium schools in Dolný Kubín, of the Cross themes, but earned Kremnica and Martin. his living as a book and magazine 4 illustrator. He was exonerated in Ján Novák (b. 1921, Martin – d. 1944), 1990. He worked on religious-themed painter, printmaker, and illustrator. painting and design of stained glass Killed in the Slovak National windows and tapestries, and lived Uprising. → CHMEĽ, Viliam. in Martin. → also Záborský Ladislav Ján Novák. Bratislava : Povereníctvo (video and transcript). Project Oral informácií, 1946; and CÍLEK, History – Svedkovia z obdobia Roman. Podobal se sopce v klidu. neslobody. Ústav pamäti národa. Dramatický příběh muže, jemuž válka Available at: <http://www.upn.gov.sk/ změnila životní cíle. Přísně tajné! sk/ladislav-zaborsky-1921/>, retrieved Literatura faktu, 2006, 4, pp. 58–69. 2014. E  aster procession in the streets of Martin On 4–20 September 1964, the Slovak 6 (first from right, carrying a symbol of Christ's sufferings: the spear). National Gallery in Bratislava → [multiple authors.] Národné [ © → p. 810 ] mounted the exhibition Ján Novák, kultúrne pamiatky na Slovensku, 1921–1944. K 20. výročiu smrti okres Martin. Bratislava : Pamiatkový mladého umelca v SNP. The exhibition úrad Slovenskej republiky – Slovart, commissioner was Eva Šefčáková. 2012, p. 146; MAŤOVČÍK, Augustín – → ŠEFČÁKOVÁ, Eva. Ján Novák PARENIČKA, Pavol – ĎURIŠKA, 1921–1944 (exhibition catalogue). Zdenko. Lexikón osobností mesta Bratislava : SNG, 1964. Martin. Martin : Osveta, 2007, p. 148. 666 | 667 m cv ‹ 1935–1939 As a child he enjoyed visiting, with his grandfather, Harminc's new National Museum (design 1929, completed 1932). The terraced outdoor staircase, a continuation of the street ulica Andreja Kmeťa, led into the building with its botanical garden and school building area, also called the Slovak acropolis at Malá Hora hill. Harminc's museum situated on terraces can be seen as one of the impulses that helped form Dedeček's interest and sensibility for cascading and terraced arrangements of the school sites and cultural buildings he was later to design. Dedeček also remembers fondly visiting the summer residence that Alica Masaryková, daughter of President Tomáš Garrique Masaryk (1850–1937) had built in 1931 based on a design by the Prague architect Jan Pacel in Bystrička pri Martine. Vladimír admired the ľudová škola by the architect Vojtěch Šebor too.7 Of his other early architectural experience in Martin, he still remembers modern buildings by Blažej Bulla,8 Michal Milan Harminc,9 Emil Belluš 10 and Bohuslav Fuchs (in whose gymnazium building 11, completed in 1940, Dedeček studied). In his personal archives, he still has some undated pages of an unidentified edition of a Slovak photo-magazine with reproductions of some of his favourite Martin modern buildings. He regularly prepared advertising for the Martin cinema's illuminated show window, by engraving with a needle into ink-covered glass plates. As compensation he received tickets to all films. c He earned pocket money collecting tennis balls on courts. The librarian and amateur actress Želmíra Kuhnová 12 (née Černianska) would bring him to the courts with her. She was the wife of the architect and builder Karl Kuhn, and mother of architect Ivan Kuhn. “I earned 1 koruna – that is, 5 cream cakes – per hour.” [ V.D. ] 01 0 009 N  ew museum building designed by Michal Milan Harminc 01 1 in Martin, with stairs and terrace gardens. [ © → p. 810 ] Old and new town of Turčiansky Sv. Martin. [ © → p. 810 ] 01 2 Modern town of Turčiansky Sv. Martin. [ © → p. 810 ] 7 The school Štátna ľudová škola → [multiple authors.] Národné T. G. Masaryka was completed in 1934 kultúrne pamiatky na Slovensku, on Mudroňová street. → [multiple okres Martin. Ibid., pp. 97 and 187. authors.] Národné kultúrne pamiatky 11 na Slovensku, okres Martin. Ibid., p. 99. Bohuslav Fuchs, Klement Šilinger 8 and Ladislav Rado, Štátne reálne Blažej Bulla, Národný dom (built gymnázium v Martine (design 1888–1889) and Tatrabanka building. 1931–1936, construction 1936–1940). → [multiple authors.] Národné → for example FOLTYN, Ladislav. kultúrne pamiatky na Slovensku, Slovenská architektúra a česká okres Martin. Ibid., p. 83. avantgarda 1918–1939. Bratislava : 9 SAS, 1993; and HLAVAJ, Jozef. Martin. Michal Milan Harminc, Slovenské Stavebný obraz mesta (O výstavbe národné múzeum (cornerstone laid Martina do roku 1960). Bratislava : 1907). → [multiple authors.] Národné SAS, 1994. kultúrne pamiatky na Slovensku, 12 okres Martin. Ibid. KUHNOVÁ, Želmíra, née Černianska 10 (dictionary entry). In: MAŤOVČÍK, Emil Belluš, Obchodná, peňažná Augustín – PARENIČKA, Pavol – a obytná budova Mestskej sporiteľne ĎURIŠKA, Zdenko. Lexikón osobností with reliefs by Vlado Štefunko and mesta Martin /cited in Note 6 /, p. 148. Jaroslav Vodrážka (built 1936–1937). 668 | 669 m cv 1940 1943 1943–1946 c After successful entrance examinations, he began study at the Československé štátne reformné reálne gymnázium in Martin (currently Gymnázium Viliama Paulinyho-Tótha). Lower-year curricula were comparable to those of Realschule, usually without study of classical languages. In the upper years, besides German the students studied Latin, French 13 and one other language: English, Italian or a foreign Slavic language. In eighth and ninth years, study was divided into a humanities branch including Latin, and a sciences branch with descriptive geometry; Vladimír joined the latter. The graduates of this type of gymnazium were eligible for universities and institutes of technology. Theological faculties would in addition require examinations in Greek. Such “reform gymnaziums” were a kind of First Czechoslovak Republic prototype for the modern unified system of gymnazium education. The architect Fuchs' gymnazium building in Martin functionally differentiated teaching in different wings, with “general” classrooms and specialized classrooms, and a separate sports wing. Terraces and spaces for breaks on upper floors opened onto outdoor terraces on the school wings' flat roof. At the age of thirteen, he was issued a labourer's identification book and went to work for the State Cadastre Measurement Office, based at Záturčie. As part of the ongoing land consolidation, he worked with a group of surveyors' assistants. He would help the surveyor measure polygons and prepared, set and embedded stone survey markers. Vladimír visited private lectures by the Jesuit and sociologist Stjepan Tomislav Poglajen-Kolaković 14 in Martin. In 1943 Kolaković had fled here from Croatian and Italian fascists in Sarajevo. With the intention of getting to Russia and there facilitating relations with the Vatican, he worked in secret in the First Czechoslovak Republic (1918–1939), the wartime Slovak Republic (1939–1945) and then in the reborn Czechoslovak Republic until summer 1946, when Kolaković's Slovak and Czech cooperators – members of the Rodina [Family] Roman Catholic society – began to be arrested in relation to a so-called Hlinka’s Slovak People's Party conspiracy. 14 the residence hall Svoradov (Saint associates included the art historian Stjepan Tomislav Poglajen – he took Svorad), and later the umbrella and theologian Josef Zvěřina, on his mother's name of Kolaković organization Family [Rodina]. nuclear physicist Miloš Lokajíček, (b. 1906, Podgorica – d. 1990, Paris), He was supported by the Greek art scholar Růžena Vacková and priest. He studied philosophy in Catholic Bishop Peter Pavol Gojdič theologian and priest Oto Mádr. France and received a doctorate in among others. Slovakia's Rodina → LETZ, Róbert. Kolaković-Poglajen, theology in Belgium, where he was members, as part of pursuing their Stjepan Tomislav (dictionary entry). ordained as a priest. He continued lay apostolate, included the physician In: Lexikón katolíckych kňazských with postgraduate studies in Silvester Krčméry, mathematician osobností Slovenska. Bratislava : Lúč, Christian philosophy, sociology and Vladimír Jukl, Biela légia founder 2000, pp. 699–701; JABLONICKÝ, Eastern Christian spirituality in Jozef Vicen, attorney Václav Jozef. Tomislav Poglajen-Kolaković France, and at the Pontifical Oriental Vaško, physician Anton Neuwirth, na Slovensku 1943–1946. Slovenské Institute in Rome. During his mission mathematician and physicist rozhľady, 1996, 8, pp. 90–116; VAŠKO, work in Slovakia Kolaković founded Mária Pecíková, and linguist Marta Václav. Profesor Kolakovič. Bratislava : in Bratislava – in contact with the Marsinová. The priest, philosopher Charis, 1993; VAŠKO, Václav. Roman Catholic student organization and cultural historian Ladislav Neumlčená. Kronika katolické církve Ústredie slovenského katolíckeho Hanus also was member of Rodina. v Československu po druhé světové študentstva – the Frassati group at In the Czech Republic, Rodina válce. I. II. Prague : Zvon, 1990. 0 13 01 4 F  ront view of Štátne reálne gymnázium in Martin (Bohuslav Fuchs, Klement Šilinger and Ladislav Rado, project 1931–1936, construction 1936–1940). View of Štátne reálne gymnázium in Martin. [ © → p. 810 ] [ © → p. 810 ] 01 5 01 6 Interiors of Štátne reálne gymnázium in Martin. [ © → p. 810 ] 13 As Vladimír Dedeček recalls, students learned German in their first year, adding Latin in the second and French in the third. Interview, in Bratislava, autumn 2015. 670 | 671 m cv 15 1944 For more information → ŠTEFANSKÝ, [ august – september ] The resistance army organized a group of young surveyor assistants from the Záturčie worksite to dig trenches near Martin, at Vrútky-Priekopa. From there they fell back and he returned to Martin. Václav. Slovenskí vojaci v Taliansku 1943–1945. Bratislava : Ministerstvo obrany SR, 2000; LACKO, Martin. Slováci na talianskom fronte (1943– 1945). Historická revue, 22, 2011, 9, pp. 32–36 and ŠIMKO, Juraj. Slovenské  As an employee of the Cadastre Measurement Office, Vladimir Dedeček was notified he would be called up as of his upcoming 16th birthday to the 2nd Technical Division (formerly the Technical Brigade) to work on army construction projects in Italy.15 Even before his first day, he was assigned to “the German front earthwork fortifications in Slovakia's territory” [ V.D. ]. 1945 jednotky nasadené na výstavbu opevnení v Taliansku v priebehu druhej svetovej vojny a protifašistický odboj v Taliansku. In: Vojenská osveta. Spoločenskovedné semináre 2. časť. Liptovský Mikuláš : Personálny úrad OS SR, 2012, pp. 98–118. [ march – april ] Working with an armoured train unit, he joined in helping the Soviet Army build wooden bridges over the River Váh between Turany and Sučany. “The advancing Czechoslovak army took me on, and made me a carrier of munitions and of the wounded at Martinské Hole.” [ V.D. ] [ june – august ] He participated in demining and reconstruction work on roads and railways around Martin. He returned to the Martin gymnazium, where during the war a field hospital was set up. 1947 He joined the Czechoslovak-Soviet Friendship Association (Slovak abbrev. ZČSSP). 16 A cultural treaty, called Deklarácia o vedeckých, literárnych a školských stykoch z 30. apríla 1923 a Dodatkový protokol z 8. decembra 1945, His favourite foreign language became French, and his favourite high school teachers the admired French and Latin teacher Dr. Jozef Hrabovský and the teacher of Slovak language Dominik Tatarka, who in the late 1930s studied at the Parisian Sorbonne. Under his influence, Vladimír decided to attempt studies at the same university. At the Martin gymnazium Dedeček passed the national competition for a place in the Czechoslovak sections of French lycée,16 from where he hoped to continue studying at the Sorbonne in history or sociology. Ján Mazúr, a member of the local authorities and relative on his mother's side, and a founding member of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia in Martin, blocked approval of his passport. (“'We need men like you at home. You'll get over this anti-communism of yours,' he told me. But I wasn't an anti-communist and I didn't become a communist. I never joined any political party.” [ V.D. ]) Under pressure from his mother, the authorities ultimately gave him the passport, but he arrived in Prague too late. An alternate took his place to study on state scholarship in Paris. So he and his suitcase full of the prescribed “kit” for an élève travelled to Prague, then back to Martin. governed the organization of Czechoslovak sections of lycée schools in France, and the granting of Czechoslovak government stipends. For the 1945/46 academic year, Czechoslovak lycée sections were reinstated in Dijon, Nîmes, Saint-Germain-en-Laye and Angouleme. These were dissolved two years later, when Czechoslovakia suspended sending students to France, and called home those already studying. → RAKOVÁ, Zuzana. Les sections lycéennes tchécoslovaques et tchèques en France: 1920–2009. Romanica Olomucensia, 21, 2009, 2, pp. 175–183, also at: <http://www.dijon-nimes. eu/historie-cs-a-ceskych-sekci-vefrancii/>, retrieved summer 2015. 17 → PECHAR, Josef – URLICH, Petr. Programy české architektury. Prague : Odeon, 1981, p. 301. c [ 12 july ] The Union of Architects of the Czechoslovak Republic [Únia architektov ČSR] was established in Brno, as decided by delegates from the Central Society of Architects' regional organizations from Bohemia, Moravia and Slovakia. A variety of architectural organizations * became members of this Union. The Union's honorary chairmen were Dušan Jurkovič and Oldřich Starý. A six-member presidency with equal representation of Czechs, Moravians and Slovaks headed the Union: Jaroslav Pokorný (chair), František Maria Černý, Emil Belluš, V.[?] Kuba, Václav Rozšlapil, Eugen Kramár and Jiří Štursa. A year later, the Union became part of the larger fine arts organization Central Association of Czechoslovak Fine Artists.17 * Blok architektonických pokrokových spolkov (BAPS, reformed in 1946), Ústredie moravskosliezskych architektov, and Ústredie architektov na Slovensku (previously Spolok architektov Slovenska or Society of Architects in Slovakia, chaired from 1946 by Eugen Kramár) [ october ] Ján Štefanec became chairman of the Society of Architects in Slovakia. 672 | 673 m cv 1948 › [ 17–25 february ] The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia seized power in the country, under Party Chairman, and later Prime Minister and President Klement Gottwald. [ march ] The Communist Party set up action committees of architects in Slovakia, and a Central Action Committee in Prague. One of its members for Slovakia was Dr. Martin Kusý, who had graduated in architecture from Prague and Vienna polytechnics. He also became the new chairman of the Architects' Society of Slovakia (ASA; Slov.: Spolok architektov Slovenska, SAS). [ 5 april ] Architectural planning and design offices were nationalized in Slovakia, becoming people’s state property. In Bratislava, the precursor to the state project design organization Stavoprojekt, under the name Typizačný a normalizačný ústav [Institute for typification and standardization], began functioning.18 This institution, in keeping with the retroactive Act on Nationalization in Construction, which became valid 23 days later, was in June of the same year – like all other architectural projects and construction – incorporated into the newly-formed Czechoslovak Building Concern [Československé stavebné závody (ČSSZ)]. Karel Janů was named its general director in Prague (serving 1948–1951), having been a member in the 1930s of the student avant-garde leftist group Pracovná architektonická skupina (PAS, together with Jiří Voženílek and Jiří Štursa) and employed by the Projekčné oddelenia of the Baťa construction unit in Zlín (named Gottwaldov from 1949). c [ 10–11 april ] Architectural action committee members participated in the National Culture Congress gathering in the grand hall of the nationalized Palác Lucerna19 in Prague. Ing. arch. Miroslav Kouřil did work for the gathering's planning committee, and the architects Jaroslav Fragner and Jiří Kroha attended the plenary session – the latter presenting a short piece representing the Brno technique employees. At the second day's session, Ing. arch. Jaroslav Pokorný presented for the Action Committee of Czechoslovak Architects.20 He also read out an Action Committee proclamation, acknowledging that the ongoing nationalization changed both the tasks and the role of formerly private client/developers: “The public, the nation, the people in general have taken the place of the individual. The will of the people has delegated and will delegate the tasks of socialist construction projects... The satisfaction of such a task demands the establishment of harmonic balance between organs that create cultural values and organs purely technological, for in socialism technology is a means and human beings the goal.” 21 As a result, the process of project planning (design) was to be separated from realization (industrializing construction). The gathering also heard information on the abolition of “outmoded” activity by the hitherto functioning Society of Architects organizations, and the establishment of the unified Union of Architects of ČSR [Únia architektov ČSR]. Nationalizing private architectural offices paved the way for establishing collective “national architecture studios”. An “architectural council” was to be incorporated as their supreme organ under the State Economy Council. This was to secure concurrency with the state's economic plan. In addition to design, these studios were to work in research, particularly in “... the broader sociological and cultural prerequisites of the architectural work”.22 This presentation by the architect Pokorný at this early gathering sketched out the direction of Czechoslovakia's upcoming Socialist Realist architecture: “The interest of all people enables them [architects] to apply all the logic and wisdom of folk construction of the past in their architectural work, and release the untapped creative forces, experience and stimuli of construction workers and craftsmen, their collaborators in realization.” 23 In a related article on the gathering, the architect and scenographer Miroslav Kouřil, head of the culture division of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia and from 1935 to 1941 a close theatre collaborator of E. F. Burian (a co-creator of theatergraph [theater + biograph]24), wrote: “Here the architect can with pride enumerate his share in this fight, ever waged against the vacuous Americanizing business template type and economy, building frugally apportioned space that yet inspires self-confidence. We need not ad nauseam conjure with the terms typification and standardization. To enjoy the riches of our labor our people wants spaces in which to feel free and happy, not cramped by poorly applied technique. On this path together with the people, architects want to contribute their share of the work. They will hearken to the people and learn from the people. They will learn the wisdom of the house-keeper that accepts divergent opinions if they are right, and cast away all that runs counter to free and good sense.” 25 Such were the early hopes of leftist avant-garde and Marxist architects of the non-technocrat and freeing role of standardization and typification architecture in the nascent socialist state. These however were to differ from how the typification institutions were founded and managed, and from how centralized authority was to be operating. 18 Dr. Martin Kusý dates the origin of socialist architectural planning and design in Slovakia from this day. 19 → HAVEL, Václav Miloš. Mé vzpomínky. Prague : NLN, s. r. o., 1993, p. 327. 20 → Sjezd národní kultury 1948. Sbírka dokumentů. Prague : Orbis, 1948, pp. 51–52. 21 POKORNÝ, Jaroslav. [Zjazdový referát] Sjezd národní kultury 1948. Sbírka dokumentů. Ibid., p. 204. 22 Ibid., p. 205. 23 Ibid., p. 206. 24 Also known as a “cinematograph”: procedures for theatrical staging of a projected image (film, slides, light) together with actors onstage. → KOUŘIL, Miroslav – LORMANOVÁ, Jarmila (eds.). Prolongomena scénografické encyklopedie. Prague : Knihovna divadelního prostoru, 1971, 94 pages. 25 KOUŘIL, Miroslav. Architekti a sjezd národní kultury. Lidová demokracie, 10. 4. 1948. Republished as: Sjezd národní kultury 1948. Sbírka dokumentů. Ibid., p. 45. 26 Act 121/148 on nationalization in construction. It was followed by 58/1951, altering and amending the act on nationalization in construction. Accessible at: <http://zakony.centrum.cz>, retrieved July 2015. 27 Maturita examination results. Photocopy. Personal archives of Vladimír Dedeček. 28 DEDEČEK, Vladimír. Životopis. Signed by hand, 26 November 1987. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Zbierka architektúry, dizajnu a úžitkového umenia SNG. [ 28 april ] The aforementioned Act on nationalization in construction became valid: “As of 1 January 1948 the nationalization will become effective of firms providing any manner of construction service as authorized by business licence or regulation on civil technicians (civil engineers and civil surveyors), provided the number of employees has reached fifty at any time after 1 January 1946”.26 [ 3 june ] Vladimír graduated from the Martin gymnazium: “Having satisfied the legal requirements, the examination commission acknowledges Vladimír Dedeček as mature and prepared with distinction to register as a proper matriculant at a technical university and a university faculty of natural sciences.” 27 During high school studies, besides his favoured French he mainly focused on Latin and German, and less on English. He taught himself Russian. In his later professional CVs as a Stavoprojekt employee, he initially gave his language abilities in the order of French, German and Russian, and later German, then French, and Russian.28 017 With friends from Štátne reálne gymnázium in Martin (second from left). [ © → p. 810 ] 01 8 01 9 Maturita examination results. [ © → p. 810 ] 674 | 675 m cv 29 Purist architect Jaroslav Čermák ‹ 1948 (b. 1901, Plzeň – d. 1990, Prague). He studied at the Prague Polytechnical Institute (1921–1929), and designed Church of the Sacred Heart in  He met the Purist architect Jaroslav Čermák 29 of Prague, who worked in Martin after the liberation on the reconstruction of the Roman Catholic Church of Saint Martin. Together with his conversations with the painter Záborský, this meeting helped him decide to become an architect. He applied to the architecture and construction department (formed in the 1946/47 academic year) at the Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava, and was accepted based on his final examination results from the gymnazium. Malý Beranov (design 1936, built 1938–1939); Church of Saint Vojtech (Saint Adalbert) in České Budějovice (design 1938, built 1938–1939) and Church of Saint John Nepomuk in Prague-Košíře (design 1938, built 1941–1942). He also designed wooden churches, including the interior and altar of Church of Saint Francis in Prague-Krč (design 1940, construction 1941, construction by Karel Hruška). His main work was renovation and [ summer 1948 ( and 1949) ] Dedeček participated in construction of the Trať mládeže railway line from Hronská Dúbrava to Banská Štiavnica (no. 154). The international organization Slovak Youth Association (founded 1947) arranged for post-war assistance from youth in reviving the incomplete rail line to Štiavnica. Dr. Gustáv Husák as the leading minister in Slovakia ceremonially initiated construction on 1 April 1948. Domestic and foreign youth workers worked on excavating and steel bridge construction over the River Hron, and built the Beliansky and Kozelnícky viaducts and the Banskoštiavnický (Kolpašský) tunnel.30 The line was put into operation at a ceremony on 29 October 1949 in the presence of the first labourer-class president of Czechoslovakia Klement Gottwald, trained as a carpenter (elected president on 14 June 1948 after Edvard Beneš' resignation). Vladimír Dedeček received a badge as socialist shock worker on the Trať mládeže line. “We were an interesting bunch of youth. We worked all week, singing communist songs, and on Sundays some of us would get together and, still singing – and in our line workers' uniforms – we'd go to church in Štiavnica.” [ V.D. ] refurbishment of churches. Many of his designs were never built. → TOMAN, Prokop. Nový slovník československých výtvarných umělců I. (A–K). Prague : Tvar, 1947, p. 72. → also ŠVÁCHA, Rostislav. Od moderny k funkcionalismu. Prague : Victoria Publishing, 1995, pp. 412 and 525. 30 [multiple authors.] Trať mládeže: sborník o práci brigád Československého sväzu mládeže na stavbe trati Hronská Dúbrava – Banská Štiavnica. Bratislava : Smena, 1950, 237 pages. 31 Štefan Lukačovič's brother was Jozef Lukačovič (b. 1902, Trnava – d. 1991, Bratislava), the priest and politician. After 1949, he held the minister-level posts for technology, construction and communication. After the reorganization of ministries in 1960 he was a deputy of the legislative bodies for Slovakia and Czechoslovakia. → PEŠEK, Jan (ed.). Aktéri jednej éry na Slovensku 1948–1989. Prešov : Vydavateľstvo Michala Vaška, 2003; ĎURICA, Milan S. – HAĽKO, Jozef – HIŠEM, Cyril – CHALUPECKÝ, Ivan – JUDÁK, Viliam – KOLLÁR, Pavol – KOVÁČ, Michal A. – DLUGOŠ, František – KAČÍREK, Ľuboš – LETZ, Róbert. Lexikón katolíckych kňazských osobností Slovenska. Bratislava : Lúč, 2000. 32 Later “Krajský projektový ústav miest a dedín”, still later “Mestský projektový ústav”, and ultimately an independent organization, the národný podnik [national enterprise] “Stavoprojekt”. 33 KUSÝ, Martin. Časť druhá 1948–1981. I. Od february 1948 do založenia Zväzu architektov na Slovensku. 1948–1953. 020 021 022 In: KUSÝ, Martin (autor and ed.). Prezident Klement Gottwald on the Trať mládeže railway line Zväz slovenských architektov. Tridsaťtri at Hronská Dúbrava. [ © → p. 810 ] rokov vo výstavbe socializmu (študijná Commencement of transportation on the Trať mládeže railway line. [ © → p. 810 ] c úloha ZSA). Bratislava, September 1981, typewritten, p. 38. 34 Ibid., p. 66. [ september ] A socialist project planning and design system was initiated in Prague, i.e. the Prague forerunner of the state-owned architectural organization Stavoprojekt: the Regional Architectural Studio [Krajský architektonický ateliér, abbrev.: KAA]. It is usually to this time that its establishment in all of Czechoslovakia is dated. The first KAA director was Jiří Voženílek, author of the city of Zlín's regulation plan, another of Baťa's former architects. Since studying architecture at the Czech polytechnic in Prague he became first a member of the architecture section of the leftist intellectual group Združení české pokrokové inteligence Levá fronta (“Left Front”, in 1929) and later the spun-off architecture student section: Pracovní architektonická skupina (PAS, 1931–1939, with Karel Janů and Jiří Štursa). He worked for the Baťa design office headed by Vladimír Karfík. Later Voženílek was the founder and first director of the architectural research institute Výskumný ústav výstavby a architektúry (VÚVA, 1952) in Prague, and in 1956 had a leading position in the State Committee for Construction. At the same time in Slovakia, regional architecture bureaus were established in what became regional seats. In September Dr. Martin Kusý became director of the Bratislava region seat. After opening the bureau, at year's end he named Štefan Lukačovič 31 the first director of the regional studio 32 (KAA) in Bratislava. Later the names of these regional institutions, and their territorial differentiation, was to change in keeping with the reorganization of regions and project planning throughout the country. Gradually, many of these institutions were named according to planning and design work for individual industries (Hutný project for metallurgy, Banský project for mining, Chemoproject for chemicals, Hydroproject for waterworks, etc) and later for ministries. This was one reason Stavoprojekt started specializing in residential and civic buildings after 1951, and after 1953 separated into independent regional project institutes.33 In 1981, the founder Dr. Kusý wrote of the situation of the first collectivization of project planning in Slovakia: “Objections to the status quo proliferated on many sides. They came out against assigning Stavoprojekt – in fact the whole planning and design sector in general – to Czechoslovak construction concerns – i.e. to the sector of production. There were also those against assigning architects to Central Association of Czechoslovak Fine Artists, but also against the very expression of architecture and even its dry rational line as initiated by Stavoprojekt, mainly in their publication of required type catalogues, and even against designing by the Socialist Realism method. In short people were opposing things on every side.” 34 [ 7 december ] Dedeček matriculated at the University of Technology in Bratislava at the architecture and construction department. At the time, this university functioned in various residential buildings and other provisional sites in town: “I would go to this wooden house by Blumentál Church, where the school canteen was, and all around I saw nothing but broken-down houses. You went along Krížna street and all around there were ruins. If you went looking for the city, it didn't start until you got to the Avion residential neighbourhood.” [ V.D. ] The architectural institutes were at Tolstého street 1, where Prof. Vladimír Karfík guided the students themselves in building a roof addition housing drafting studios. As a university student, Dedeček began drafting as an assistant to Herbert Zrnovský. The latter was an architect and director of the industrial architecture studio Návrhové stredisko pre priemyselné stavby (having worked 1945–1947 at the firm of Eugen Kramár and Štefan Lukačovič) and Zrnovský's deputy, the architect Jaroslav Železný from Brno. Dedeček drafted the project for the building permission for their Plant administrative building in Nitra-Krškany, and the execution project with detailing for their Automated bakery in Bratislava-Východná stanica (currently Bratislava-Rača, Východné district). Also working for them at the time was the architect Světla Franců (later Karfíková), who would later also specialize in school buildings. 023 Matriculation letter of Vladimír Dedeček as a student of the architecture and construction department at the Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava. [ © → p. 810 ] 676 | 677 m cv 1949–1950  After the Návrhové stredisko was incorporated into Stavoprojekt, as a student Dedeček went to work at this newly-established institution. On a recommendation by Prof. Alfréd Piffl the same year, after his first state examination, he received a better-paid position as teacher of architectural history and architectural drafting (1950–1952) at the secondary vocational school for construction in Bratislava. During roughly his last semester of study, he did drafting work as an assistant to Ing. arch. Gabriel Schreiber. Based on sketches and technical drawings in 1:100 and 1:200 scale, he drew up execution projects (M 1:50) and architectural detailing for the Stavoprojekt building at the corner of the streets Cukrová and 29. augusta in Bratislava, based on Miloš Chlup's design. He was later to work in the same building as an architect, until his retirement in the late 1990s. 35 DEDEČEK, Vladimír – MIŇOVSKÝ, Rudolf. Typizácia (študijná úloha ZSA). [Stavoprojekt – ZSA : Bratislava]. Typewritten, November 1958, p. 16. Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 36–37 Ibid., p. 3. 38 KARFÍK, Vladimír – KARFÍKOVÁ, Světla – MARCINKA, Marián. Nové smery vo výstavbe škôl. Bratislava : Vydavateľstvo Slovenského fondu c výtvarných umení, 1963, p. 187.  The centralized State Typification Institute [Státní typisační ústav (STU)] for typification was founded in Prague. Groups of architects in Stavoprojekt offices throughout Czechoslovakia were delegated design of type buildings for mass i­ ndustriallevel construction. Each ministry would prepare instructions for Typification Studies (literally: Typification tasks [Typizačné úlohy]). The Architects' Association regularly ordered all kinds of Typification research studies. STU made a centralized “analysis of results” (systematizing types based on prototypes), and with both its internal and other external architects would propose its own prototype or type buildings of all kinds. Once approved, the principles of typification, typification projects and their parts were from 1950 published in Typification Regulations [Typizačné smernice], by STU together with relevant ministries. These directives included approval protocols with data on zoning, degree of stringency and period of use. The possible degrees of stringency were: binding (obligatory), advisable (recommended) and guidelines. All project planning in Czechoslovakia was subject to these regulations. After the country was federalized (The Constitutional Act on the Czechoslovak Federation, 1968), the regulations could have shared or distinct period of use in the Czech and/or Slovak Republics. In the 1950s, Bratislava's Stavoprojekt designed recurring (repeatable) projects for educational buildings, later types of whole buildings' mass and volume, and still later types of individually differentiated building sectors and construction or construction elements. These were mainly floor plan types (types of planar disposition or arrangement [Slov. “dispozičný typ”]), designed for prescribed school localization programs, and less often morphological types. Buildings for a specific region were designed as regional adaptations of types. In mountainous and major tourist areas, individually customized atypical designs were usually designed. Residential and health service buildings were the earliest priorities, and the main considerations monitored were initially purely economic. What resulted was incomplete series of building types and categories, with small volume and limited variability – including the infamous unequipped apartments with no detailing called “bare types” [“holotypy”]. In 1958 Vladimír Dedeček and Rudolf Miňovský characterized, in their research study on typification, these early blocks of flats as “Buildings without architecture with an economizing layout”.35 They considered the first phase of typification (1950–1955) marked by three basic “shortages”: 1. of qualified architects, 2. of qualified builders, and 3. of construction materials, “... necessitating maximum economy in designing”.36 “In such a situation, typification appears a universal solution to these problems (theoretically! – we will have something more to say of shortages in future).” 37 The development and innovation of types called for testing, verification of prototypes in practice, and preparation of new typified and non-typified (atypical) buildings – i.e. for continual experimentation. Therefore verifying experiments were an integral part of typification. On occasion (for prioritized, noteworthy or representative state buildings) there could also be developed heuristic experiments in which architects could formulate – with sociologists, psychologists, philosophers and artists – the new architectural tasks, programs and spaces of the period's socialist architecture. As the authors (Karfík, Karfíková and Marcinka) formulated it in the context of educational buildings, in their book New Directions in School Construction [Nové smery vo výstavbe škôl] in the chapter Typified and experimental schools, “The principle of 'achieving uniformity of quality rather than diversity among just a few excellent buildings' is expressed in the school building charter of the International Union of Architects (UIA). Typification ensures stabilization, for the set period of three to five years, of planar disposition and construction. This means that progress in building types takes place in developmental leaps. So there is a danger of developments stagnating for quite some time. A compensation for this negative side effect would be to introduce any technological advance, where possible immediately, into existing typification documentation. The period for which a type is in use ought to be used for preparation, documentation and research on a new type, and verification in prototype construction. Moreover, in thorough application of type designing, a certain percentage of buildings is expedited [built] based on e x p e r i m e n t a l p r o j e c t s. These are entrusted to research and study institutes, universities and design organizations with the best scientific and artistic-architectural conditions.” 38 678 | 679 m cv 1952 › 024 [ 3 june ] Vladimír Dedeček passed his second state examination with B  uilding of Pavilion of Theoretical Institutes in Bratislava, distinction.40 After defending his thesis he completed his which housed the University of Technology's Faculty of Architecture architecture studies, earning the title Ing. and Building Construction. [ © → p. 810 ] His thesis, with Prof. Emil Belluš, proposed an Exhibition pavilion for the Slovak National Gallery, on the square Kamenné námestie (formerly Steinplatz, later Kyjevské námestie) in Bratislava. Prof. Belluš was at the time verifying this former park for the SNG addition; currently it is the site of the Prior department store 41 (after 1989 it was to become Tesco) and Hotel Kyjev 42 by a younger student of Belluš', Ivan Matušík. Under Belluš, Dedeček graduated together with Jozef Fabianek, Tibor Horniak, Ferdinand Konček, Mária Krukovská and Ľubomír Titl. Dedeček proposed a gallery pavilion in the city park as a two-storey hall (with sculpture gallery located on the first floor and painting gallery on the second). The drawings are not extant, but the architect recalls it had a functionalist plan, variable exhibition spaces, and a classicizing columned porticus around the entire pavilion; this was in the spirit of the first, Stalinist phase of Socialist Realism, which Belluš W  ith classmates during measuring and documention of the late Romanesque reconsidered with his students at the faculty before the purges of the 1950s.43 Church of the Virgin Mary in Bíňa, damaged So his thesis interrelated a functionally differentiated gallery floor plan in the war, renovated 1951–1955 (top row type with a museum as a morphological type of classic “art temple”. Dedeček from left: Miroslav Janček, Ivan Vaníček, would later draw on and transform this in his first version of the aula Iľja Skoček sr, Oto (Otto) Wiesner, and maxima at the campus of the University of Agriculture in Nitra / → p. 388 /. Eduard Horváth; bottom row from left: → k seg 5 025  Dedeček completed his studies in Bratislava's newly-built Faculty of Architecture and Building Construction, the two upper floors of the technological university's Pavilion of Theoretical Institutes (design 1947–1948, execution project up to 1949–1951, construction 1948–1953 39), designed by the faculty's founder Prof. Emil Belluš. With other faculty students, Dedeček dug the foundation for this building. (This is the origin of the “Lords” nickname of two classmates from Belluš' studio who did not join in the work Ľubomír Titl and Ferdinand Konček; the nickname stuck within Stavoprojekt and spread to another schoolmate of theirs from the Prague academy who became another member of their architecture studio, Iľja Skoček sr, and beyond the original sarcastic sense took on a finer meaning with regard to the quality of their designs). Jozef Vinclér (Winkler), Vladimír Dedeček with clown nose and mustache in the star formed of wooden rules, and Alexander Valentovič. [ © → p. 810 ] 0 26 Document on passing the exam in History of (Ancient Greek and Roman) Architecture, with a mark of excellent, from Prof. Piffl. [ © → p. 810 ] 0 27 Document on passing the second state exam. [ © → p. 810 ] 02 8 Graduation announcement. [ © → p. 810 ] c 11 39 Dated according to ZERVAN, Marian – BENCOVÁ, Jarmila. Belluš škole a škola Bellušovi. FA STU : Bratislava, 1999, pp. 4–13. 40 In 1952, the specialization “A” (for Architecture) saw the graduation of 84 individuals besides Dedeček: Václav Ambrož; Ladislav Beisetzer; Miroslav Begán; Štefan Belohradský; Jozef Beniak; Ján Bóna; Pavol BoudaKoch; Katarína Bouda-Kochová; Alena Cafourková (neskôr Šrámková); Mária Černá, rod. Kresáková; Pavol Čupka; Alojz Dařiček; Vlastimil Dohnal; Mikuláš Dolský; Jaroslav Drobný; Alexander Dubecký; Stanislav Dúbravec; Štefan Ďurkovič; Jozef Fabianek; Vladimír Fašang; Vojtech Fifik; Alexander Füry; Ján Gaži; Štefan Gabriel; Eugen Gejmovský; Štefan Holka; Juraj Hocman; Milan Hodoň; Tibor Horniak; Eduard Horváth; Tibor Hrabko; Oľga Hudecová; Koloman Chochol; Ján Chochula; Miroslav 029 Janček; Karol Király; Barna Kissling; Emil Belluš in sculls on the Danube. [ © → p. 810 ] František Kiššík; Ján Klamárik; Milan Kodoň; Ferdinand Konček; Anton 030 Vladimír Karfík with wife Jaroslava in a Baťa company airplane. [ © → p. 810 ] Kopernický; Ivan Korec; Elemír Köver; Rudolf Krajíček; Mária Krukovská; Jozef Kubášek; Dušan Kuzma; Karol Lachký; Július Langsfeld; Ján Lichner; Karol Luhan; Daniel Majzlík; Viktor Melcer; Jindřich Merganc; Bertold Miček; Ivan Michalec; Jozef Miliczky; Vladimír Milly; Jozef Minárik; Alžbeta Miššíková, rod. Schwantzerová; Oskár Mondík; Martin Oríšek; Pavol Paroulek; Jaromír Pokorný; Jozef Riják; Anton Rokošný; Mária Rothová; Pavel Severín; Emanuel Schiller; Cyril Sirotný; Iľja Skoček; Gejza Sohár; Štefan Sojka; Pavol Summer; Ľubomír Titl; Jozef Tuhela; Ivan Vaníček; Alexander Valentovič; Emil 0 32 Student projects displayed at the Faculty (unidentified model; Palace of Music [Palác hudobného Vician; Jozef Vinclér; Oto Wiesner; umenia] project plans in the background); from left professors Emil Belluš, Jan E. Koula, Gabriel Čeněk Jozef Zábojník; Ladislav Zuggó. and Vladimír Karfík with son and daughter. [ © → p. 810 ] → [unsigned.] Zoznam absolventov odboru architektúra 1950–1996. ALFA. Architektonické listy FA STU, 11, 2007, 3, pp. 41–42. 41 Dated: Competition project on Kamenné námestie, 1960. Project for Obchodného domu Prior in Bratislava 1961–1963, construction: 1964–1968. In: ZERVAN, Marian. Ivan Matušík. Architektonické dielo (exhibition catalogue). Bratislava : SAS, 1995, 031 K  arel Hannauer in his car in Karlovy Vary. pp. 14, 32. [ © → p. 810 ] 42 Dated: Project for Hotel Kyjev in Bratislava 1960–1968, construction: 034 0 33 Emil Belluš (in beret) during May Day celebrations in 1958 in front of Pavilion of Theoretical Institutes in Bratislava. [ © → p. 810 ] 1968–1973. In: Ibid., pp. 15, 32. Profesor Lukačovič as director of 43 Stavoprojekt opening the UIA exhibiton BELLUŠ, Emil. Teória architektonickej in Bratislava. [ © → p. 810 ] tvorby II. Stavby sociálne, kultúrne, zdravotnícke, telovýchovné a športové (course text). Bratislava : Štátne nakladateľstvo in Bratislava, 1951. 680 | 681 m cv ‹ 1952 [ 1 august ] Ing. Dedeček started as a “junior architect” for architectural detailing at Stavoprojekt in Bratislava – Studio II for educational buildings – in the group of the deputy head of the studio, Ing. arch. Ján Sturmayr. In Bratislava's Saint Martin's Cathedral, he married the art historian Oľga Frolová (b. 26. December 1929 in Ružomberok). When younger, her interests were beekeeping with her father and astronomy. She studied at Comenius University's Faculty of Arts in Bratislava, completing state exams in art history and education (for teaching French and art). She was among the founding generation of curators for the Slovak National Gallery in Bratislava, and from the Gallery's founding (1948) worked as a curator for the print collection.44 From February 1959 until 1980 she was a housewife. After 1980 she worked in the State Central Archives of the Slovak Socialist Republic, and later in the State Company for Administration Rationalization and Computing [Podnik racionalizácie riadenia a výpočtovej techniky]. The Dedeček family lived first in Bratislava-Rača, then on Sibírska street in the “Februárka” housing estate (currently Račianska), and last in a row house in Bratislava-Dúbravka on Hanulová street (project architect Ivan Hojsík, ŠPTÚ Bratislava, 1973; modifications by Vladimír Dedeček; interior designed by Jaroslav Nemec; construction 1974–1980). 035 T  he only “wedding photograph” of Vladimír Dedeček and Oľga Frolová – reflected in mirror photographed in rented flat, currently the building of Academy of Fine Arts on Hviezdoslavovo námestie square in Bratislava. [ © → p. 810 ] 037 Oľga Dedečková, née Frolová (at right) with her colleague, the art historian Ľudmila Peterajová. [ © → p. 810 ] c 03 6 The Slovak National Gallery's founding generation on a Water Barracks balcony (fourth from left Dr. Vojtech Mensatoris, Dr. Karol Vaculík (director), Dr. Ľudmila Peterajová, and second from right Dr. Oľga Dedečková). [ © → p. 810 ] [ 1 october ] He started his mandatory military service in the Czechoslovak People's Army, initially in the “Žažkovský” 5th corps of engineers battalion in Kadaň. He then attended the military School for Reserve Officers, established in 1951–1953 in the 64th engineers' battalion in Sereď. He completed the yearlong supplementary officers' course with the ceremonial promotion d’ officers as reserve officer. He was assigned as a sub-lieutenant to the Javorina unit in eastern Slovakia, where he was responsible for demolition work and construction of temporary military structures, mainly bunkers and bridges (“What wood is, what concrete is, what steel is, how you weld a bridge together – all that I learned during military service.” [V.D.]). By the end of his service he was commanding a mechanized bridge work squad (steel and wood) and a special squad of carpenters in Borinka. He used his wooden structure experience even after joining Stavoprojekt: he designed a wooden log building for a primary school in Borinka (design 1954; building taken apart). He further drew on his experience with wooden log structures in later projects, initially designing together with Rudolf Miňovský for the High Tatras and later in his solo work: “Houses of 'wooden columns and beams' – I was trying to keep to this tradition. It was always basic geometric shapes based in wood. This is what I thought of as specific to our country's circumstances. 039 In the field. [ © → p. 810 ] But maybe I had it wrong. We also have stone houses and clay houses... We have more than one tradition. I love Kuzma's memorial [to the Slovak National Uprising in Banská Bystrica], that's one of our finest buildings. But that's not how I built. I'm not an artist. I'm a carpenter in an age of concrete.” [ V.D. ] ‘But you and Kuzma both designed modern buildings. Many modern architects – Wagner, Perret, Le Corbusier – thought, and Hannauer taught you, that modern architecture can interrelate technology and science with poetry, with art.’ [ M.M. ] “Historically, architects were craftsmen and builders. Master Pavol of Levoča was a [Middle Age] wood-carver and an artist. Craft became an art. But as Wagner or Loos have said, an architect is a craftsman who's learned Latin.” [ V.D. ] ‘And why was it that of all the things in wooden structures you came to choose the bevelled tree trunk, the wooden cuboid?’ [ M.M. ] “Because the form had to be differentiated. Like 038 As a soldier in the Czechoslovak People's Army, with the Gallery. I couldn't make flat facades. Next in the uniform and shoulder insignia of the corps to the Hotel Devín 45 and the building by Fuchs 46, of engineers showing the symbol of sapper's and carpenter's tools. [ © → p. 810 ] that would be silly – the SNG office building was supposed to jump out from them. I didn't feel [architecture] in flat, planar geometry, metaphorically speaking. I felt this wooden beam – a building component – for every floor. You can place a wooden block horizontally, vertically or incline it. This is also the basis for ancient Greek and Roman architecture. You can't take wood out of building. Wood is primal material. Every father used to buy wooden spans for his son, when he was 10 or fifteen years old the beams for the son's future house were curing in the courtyard. Almost all a Greek temple's components, too, are of wood. And the table: for sacrifice or for every day, a table is wooden. The bridges we built [during the war] had wooden elements – for me, this was a worker's natural material. The timbering of excavations and pitches was also wooden. I designed my first school in Borinka in wood, that was a log cabin. Wood is a basic element.” [ V.D. ] n. 001 04 0 In Nové Mesto n. Váhom. [ © → p. 810 ] 44 → for example DEDEČKOVÁ, Oľga. Významná úloha grafickej zbierky SNG. Výtvarný život, 2, 1957, 3, pp. 84–86. 45 Hotel Devín designed by Emil Belluš, project 1949–1950, built by 1954. Dated according to KUBIČKOVÁ, Klára – ZAJKOVÁ, Anna. Emil Belluš. Architektonické dielo (exhibition catalogue). Bratislava : SNG a Vydavateľstvo Tatran, 1989, unpaginated. 46 Nájomný dom s malými bytmi designed by Bohuslav Fuchs, project 1935, built 1936, Ulica PaulinyhoTótha street no. 12 / Hviezdoslavovo námestie square no. 7. Dated according to FOLTYN, Ladislav. Slovenská architektúra a česká avantgarda 1918–1939. Bratislava : SAS, 1993, pp. 171–172. 682 | 683 m cv 1953 [ 2–5 july ] The first state-wide conference of Czech and Slovak architects in Prague established, as part of the artists' organization Association of Czechoslovak Visual Artists, the Association of Czechoslovak Architects (Zväz československých architektov, Slovak abbrev. ZČA). Jaroslav Fragner became the ZČA chairman, and the organization functioned in this way until 1956. A conference of the Association of Slovak Architects (Zväz slovenských architektov, Slovak abbrev. ZSA) in Bratislava elected Ján Svetlík chairman. 1954 [ 1 october ] Dedeček chose not to accept an offer to remain in the army, and after briefly hesitating (he also considered moving to eastern Slovakia to work for Stavoprojekt in Prešov [currently Stavoprojekt s.r.o. Prešov]) he agreed to a suggestion by Rudolf Miňovský, head of Studio II for educational buildings, to return to Stavoprojekt in Bratislava. This specialized studio had at the Ministry of Education, Science and Arts' request been founded in the 1951/1952 academic year (split off from the Studio I for public buildings). “The schools ministry asked for accelerated designing by reiterating the same project plan on multiple sites.” [ R.M. ] 47 To achieve the post-war construction plan for a great many new schools in Slovakia, the ministry commissioned – in addition to state-wide standard types from the first Typification Catalogue [Typizačný zborník] (STU, 1950) – individual projects from Stavoprojekt in Bratislava for the countryside. These were to be "located" simultaneously on a number of building sites, with no modifications or even minor regional adaptations, in various building sites in Slovakia.48 Initially individually designed so-called repeating projects were built, along with typified projects (type projects), whether obligatory, advisable or as credential guidelines. “In the Czech part of the country, architects worked with the module and standardized constructions 49 of the modern, concrete tradition. They used c monolithic round concrete columns and steel sheathing. But we needed countryside schools, with everyone in a small town pitching in to build them collectively. In Slovakia after the war, there was a lot of brick work; here, Baťa had neither special design nor construction departments for its shoe plants [the Zlínska stavebná akciová spoločnosť]. We didn't even have our own production facilities for standardized formwork. And our brick types had a wide range of adaptations, in [plan shapes] H, L, U... shifting sections, with those you could move a bit. The first brick schools had spans of 660 cm (720 cm axial span), and clear span of 630 cm. Only later did we reach 720 and then 780 cm. A classroom had 860-885 cm × clear span of 660 cm – depending on the width of the built-in closets. [These schools] counted on possible additions. Later we designed columns in a 9-meter module: 3 × 30, 60 or 90 cm of in-between window pillars.” [ V.D. ] Among the different sorts of educational buildings, the first to be given the highest typification priority were residential schools and nurseries (in terms of the Soviet model, residential schools and so-called schools with day-long care were of the most importance, but these were never built in Slovakia or throughout Czechoslovakia on the same scale as in the USSR, where generations of war orphans grew up without families, sometimes as displaced persons or out-of-town students). After the Bratislava school studio was established, Miloš Chorvát was named as its chief architect. He had finished a Bratislava construction vocational school, and after a work practice in Stavoprojekt became Fragner's student and graduate of architecture (1951) at the academy in Prague. (He played a significant role in Association of Slovak Architects activities, leaving Stavoprojekt in 1956 50 to work as secretary general of the independent ASA; in 1968 he emigrated to West Germany). Under Chorvát's leadership the studio designed, in the first phase of typification, some aforementioned repeatable or repeated projects for schools designed on the basis of axial symmetry in a palace planar dispositions, in the spirit of the first, Stalinist stage of Socialist Realism. These schools, usually with no alterations, were placed in a variety of Slovakia's urban, non-urban landscape and climatic conditions. In spite of this first Stalinist stage, Chorvát's group achieved innovation in designing types of residential schools, and gradually differentiating floor plans based on alternative distribution of functions in primary schools. At this early point however, Chorvát's studio was not yet designing so-called example projects (proposals for type projects [Typové podklady, TP]) for sections, construction or specific elements of the schools. A generation of age-mates grouped around the schools architecture studio head Miloš Chorvát: Oldřich/Oldrich Černý, a Brno polytechnic student (1948/49) who after a year left Jiři Kroha's studio at Prague's fine arts academy (1949); Irina Ferjenčíková (née Skvorcovová, later Kedrová, graduate of the architecture faculty at the Slovak University of Technology, 1953); Manol Kančev (graduate of the Brno polytechnic, 1950); Mária Krukovská (graduate of the Bratislava polytechnic, 1952); Rudolf Miňovský (graduate of the Prague polytechnic, 1948); and Jiří/Juraj Švaniga (graduate of the Brno polytechnic, 1950). So-called concept 51 architects, though classified as “projektanti” [project designers] in Slovak, designed together or individually in cooperation with structural engineers (Vladimír Fraňo, Josef/Jozef Poštulka) and other professionals, both internal and external collaborators. School interiors and furnishings were designed by Jaroslav Nemec,52 who finished a master carpentry school in Prešov, and a two-year study programm at the interior architecture department of Bratislava's Industrial Arts Vocational School [Stredná škola umeleckých remesiel, ŠUR], with the architects Brezina and Kňava (1948–1950). Nemec worked at Stavoprojekt from when he finished school, in the studio of the architect Konečný, in the historical monument group. He began working on school interiors in Chorvát's studio. 47 MIŇOVSKÝ, Rudolf. Vývoj školského ateliéru ŠPÚ-Bratislava. Projekt. Časopis štátnych projektových ústavov pre výstavbu miest a dedín na Slovensku, 3, 1957, 8, p. 2. 48 → MIŇOVSKÝ, Rudolf. Vývoj školského ateliéru ŠPÚ-Bratislava. Ibid. 49 The basic “Zlín standard” was 13 × 3 grid with construction spans of 20 feet, meaning a module of 6.15 m × 6.15 m. → for instance LUKEŠ, Zdeněk – VŠETEČKA, Petr – NĚMEC, Ivan – LUDWIG, Jan (autori a eds.). Vladimír Karfík: Budova č. 21 ve Zlíně. Památka českého funkcionalismu. Zlín : cfa němec ludwig, 2004, p. 40. Lorenc's module modification for school buildings was 7 × 3 grid of 6.15 × 6.6 m. Voženílek's modification in Kolektivní dům in Zlín (project and construction 1947) was 7 × 3 grid with module 7,35 × 7,35 + 3,15 + 7,35 m; he used shiftable steel formwork and a ferro-concrete frame. The building's life span was estimated at 40 years. 50 LUKAČOVIČ, Štefan. Miloš Chorvát. Projekt. Časopis sväzu slovenských architektov, 8, 1966, 7–8, p. 176. 51 Stavoprojekt used the terms “mladší projektant” (apprentice, literally ‘younger project designer’) and “projektant” (project designer) from its start. However, among themselves tended to call each other using the nomenclature of the architecture faculty, where Prof. Emil Belluš distinguished “concept architects” from those who were not the originator of a designed concept even though they worked on that project. Later the terms “hlavný architekt projektu” (main project architect) and “zodpovedný architekt projektu” (supervising, literally responsible project architect) came into use. 041 As an employee of Stavoprojekt in Bratislava while checking sites for primary school construction. [ © → p. 810 ] When Ing. Dedeček returned after military service, Rudolf Miňovský 53 was heading Studio II for educational buildings, though Miloš Chorvát was to work there for two more years. After a brief intern period under Ján Sturmayr, on a trial basis Dedeček joined the group that from 1955 focused on the second phase of school building typification. 52 → DEDEČEK, Vladimír. Interiérová tvorba architekta J. Nemca. Projekt. Revue slovenskej architektúry, 14, 1972, 9, p. 54. 53 In [Secr.] Pochvalné uznania ŠPÚ. Projekt. Časopis zamestnancov štátnych projektových ústavov pre výstavbu miest a dedín na Slovensku, 1, 1955, 10, p. 5, published 1 June, Rudolf Miňovský is listed as the head [ 20 november ] The Dedečeks welcomed their newborn daughter Taťjana. of Studio II. 684 | 685 m cv 1955 › With Rudolf Miňovský, Dedeček attended a seminar in Prague (“a working studio” [ V.D. ]) that has not been identified yet, organized by the State Committee for Construction, on the current status of typification (most probably of educational buildings). It may have related to Stavoprojekt's brief from the regional studios on the next phase of typification, based on the new school localization program approved the same year. Dedeček recalls that the state's typification institute in Prague was represented by Josef Brunclík.54 Participants included the architect and scenographer Bedřich Rozehnal, graduate of the Brno polytechnic (1931), who mainly designed buildings for health care in addition to education. Dedeček is currently less sure of the participation of Bohuslav Fuchs, then dean of the architecture faculty at the Brno polytechnic,55 but like Rozehnal he may have represented or headed the Brno typification group. A meeting with another attendee of this seminar/working studio left a deep impression on Dedeček. This was the architect Jan Gillar, graduated of the academy in Prague, Gočár's student and the designer of the avantgarde French schools in Prague-Dejvice (competition project 1929, built 1931–1934). In them he applied so-called square classrooms, with terraces for teaching outdoors in warm weather. He lined them up in series along a pavilion school corridor, opening up to the school land's greenery. Jan Gillar, according to Štefan Lukačovič, was among the Czech architects working in Slovakia who not only designed, but also ­ co-organized collectivized project planning. Others included Otakar Nový, Jiří Voženílek, Jiří Vohrna and other former members of the organization Blok architektonických pokrokových spolkov (BAPS) who were then employed by Stavoprojekt or the STÚ institute in Prague.56 c Based on Act 31/1953 on the school system and educating teachers,57 which was in effect, and the current schools localization program, Gillar's group (charged with school typification at Prague's typification institute) was to propose a new type of primary school with two-tract corridor arrangement. At the beginning of the decade, primary schools had changed from a classroom layout of functionally differentiated (elongated as well as square) to one of elongated "general" rooms in the classicized schools of Socialist Realism. Yet architects were gradually innovating these classicized types: the functional sections of the school became differentiated, first into wings of the palace arrangement, and later separated into independent pavilions. “As soon as we had a chance [after the 1955 approval of the localization program] to abandon the mono-block, we did so. For three types of education facilities – 1. the school pavilion with [general classrooms and] administration with food service, 2. the specialized classroom pavilion (physics, chemistry, biology) and 3. the gym pavilion – we pushed for pavilion-type schools. Miňovský was mainly designing eight-year, 9-classroom schools, I was doing eight-year, 12-classroom schools on 2 storeys. Meanwhile Kančev was doing eleven-year schools on 3 storeys based on corridors. Miňovský and I preferred the smaller ones, where we had more chances to experiment. Each of us was designing his own. We would discuss and compare. We used the same module and windows, and we swapped detailing. There was a relationship between our schools – like in the work of a single studio. But Stavoprojekt never denied personal authorship. Every concept architect was given and retains personal authorship. Later my own personal concepts, in my Stavoprojekt studio, comprised 30 or 40 % of all its work. My other people were working on their own designs. So our studio never had anonymous or collective authorship.” [ V.D. ] The typification groups from Prague and Bratislava worked during this stage of typification in a spirit of mutual “socialist competition”. Jan Gillar prepared a proposal for a new type of general education school, in which he enlarged the “general” classroom from 1950 58 for 40 students per room 04 2 KARFÍK, Vladimír – KARFÍKOVÁ, Světla – from 850 × 630 cm to MARCINKA, Marián. New Directions in School 880 × 660 cm. His new Construction. Bratislava : Vydavateľstvo Slovenského type featured a respírium fondu výtvarných umení, 1963. [ Source → p. 810 ] break area in a widened corridor and an enlarged window module 59 (Typizačný zborník STÚ, 1956). In the opinion in the book New Directions in School Construction (1963) by Karfík, Karfíková and Marcinka, Gillar's larger 450 cm window module was not “... preferable to the [earlier] module of 300 cm, but it was chosen, mainly because of the classicist notion of architecture.” 60 After their working stay in Prague together, Dedeček and Miňovský started collaborating closely as co-designers. They designed both together and individually, signing all their projects together and/or with other cooperating architects. They assessed the basics of typification thinking and design on the basis of their own projects that Dedeček obtained at the Bratislava faculty and Miňovský at the Prague polytechnic's. Thus they created an alternative to both faculties, other specialized offices and the centralized typification institute in Prague. 54 sections of a single mono-block. BRUNCLÍK, Josef. Stav typisace → LABOUTKA, K[arel] J. Výstavba a její vývoj. Prague : Studijní typisační školních budov v ČSSR. Stručné ústav, 1952. zhodnocení dosavadní výstavby škol. 55 Pedagogika, 10, 1961, 6, p. 671. Interview with Vladimír Dedeček, in 59 Bratislava summer 2014 – summer 2015. The first was the module by Czech 56 polytechnic teacher Antonín KUSÝ, Martin. III. Podiel zväzu pri Černý for STÚ in 1950: 195 cm formovaní socialistickej projekcie. (classroom, 960 × 660 cm). Based 1948–1960 Štefan Lukačovič on this, in 1951–1953 the architect /cited in Note 33 /, p. 126. Miroslav Drofa (Karfík and 57 Voženílek's former co-worker at The law had introduced a compulsory the Projekčné oddelenie of the Baťa eight years of education, either at shoe manufacturer in Zlín), who eight-year primary or eleven-year then worked at Stavoprojekt in combined secondary schools for all Gottwaldov, designed a so-called of Czechoslovakia's students. Gottwaldov type of 16+25-classroom 58 school of two teaching wings, with The localizing program of 1950 had connecting middle canteen, which divided schools into three functional served as a combination assembly or operational units: 1. classrooms hall, school club and main meeting and school administration, 2. physical space. It was one of Czechoslovakia's education, 3. canteen and after-school most successful realizations of work and care (school clubs and school typifications in that period. interest groups), but these were In 1951 at STÚ in Prague, a new usually interpreted as operational 300 cm module was proposed, which → m work n. 002 With Manol Kančev and Rudolf Miňovský 61, Dedeček worked on prototype designs for Eight-year 9-, 12-, 18-classroom general schools and Eleven-year 15- and 23-classroom secondary schools. Jaroslav Nemec designed the interior. “Prototypes were [at STÚ, the state typification institute in Prague] further worked up into types, and the Bratislava planning institute was eliminated from this work.” [ R.M.] 62 The following year the prototypes were approved in Prague after adjustments as so-called repeated projects (STP BA – Bratislavský typ, 1956). In contrast to Gillar's Prague prototypes, the smaller Bratislava 12- and 9-room schools with gabled roof (Dedeček, Miňovský) were designed mainly for the countryside, and the larger 15-room versions (Kančev) were for Slovakia's district and regional seats. The Bratislava prototype of non-urban school comprised two classroom tracts with a middle corridor, expanding into a shared break area [respírium] in a symmetrical, three-wing (U-shaped) palace planar disposition with two staircases located where the side wings attached. Entrances could be designed for either side of the longer wing of this type, to make it possible to situate the school as appropriate (facing east and south) on various land parcels toward the access road. These brick buildings with wood-roof frames anticipated a range of regional variations for climate and facade material in various regions of Slovakia (usually the baseboard and socle, and cladding, and sometimes the roof pitch etc).63 In the 1955 Czechoslovakia-wide Survey of Best Projects, this Bratislava prototype received first place in the type building category, but it was only built in Slovakia. By 1960 about 60 Bratislava type schools were, with some adaptations, built / for some → p. 820 /. Prototypes by STU Prague (Gillar's group) took fourth prize in this competition. Stavoprojekt's director Štefan Lukačovič awarded the Bratislava prototype architect group the June/July 1955 Congratulatory Mention “... for exemplary work on the prototype” of the general education school and a later smaller version.64 → became the most-used in schools. v zahraničí (študijná úloha ZSA). Gillar's module varied it in 1956 [Stavoprojekt – ZSA : Bratislava]. with a new dimension of 450 cm. Typewritten, March 1960, p. 71. → KARFÍK, Vladimír – KARFÍKOVÁ, Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection Světla – MARCINKA, Marián. Nové of Architecture, Applied Arts and smery vo výstavbe škôl /cited in Design SNG. Note 38 /, pp. 189–191. 64 60 [Secr.] Pochvalné uznania v ŠPÚ – Ibid., p. 191. Bratislava. Projekt. Časopis 61 zamestnancov štátnych projektových From the time of its founding, ústavov pre výstavbu miest a dedín in listing architects Stavoprojekt na Slovensku /cited in Note 53 /. as a rule named studio heads first Another Honourable Mention, for and others after, except when a project for small schools, went the architects made exceptional to Irina Ferjenčíková (Kedrová). agreements; here we list ­ In an interview she confirmed that co-architects in alphabetical order. she collaborated on this project 62 with the Grečo – Čejka – Kráner MIŇOVSKÝ, Rudolf. Vývoj team (Prototypy málotriedok, školského ateliéru ŠPÚ-Bratislava 1955), while the trio of Miňovský – /cited in Note 47 /. Kančev – Dedeček worked on its 63 own prototype projects of smaller DEDEČEK, Vladimír – MIŇOVSKÝ, schools. Interview with Irina Rudolf. Problém školských Kedrová, in Bratislava, autumn stavieb vo vzťahu k vývoju výučby 2015. Dated according to her list a nových konštruktívnych systémov of projects and buildings, in: Irina s porovnaním obdobnej výstavby Kedrová's personal archives. 04 3 Views of built variant of Eight-year school with 9 classrooms prototype, the so-called Bratislava type without canteen wing. [ © → p. 810 ] 04 4 Variants of school types built by state workers, and citizens as unpaid work activity – socialist activity “Z” (for “zvelebovanie” = betterment). It was mainly pensioners and housewives that worked unpaid on the construction and finishing work. [ © → p. 810 ] 686 | 687 m cv ‹ 1955 ← Vladimír Karfík, Světla Karfíková and Marián Marcinka in the aforementioned book on schools included Dedeček's Eight-year 12-classroom school in Myslenice in their chapter on Typified and experimental buildings, 65 characterizing them as “... schools of simple and well ordered layout”. As to how the studio adapted types for given building sites, Vladimír Dedeček stated: “Each [concept] architect was given 10 locations. He chose the building site and made a localization plan, marking the [operational] sectors. [The builders] Stohl and Gašparovič took the drawings for these sectors and made the structures, foundations and roof modifications, would alter the socle based on the environment, from local materials. Up to this point the [concept] architects were cooperating with them. There were sometimes changes in the sectors if the client asked for them: the schools ministry or a school director. The actual investor’s decisions were subordinated to those of the school director. For instance, the towns of Barca and Hrabušice worked with builders from Svit [a town of the former Baťa Shoe Company] and craftsmen from among the town's pensioners. The ministry commisioned all the investment projects and ordered new variations or types, usually whenever [ V.D. ] a new person came to head the ministry.” As explicated in Dedeček and Miňovský's second research study on typification from 1960 66, further verification of the approved types “STP BA, 1956” in construction revealed a whole series of shortcomings. This was respecting the valid localization program (formulated by the education ministry in 1955 with no input from experts or the public, as both architects had criticized in their first typification research study in 1958 67 ). The buildings' cloak rooms were far too large (they were required to serve as civil defense shelters covering the entire first basement, and building them usually proved difficult because of varying regional ground water levels). The wooden roof framing with a 33° pitch under the roof tiles proved in practice to be too demanding (considering the limits on wood usage for construction,68 even though the profiles were of economizing size). Further, the architects in retrospect re-evaluated the school's axially symmetrical solution, related to the subsiding Stalinist stage of Socialist Realism, as an uneconomical solution (e.g. two symmetrical staircases where one would have sufficed). They assessed the buildings' structure to be too heavy (because of the standard solution of the construction: the 60 cm load-bearing walls and monolithic ceilings with Simplex-Record ceramic blocks meant the posts between windows were 60 cm, and 90 cm in case of the central load-bearing wall).69 Based on these and other critical assessments, tested in their own prototypes in practice, the architects recommended revising the state-wide schools localization program in effect, along with other innovations in layout of the plan and construction for the approved type. → m work → m work 69 c 045 V  iew of Eight-year school with 12 classrooms in Višňové / → p. 820/. “Sample possibilities of architectural design of prototype. Architect: Ing. arch. V. Dedeček”. [ Source and © → p. 810 ] 046 P  rototype of Eight-year school with 9 classrooms, Bratislava type, typical storey / → p. 820/. [ © → p. 810 ] 65 DEDEČEK, Vladimír – MIŇOVSKÝ, KARFÍK, Vladimír – KARFÍKOVÁ, Rudolf. Problém školských Světla – MARCINKA, Marián. stavieb vo vzťahu k vývoju výučby Nové smery vo výstavbe škôl a nových konštruktívnych systémov /cited in Note 38 /, p. 191. s porovnaním obdobnej výstavby 66 v zahraničí (študijná úloha ZSA), DEDEČEK, Vladimír – MIŇOVSKÝ, /cited in Note 63 /, pp. 71–72. Rudolf. Problém školských 70 stavieb vo vzťahu k vývoju výučby MIŇOVSKÝ, Rudolf. Vývoj a nových konštruktívnych systémov školského ateliéru ŠPÚ-Bratislava s porovnaním obdobnej výstavby /cited in Note 47 /, p. 2. v zahraničí (študijná úloha ZSA), 71 /cited in Note 63 /, 88 pages. → the back cover of the journal 67 Projekt. Časopis štátnych projektových DEDEČEK, Vladimír – MIŇOVSKÝ, ústavov pre výstavbu miest Rudolf. Typizácia (študijná úloha a dedín na Slovensku, 3, 1957, 8, ZSA), /cited in Note 35 /. showing a photograph of the model. 68 72 The metallurgy, mining and DEDEČEK, Vladimír – MIŇOVSKÝ, machining industries were given Rudolf. Problém školských precedence in distributing wood. stavieb vo vzťahu k vývoju výučby The state planning bureau kept a nových konštruktívnych systémov a table determining the annual s porovnaním obdobnej výstavby consumption of “strategic materials”, v zahraničí (študijná úloha ZSA), including steel and wood. /cited in Note 63 /, p. 72. As with the earlier prototypes, Dedeček worked with Kančev and Miňovský on designs for Eight-year 1-, 2-, 3- and 4-classroom general schools (so-called smaller versions, approved the following year as a proposal for the type project TP STP BA for designing 1-, 2-, and 3-classroom schools for smaller towns). Dedeček and Miňovský proposed 4- and 2-classroom versions. These one-storey brick schools, with stone socle and gabled roof, letting in daylight from above through dormer windows and from the side through single/ compound windows, had an L-shaped plan. They were designed as threetracts with corridor, and an extensive break area [respírium/vestibule], cloak rooms and a small terrace. The entry was by the corner – i.e. it was an asymmetrical move away from the strict axial symmetry of the ornamental “pre-Khrushchev type” of schools (Dedeček, Miňovský). This type of small schools for the countryside also included a teacher's flat. The architects designed the “general” classrooms unconventionally: instead of longitudinal classrooms with the blackboard on the short side, they offered central “square classrooms” (not necessarily exact geometric squares, but tending toward the square, here 720 × 870 cm with a 240 cm module); this made possible daylight and ventilation from two sides, and the alternate teaching methods of “active” and “differentiated schools” with semi-circular or circular set-up, or in multiple small groups of children in the classroom. This called for furnishing the new school with lighter one-student tables, designed by Jaroslav Nemec. But the architects failed to win support for massproducing Nemec's alternative furnishing. “This was painful work. There was a lot of exploring and experimenting. I dare say this was why [this school] met with total lack of understanding at the Ministry of Education, and was relegated to drafting paper. Today [1957], now that we thought it was at last surmounted, the realization is again being considered.”  [ R.M. ] 70 Though these small brick schools / → p. 820 / were to be repeatedly located and built in various areas, in addition to maintaining constant functional floor plans they presumed regional adjustments for climate and roof forms and materials of facades (wood, local stone, and localized pitch of gabled roof). One adjustment was that the ceiling was no longer monolithic, but rather the design was based on lighter weight prestressed ceramic construction. → m work → m work n. 003 Rudolf Miňovský 71 designed the atypical Eight-year 9-classroom general school in Tatranská Lomnica (currently Primary school in Tatranská Lomnica, built 1955). The interior was designed by Jaroslav Nemec. In keeping with the street-corner building site, he chose an L-shape (or more precisely an asymmetrical T-shape) layout. He located the classroom tract on the sunny side, putting the gym in the shaded tract. The two-storey brick school has a stone socle, gabled roof and entry with canopy. The facade is articulated by vertical lesenes, alternating in white plastering and stone cladding – all of which project from the facade's wooden cladded surface. “The school has an atypical design because it is located in an international tourist and recreation centre in the High Tatras. (...) The facades were designed with respect to the mountain character.” The functional type of school takes into consideration the mountainous landscape and its regional architecture. It intersects to some extent with the local morphological type of mountain cottages and chalets. Thus the atypical design in this case results from a new relationship between (universal and variable) modern types of layout (i.e. the new post-Stalinist school with square classrooms) and a morphological type (the mountain house or hut in its forested, stony valley landscape). n. 004 Ing. Dedeček designed the Sports hall in Trenčín (plans so far not found, unbuilt). 04 7 051 Prototype of Primary school with 2 classrooms. / → p. 820/. [ Source and © → p. 810 ] 688 | 689 m cv 1956 › 2 → k seg 2 n. 005 Drawing on Miňovský's atypical project Eight-year 17-classroom general school in Oravské Veselé (currently Primary school and pre-school Oravské Veselé, project and construction 1954–1955), Dedeček and Miňovský designed the pioneering project for the Secondary Agriculture Technical School (currently Joint School – Secondary Vocational School of Y. A. Gagarin in Bernolákovo and Primary Arts School, Bernolákovo), completed five years later. Jaroslav Nemec designed the interior. This school, with separate pavilions for classrooms and workshops, was Slovakia's first secondary school featuring only variable almost-square classrooms / → p. 372 /. “Whilst the schools ministry did not allow us to experiment because its regulations were so static, we did experiment in designing agricultural schools, where there was no opposition to the most innovative notions of schools.” [ R.M.] 73 Ing. Dedeček continued his innovations in the design for the Agricultural technical school complex in Levice (unbuilt). This school had to have a separate gym pavilion on one side and residential and canteen/kitchen pavilions on the other side of the school pavilion (the whole in a U-shaped plan). Paved outdoor walkways covered with pergolas connected the buildings. This layout is in fact the forerunner of the Bratislava school “Februárka A” / → p. 366 /. The four-storey Levice school was intended during school holidays to serve as a “Continuing education school for workers of the Jednotné roľnícke družstvá agricultural cooperatives”. For this reason the school's entry hall could also serve for exhibits with educational collections installed in showcases. This entry arrangement foreshadowed later foyer/exhibit spaces in Dedeček's secondary schools, educational institutes and the University of Forestry and Wood Technology in Zvolen / → p. 442 /, as well as the foyer of the Institute for Employees of Regional National Committees later reclassified as the Regional Political School in Modra-Harmónia / → p. 56 /). The Levice school's second above-ground level featured specialized classrooms, and the third “general” rooms of the “square type”, with natural lighting from top and side. The room heights within each floor were also differentiated (the exhibition space was designed with a greater clear height than offices, and the specialized classroom would have had a higher ceiling than the corridor: such shifts would have improved illumination as well as the rooms' spatial differentiation). “For this school the Ministry of Agriculture allowed square classrooms with bilateral lighting.” 74 In the end however the school was not built according to this design. → m work → k int I → k seg 8 → k seg 1 n. 006 052 056 Project for unbuilt Agricultural technical school complex in Levice / → p. 820/. [ Source → p. 810 ] 76 “In other lecture and teaching spaces the architects [Miňovský and Dedeček] 74 had excellent solutions on lighting MIŇOVSKÝ, Rudolf – DEDEČEK, and heating conditions. Already in Trnava they tried out, and in Nitra fully Vladimír. Komplex poľno­ c hospodárskej technickej školy 75 exploited, the Stendhal pallete of white, 77 73 v Leviciach. Projekt. Časopis štátnych [unsigned.] Experimentálna panelová red and black.” → KRIVOŠOVÁ, Janka – → for example DEDEČEK, Vladimír. MIŇOVSKÝ, Rudolf. Vývoj projektových ústavov pre výstavbu škola Bratislava-Vistra (information LUKÁČOVÁ, Elena. Premeny súčasnej Vysokoškolské centrá. Projekt. školského ateliéru ŠPÚ-Bratislava miest a dedín na Slovensku, 3, brochure). Bratislava : Povereníctvo architektúry Slovenska. Bratislava : Revue slovenskej architektúry, /cited in Note 47 /, p. 2. 1957, 8, p. 7. školstva a kultúry. Undated. Alfa, 1990, p. 65. 14, 1972, 9, p. 24. → k int IV / → k seg 1 / → k seg 3 / → k seg 4 n. 007 / n. 008 Vladimír Karfík of the architecture faculty at the Slovak University of Technology was then designing, in cooperation with the educational research institute, new residential schools with day-long care proposing square hall classrooms (810 × 755 cm, window module 225 cm); and a year later together with the construction engineer doc. Ing. Jozef Harvančík they designed and built an experiment in teaching and construction: the first pre-fabricated concerete panel building: Nine-year 9-classroom school in Bratislava-Vistra 75 (1957). It was built using heavy weight construction methods, of ferro-concrete panels, with precise square classrooms (dividable into segments) and bilateral daylight: from both windows and skylights, with forced air classroom ventilation (air conditioning). The school was in the new housing estate near the former Vistra artificial fibre plant (founded in 1942 by the concern Dynamit-Nobel [Nobelova bratislavská Dynamitka] occupied for the German production program of IG Farben; after 1948 part of the chemical plant Chemické závody Juraja Dimitrova; currently Istrochem). The school had a separate canteen pavilion, joined to the main pavilion by a glassed-wall corridor with a winter garden (Prof. Karfík was no supporter of outdoor walkways, either in industrial or other urban areas; he sometimes called his winter gardens “green nook” break areas). Building this experimental concrete panel school with exact square classrooms was only possible thanks to Harvančík's design for new, wider concrete wall panels (195 cm). The school went up within the estate in this singular test of heavy weight construction prototype (components took 3 weeks to produce, on-site assembly took 6 weeks). Like the schools by Stavoprojekt's Studio II, the architectural faculty's prototypes paved the way for further experimental, atypical and typified schools. Regarding typification there existed between the Faculty of Architecture and Stavoprojekt a cooperation that was at the same time understood as so-called “socialist competition”. Rudolf Miňovský designed the Comenius University Faculty of Education in Trnava (later the Faculty of Machine Technology and currently Faculty of Materials Science and Technology of the Slovak University of Technology in Trnava). Dedeček is often credited with co-authorship,76 but he did not share in designing this project – as he himself notes elsewhere 77. Dedeček and Miňovský designed an “example project” (proposal for type project [Typový podklad, TP]) for a brick masonry Post office in the Country and the atypical brick two-wing Post office in Tatranská Lomnica, completed two years later. The interior was designed by Jaroslav Nemec. The built post office's one storey wing with entrance is punctuated by a flat roof with cornice expanding onto a white pillared canopy. The white facade of the post office's upper wing is articulated in a relief raster with asymmetrically-placed windows. The gabled roof projects upwards asymmetrically at the front and corner. It rises above the corner and the front wall, supported by inclined wooden pillars, and corresponds visually to the wooden cladding and stone socle. This atypical building is another version of the mountain house morphological type and the functional floor type of the two-wing post office: for the first time here, the architects built a low relief of square raster facade. In the mountains the facade is a white “checkerboard” of white on white walls and combined with dark wood and natural stone; city schools have more of a raster articulated in a signalling white/red contrast in high, even highest radiance (a Vladimír Dedeček term), with black painted metalwork and tones of grey-black cut slate on the socle. So in the post building at Lomnica, Dedeček's “plastic” facade begins to form; he later developed it into deep, spatially differentiated facades / → p. 88 / → p. 366/ → p. 376/ → p. 382/. “I don't like architecture with construction expressed on the facade. I don't like quasi-temporary elements that are supposed to be used as formwork and remain part of the architecture . There is quite a temperature fluctuation here, and the construction elements should be hidden. A facade should have body and depth: as when it is composed of beams.” [ V.D. ] 5 → k seg 5 n. 011 Dedeček and Miňovský submitted a proposal to Stavoprojekt's internal competition for preliminary designs for the University of Agriculture (currently Slovak University of Agriculture in Nitra) at the Nitra-Žrebčín location at the edge of the historical centre of the town / → p. 388 /. 057 058 Example project for Post office in Tatranská Lomnica. Based on this building the architects designed the type plan for the Post office in the country. [ © → p. 810 ] 690 | 691 m cv ‹ 1956 n. 009 n. 010 Dedeček and Miňovský designed a proposal for the type project (TP) for Duplex house for STS employees 78. In the 1957 Czechoslovakia-wide Survey of Best Projects it received an honorary mention. The leadership of the architects' organization Zväz architektov ČSR organized such surveys every year or two. The project was recognized as “a good family home spatial concept, though it does not correspond to the rural resident's prevailing way of life.” 79 The commission considered the duplex house – for families of about five with allotment plot, functionally/spatially connecting kitchen and main living room (a “parlour kitchen”) – to be inappropriate for small-scale breeders, who would be using the same kitchen to prepare feed for animals. With Miňovský and Švaniga, he designed a competition project for Labour Unions House (Slovenská odborová rada, SOR) in Bratislava, and received a lower third prize. First prize was not awarded; the team of Tibor Gebauer – Ferdinand Konček – Iľja Skoček sr – Ľubomír Titl received second prize, and Jozef Lacko third. 12 [ by december ] “Based on designs for agriculture schools in Bernolákovo and Levice, and more studies and sketching, a design for a 8/9-classroom economizing school has come about.” [ R.M. ] 80 This breakthrough project of Dedeček and Miňovský's, the Eight-year school with 9 classrooms for general education, economized design, superseded the corridor-based two-tract schools and introduced two square classrooms on the school’s upper storey (Dedeček sometimes calls it four-celled, or a “four-leaf clover”). He used either the English term cluster or the Slovak equivalents “strapec” (bunch), sometimes “zhluk" (flock). Each four-celled classroom cluster was accessible by a staircase in its centre (one classroom/workshop was situated on the ground floor). This one-tract economizing school, which was extendable by storeys or half-storeys, was the basis for Dedeček's later, more differentiated cluster pavilion-type schools. Jaroslav Nemec designed the interior / → p. 484 /. → m work → k nonseg 12 n. 012 c 059 T  he awarded plan for Duplex house for STS employees/ Family house for agricultural workers / → p. 820/. [ © → p. 810 ] ▶ → m work Dedeček's first study tour abroad for Stavoprojekt, to Poland. He was mainly focused on school buildings. He visited Krakow.81 060 063 E  xample project for Eight-year school with 9 classrooms for general education, economized design / → p. 820/. [ © → p. 810 ] [ 15–16 april ] The architects' organization Zväz architektov ČSR (from 1969 called the Zväz architektov ČSSR) was founded at a conference in Prague. Jaroslav Fragner became its Central Committee chair. Other leaders were: Emil Belluš, Josef Brunclík, František Čermák, Josef Gočár (secretary), Miloš Chorvát, Štefan Imrich, Vladimír Machonin, Jiří Novotný, Eduard Staša, Ján Svetlík and František Zounek. 78 For rural residents who were employed, i.e. not individual ­ small-scale farmers or employees of collective farms. [ 4 july ] A conference established Slovakia's independent Association of Slovak Architects (ASA). Štefan Lukačovič was elected chairman. Dedeček became a member of the ASA. To a question on what the organization's role was, he answered: “The ASA had a sorting role, choosing architects to be its permanent members and candidates. And the studio's chief architects [at Stavoprojekt] had to be permanent members. The ASA was represented in [municipal] administrative organs and in government: political organs would summon ASA representatives. When I was working on the 'university city' [Comenius University Faculty of Arts campus, see 1963 and afterward], I had to be ready for [Vasil] Biľak as Secretary [of the Communist Party's Central Committee, 1962–1968] to call me in four times a year for a progress report. He wouldn't make any comments. He was interested in deadlines and costs: 'This isn't something I understand, you work that out at the ASA'. Projects were approved by the ATR [a Stavoprojekt architectural committee, Architektonicko-technická rada] and the ASA, and with their comments went to be approved by the minister-level official in Slovakia, and for expert opinions to the Ministry of Construction and Technology [in Prague]. Then they went for approval in Bratislava [to local state and municipal authorities]. If the buildings were for over 100 million. Biľak knew all us architects by our first names when we went to him with projects: 'You have to agree among yourselves, I'm just a tailor, I do not decide for you'.” [ V.D. ] 79 [unsigned.] Přehlídka nejlepších projektů 1956. Architektura ČSR, 16, 1957, 4–5, pp. 183–184. 80 MIŇOVSKÝ, Rudolf. Vývoj školského ateliéru ŠPÚ-Bratislava /cited in Note 47/, p. 2. 81 For the purposes of this publication, in summer 2015 Vladimír Dedeček reconstructed from memory his list of travels abroad, and some of the architecture he visited. His dating is approximate. In the 1970s, the ŠtB secret police kept more precise records. /→ Note 189. / 692 | 693 m cv 1957 › n. 014 Dedeček and Miňovský designed a modification of the Eight-year school with 9 classrooms for general education, economized design with pavilions for sports and canteen, on a site by Bratislava-Východná stanica (1957–1958, currently Bratislava-Rača, časť Východné, unbuilt). Dedeček and Miňovský further developed the economizing type of expanding cluster school in the Eleven-year 23-classroom school on Bajkalská street in Bratislava (currently Private primary school for generally-gifted students, constructed after 1957, later refurbished). Here the two four-cell or four-leaf cluster classrooms were extended to two five-leaf groups, with two staircases and common hall (break spaces: respiriums) in the middle. This proposal for the type project (TP), after approval, was repeatedly located in various Bratislava housing estates, including Krasňany, Hostinského, and Februárka “sector E”, currently Račianska street. / → p. 820 /. In this project, the cuboid economizing school transformed into a differentiated cluster of orthogonal cell/“leaf” classrooms. → m work n. 013 c 065 P  roject for unbuilt variant of typified Eight-year school with 9 classrooms for general education, economized design with sports and canteen pavilions in Bratislava-Východná stanica / → p. 820/. [ © → p. 810 ] → m work → m work 064 066 068 Project for built variant of typified Eleven-year school with 23 classrooms for general education on ulica Februárového víťazstva "sector E" / → p. 820/. [ © → p. 810 ] 1 Dedeček designed an elementary school building and Rudolf Miňovský designed a pre-school building with a canteen pavilion (the latter unbuilt) as parts of the School in housing estate on Ulica Februárového víťazstva [Section “Februárka A”, in a housing estate designed by Štefan Svetko's team], currently Račianska street in Bratislava. The school offered, in addition to indoor classrooms, the option to teach the lower grades outdoors on terraces as appropriate in the school atrium, and a covered outdoor break area under the building's southwest wing on pilotis in the sloped terrain / → p. 366 /. Of this school's design Dedeček stated: “What I was seeing was individualized spaces, and I would place them on top of and next to each other. I worked with them as a descriptive geometrist. It was a kind of stereotomy, a -tomy [Lat. cutting, as in surgery]. The spaces were differentiated by program and lighting. It was necessary to adjust the 'woodcutter's concept' [building from ‘wooden blocks’] through shifting and projections, because of daylight and noise – the outdoor noises from a smooth facade were supposed to be broken up in staggered, zigzagging facades… Architecture should be geometry in overall design, but in the details it ought to have a plasticity that lightens its weight.” [ V.D. ] 07 2 → m work → k seg 1 n. 018 Front view of pre-school under construction. [ © → p. 810 ] 069 071 P  roject for School in housing estate on ulica Februárového víťazstva “sector A” / → p. 822/. [ Source and © → p. 810 ] 07 3 Completed pre-school in part. [ © → p. 810 ] 694 | 695 m cv ‹ 1957 n. 019 n. 020 With Miňovský, he designed an atypical project for the Tatras National Park administration building in Tatranská Lomnica (completed a year later, extension added 1987). Jaroslav Nemec designed the interior. “We built it in a few months. Miňovský and I came to Lomnica for an architects' inspection and the building was already up. They took the wood from the break, they were already drying wood. The entry hall's stone came from rocks in the Studenovodský potok stream.” [ V.D. ] The original log building with gabled roof had a facade articulated by seven in between-window wooden “partitions” protruding over the surface. Analogous piers extending to form external sun shadings were later to articulate the glass curtain walls of their subsequent projects: the City Hall in Toronto, theatre in Košice, and entry hall front of the University of Agriculture in Nitra, with triangular piers-sun breaks. This building related the tectonics of traditional wooden structures and of ferro-concrete construction to the sun breaks, as formulated by Le Corbusier in his buildings, and as revisited by the European Structuralist and New Brutalist architecture. Dedeček and Miňovský designed a competition project for Kamenné námestie square in Bratislava. First prize was not awarded; second prize went to Jozef Lacko's team: Anna Grantnerová – Ivan Slameň – Stanislav Talaš – Imrich Krempaský – M.[?] Jirásek. Upper third prize went to the team of Štefan Svetko – Štefan Ďurkovič – Emil Vician. Miňovský and Dedeček were eliminated in the first round, as were Dušan Kuzma and the two other teams of Šavlík & Gebauer and Matušík & Salava.82 074 C  onstruction of Tatras National Park administration building in Tatranská Lomnica before completion. [ © → p. 810 ] 82 [unsigned.] Kamenné námestie in Bratislava – výsledok užšej súťaže. Projekt. Časopis štátnych projektových ústavov pre výstavbu miest a dedín na Slovensku, 4, 1958, 3, p. 2. c 83–84 /→ Note 81. / n. 021 With Miňovský, Švaniga and the engineers Georgiev and Janeček, he designed a project for Public garages for 300 cars by the ulica Februárového víťazstva housing estate (currently Račianska street, unbuilt). n. 022 With Miňovský, Martinček and Stoličný, he submitted a design for the international competition for the new City Hall in Toronto. The winning project came from a team under the Finnish functionalist Viljo Revell (construction 1961–1965). → m work 07 5 07 8 Project for unbuilt Parking garage for 300 cars in housing estate on ulica Februárového víťazstva / → p. 822/. [ © → p. 810 ] ▶ Vladimir and his wife Oľga visited Paris during her short work stay at the Louvre galleries.83 ▶ 0 79 Competition design for the new City Hall in Toronto. [ © → p. 810 ] He joined the trade union Robotnícke odborové hnutie (ROH) at Stavoprojekt. For two years he was a member of the union's committee there (Slovak abbrev. ZV ROH). He was delegated to attend the UIA (Union internationale des Architectes) meeting in Paris, as vice-chairman of the ASA task force for educational buildings. Karel Prager participated in discussions for the Czech organization.84 696 | 697 m cv 1958 | Completion of the Tatras National Park administration building and Post office in Tatranská Lomnica. → a The second typification phase of designing type schools, atypical and experimental schools peaked at Studio II for educational buildings (1955–1959). Their architects worked primarily on corridor- and atrium-based types, differentiated into sections – in other words, they were making preparations leading later to pavilion schools and to economized “Schuster-type schools”,85 (with one staircase serving two classrooms as a rule: see for example the school at Prievoz by the architect Marián Marcinka; in East Germany the Schustertypen 86 schools were systematized in the 1960s and 1970s with a module of 720 × 720 cm, / → p. 26 /). 87–88 DEDEČEK, Vladimír – MIŇOVSKÝ, Rudolf. Typizácia (študijná úloha ZSA), /cited in Note 35 /, pp. 20–21. c 85 89 Austrian architect Franz Schuster Ibid., p. 25. (b. 1892, Vienna – d. July 1972, 90 Vienna), graduate of Vienna's Ibid., pp. 21–25. Kunsgewerbeschule, and student 91 of Oskar Strnad and Heinrich Ibid., p. 44. Tessenow (1913–1916), then the 92 latter's employee and collaborator. Ibid., pp. 7–8. In the 1920s Schuster, like 93 Ernst May, shared in designing DEDEČEK, Vladimír – MIŇOVSKÝ, Frankfurt am Main's reformed, Rudolf. Problém školských decentralized Pavilionschule and stavieb vo vzťahu k vývoju výučby Freiflachenschule [School in the open a nových konštruktívnych systémov air] with teaching terraces. The s porovnaním obdobnej výstavby Frankfurt Volksschule in Niederursel v zahraničí (študijná úloha ZSA), (completed in 1929), and the Vienna /cited in Note 63 /, p. 78. Montessori-Kindergarten (1929–1931) 94 are examples of his oeuvre. See From minutes of the meeting 14 March Franz Schuster (dictionary entry), 1959 “o technickom režime projektovej Architektenlexikon Wien 1770–1945. prípravy a školskej investičnej Accessible at: <http://www. výstavby v rokoch 1959–1960”, p. 58. architektenlexikon.at/de/577.htm>, Fond NVB 1955–1960 (3497) 151 1958 retrieved summer 2015. B-T 2686. MV SR, State Archives in → also BLAU, Eve. The Architecture of Bratislava (originally Archív hlavného Red Vienna 1919–1934. Masachusetts mesta SR Bratislavy). Institute of Technology – MIT Press, 95 1999. Blau situates Schuster in the → DEDEČEK, Vladimír. Interiérová Siedlung movement, which was tvorba architekta J. Nemca. a response to Loos' and Tessenow's Projekt. Revue slovenskej architektúry, social housing projects. 14, 1972, 9, p. 54. 86 96 → “Schustertypen” Erfurt TS66, BIĽAK, Vasil. Paměti Vasila Biľaka I. Erfurt TS69, Gera TS72, Erfurt TS75 Prague : Agentura cesty, 1991, p. 61. and Rostock. In: Typenschulbauten 97 in den neuen Ländern. [KUSÝ, Martin.] Prof. Ing. arch. Modernisierungsleitfaden. Berlin: dr. techn. Martin Kusý – riaditeľ Sekretariat der Ständigen Konferenz organizácie 1957–1959. In: MRÁZEK, der Kulturminister der Länder Pavol – SKALA, Jozef (eds.). in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Stavoprojekt, Bratislava 1949–1989. p. 41 and further. Bratislava : Alfa, 1989, unpaginated. → m biblio n. 008 / n. 019 Based on evaluations of schools designed since Studio II's establishment, Vladimír Dedeček and Rudolf Miňovský completed their first typification research study for primary schools / → p. 834 /. In it, they drew attention to the public's opinion: “The public has sharply criticized types that are currently under construction. The criticism has to do with the architectural expression, the plan design, the surfacing, the flooring, the sound insulation and so on. There is only rarely any public survey of these issues, where inhabitants would be able to state their opinion. There is no difference made between building types for the city and smaller towns. After residential housing, schools are the buildings where this comes up most strikingly. A building's size can often disturb the silhouette of a town and the tenor of a landscape”.87 The architects also criticized the centralization of typification: “Project planning work with a typification character has become an exclusive monopoly of the STÚ institute.” 88 They went into detail on problems related to construction, materials, urban planning (the issue of locating types in particular land parcels) and planar disposition as well as volumetric architectural design. They criticized inflexibility and languor in construction of types built state-wide, but above all in the key issue of types being mass produced without a testing period (“There are in fact no prototypebuilding tests” 89) that would (when equipped with furniture and appliances) allow exhibitions of prototypes, to open society-wide discussion. Dedeček and Miňovský went on to criticize the uniformity of types, partly caused by the lack regional project planning offices' opportunity to develop their own “regional types” (the exception proving the rule was in schools by Stavoprojekt in Gottwaldov (Zlín), so-called “Gottwaldov type” schools in the later 1950s).90 Miňovský and Dedeček saw a possible improvement in calling architectural competitions for typified buildings. Regional Stavoprojekt offices could then develop their local types, and also: “It has become essential to accept the possibility of reversing the order of typification work, by starting with selection of successful individual or repeated projects that have if possible been proven in practice, and to secure their further development and improvement.” 91 They also covered the positive aspects of typification: qualitative as opposed to quantitative characteristics of the plan types and structure/ construction type series. "The under-comprehended significance of typification depends mainly on: 1/ Establishing typified cells that define a standard in area and volume within the desired economics. In such case there would be no preferences that were arbitrary or particular to individual architects, which can lead to excesses or technically faulty solutions. 2/ Establishing component units with optimal function, not left to an architect's lesser or greater skill. 3/ Establishing state-wide localization programs not up to the personal opinion of immediate investors or a given architect. 4/ When a type project is truly excellent, it raises the calibre of all work, because in using it even a less-able architect can contribute to good results in construction. Under such circumstances, the typification gains qualitative character par excellence." 92 Thus the proposed aim was to design, within given restrictions, the best type project possible (one that might achieve quality in architecture and urban planning of that period, not despite such limits but rather because of them and by their agency). ▶ Rudolf Miňovský designed the atrium-based Twelve-year 24-classroom school on Thälmannova street in Bratislava (currently Primary school with pre-school Za kasárňou, design 1958,93 execution project 1959, completed the next year) with two long classroom wings and a crossing wing with a covered outdoor break area. The square classrooms receive daylight from two or even three sources: corner rooms had both single/compound windows and corner windows, while others had single/compound windows, skylights and daylight through the corridor wall windows. In this project the architect verified the effectiveness of various combinations of daylight. The school was repeatedly built with adaptations, mainly in Bratislava. n. 023 Dedeček and Miňovský designed a competition project for the House of Arts in Piešťany, and were awarded a fourth-class honourable mention. The winning team was Štefan Ďurkovič – Ferdinand Milučký – Karol Ružek. Second prize was not awarded; a lower third prize went to the team of Jan Šrámek – Alena (Cafourková) Šrámková – Jindřich Pulkrábek. Marián Marcinka, with the construction engineer Jozef Poštulka, worked on the design for the pre-fabricated Nine-year 9-classroom school in Strekov and the Nine-year 5-classroom school in Harichovce (built after 1958). It was designed as an assembled mono-block with a three-tract layout and a 300 cm module. They also developed a design for the experimental Eleven-year 23-classroom school in Bratislava-Prievoz (project 1957–1958, execution project 1959, built 1961). Its lightweight one- and two-person desks with seats were designed by Jaroslav Nemec. The school is designed as an orthogonal mono-block with three atria. The long rear three-storey wing is a single tract. It comprises four pairs of bilaterally-lit square “general” classrooms (a double-cell). Each double-cell is accessed by a single short perpendicular corridor and staircase (the economized "Schusterprinzip") along the three atria. A front wing, parallel to the rear wing, encloses the atria by a double tract with specialized classrooms on the second above-ground level, the hall with break areas, and cloak rooms located on the first level. The canteen and gym are in separate pavilions. After leaving Stavoprojekt (1959), Marián Marcinka and Milica Marcinková went to the Research and Design Institute for Educational and Cultural Buildings (of the Ministry of Education and Culture). There they designed new projects for schools and lightweight furnishings for testing with alternative teaching methods. Ing. Dedeček was a delegate of the Association of Czechoslovak Architects at an international architecture conference in Poland. [ 20–27 july ] ▶ He participated in discussions at the 5th Congress of the International Union of Architects (UIA) in Moscow, on the theme of Construction and Reconstruction in cities. A total of 68 from Czechoslovakia participated in this conference of architects from all over the world. The official delegation had fifteen members: Fragner, Novotný, Machonin, Gočár, Starý, Hrůza, Staša, Chlup, Kočí, Spáčil, Lukačovič, Lacko, Svetlík, Hladký and Staněk. From Slovakia, other participants for the Academy of Sciences and the technology university architecture faculty were: Malinovský, Bielik, Nahálka, Zalčík, Sedlák, Beisetzer, Gaži, Kodoň, Lavička, Steller and Škorupa. Taking the place of the educator Prof. Ernest Sýkora (1950–1958), the politician Vasil Biľak headed the education and culture ministry (1959–1962). In memoirs published post-1989 in Prague, Biľak recalled his ministry work: “I saw the situation in the eastern Slovakia's schools. And in other regions of Slovakia the situation wasn't good either. Lessons had to take place in three consecutive shifts. It was literally torture for the children. For that reason I put great attention on investing in construction. We built up to 2,000 classrooms each year. Never had so many schools been built in Slovakia over such a short time. University and residence hall construction was stepped up too. We were building rapidly.” Stavoprojekt founder Dr. Martin Kusý, who approached construction as an architect and not a politician, had his own take on the reasons and consequences of this rapid and mass production of schools. His comparisons came across more moderately; in Stavoprojekt's 1989 annual publication he wrote: “Another concept of this period [the late 1950s] was that for the Education Faculty in Trnava, and even more importantly the generously conceived University of Agriculture complex in Nitra. We should perhaps add that in the one year of 1961, as many classrooms were put into use as in the entire twenty years of the First Republic [1918–1938]. The contribution of Stavoprojekt Bratislava to this was by no means trivial.” 97 698 | 699 m cv 1959 › → k seg 3 Based on the new localization program's approval, the third phase of the school typification process began, characterized by functionally and spatially differentiating the mono-block. It became fully developed and culminated in the design of pavilion typified schools. Since 1955, when the Bratislava prototypes of general educational schools were designed, functional differentiation of 3 school sections had tended toward corridor-based and cluster pavilions. “We started experimenting with pavilion schools. I made myself a kind of puzzle kit of [operational] sectors and would piece these together based on the terrain and other givens for that building. First came the large scale urban form in relation to the terrain and the sector – putting the puzzle together. And then came the smaller scale architectural form. I did the execution projects myself. I did the detailing too.” [ V.D. ] Expanding cluster schools marked a shift in the period's consideration of socialist teaching methods. In addition to the earlier ideas on the active school and differentiation of the unified school, there was experimentation in the 1960s in further possibilities of flexible scheduling, multiple year group teaching and team teaching.98 Pro-reform socialist schools of this time therefore were not limited to taking up where the reformed First-Republic schools stopped, nor did they voluntarily seize on western models where the Soviet had recently been pushed on them. They made their own contribution to explorations in interrelating various models. Vladimír Dedeček, in his dissertation, was among those considering contemporary Czechoslovak models 99 of researching schools, in the context of Soviet,100 French, Finnish, British, German, Swiss 101 and American 102 schools publications. In Czechoslovakia, the philosopher Jan Patočka 103 was reconsidering Comenius' legacy in the new circumstances. Having been forced out of the Faculty of Arts in Prague, he worked in the educational research institute, where he prepared a new edition of Jan Amos Comenius' General Consultation on an Improvement of All Things Human. Having assessed earlier experiments and types, the new schools localization program approved in 1959 (effective 1960) facilitated a further distinguishing of schools: 1. pavilion-based main classrooms, sometimes further differentiated by student age groups (first and second primary school levels); 2. pavilions for after-school care and administration (with differentiation for after-school, canteen and administration); 3. pavilions of specialized classrooms for natural sciences, humanities and polytechnic workshops; and 4. pavilions for physical education and sport (gym, changing rooms and showers). In the third phase, Studio II for educational buildings was entrusted with design of typified pavilion schools in two technical and material variations: I. for light weight construction, and II. for traditional brick wall construction. The new school localization program was further materially and spatially differentiated in construction and technology, with materials prioritized as being either local or imported from the communist bloc countries cooperating via the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON). c Rudolf Miňovský and the engineer Vladimír Fraňo designed a new type of prefabricated school with light weight construction. They designed the prototype ferro-concrete, pavilion-based, experimental Twelve-year 24-classroom school in Trnava-Tulipán (construction completed two years later 104 ). They grouped the differentiated classrooms, lit by both single/compound windows and “corner” windows, in one- and two-storey pavilion clusters as well as corridor-based pavilions, with modules of 150 cm. They linked these with canteen and sports pavilions via paved, pergola-roofed walkways in the school's garden park. With these one-storey 7- and 10-classroom pavilions schools of 10, 14, 17, 20 and 27 classrooms could be composed in parks. Pavilions could expand as necessary into a second storey, but this extension was never utilized. In these ferro-concrete buildings, with light weight facades, for the first time the American lift-slab construction technology (1952) was tested in the context of educational buildings in Slovakia. It both sped up and economized the building process, and was more sensitive to the land profile and existing greenery – it required no use of heavy machinery that could destroy park school terrain. This experimental park school was also assembled in Nitra without further project changes (currently Primary school – Nitra on Tulipánová street, since renovated and extended). 3 n. 025 Vladimír Dedeček designed the brick wall variant of this new park school prototype, in his first solo “model project”, Nine- to twelve-year school with pavilions of 8, 10, 12 or 24-classrooms (regional typification proposal [TP], Regional Project Institute Bratislava [Krajský projektový ústav Bratislava]). S.[?] Gašparovič was supervising architect. Jaroslav Nemec designed the interior. Dedeček worked extendable clustered pavilion schools into statewide typification, thanks in part to his innovative solution of the transversal classroom (which he also called the “wide classroom”) / → p. 376 /. This afforded a “concentric organization in longitudinal space”, i.e. an atypical blackboard could be installed on the longer wall, making possible 4 rows of desks or circle or groups of single desks with seats. This spatial distribution surpassed the conventions of the approved types and standards; sight lines from the extreme sides came in for criticism – only because all “expert decisions” were based on all students looking at the blackboard's centre, rather than on individual parts of it (as when some of the schoolwork was for the whole group, and other times in parallel by multiple groups).105 For instance, Alfred Roth designed Zurich's primary Schule Riedhof (1963) with transversal classrooms having three or more study group areas.106 His examples, published in the book The New School = Das neue Schulhaus = La nouvelle école (1950, 1957), inspired not just Vladimír Dedeček (who referred to this book in his dissertation), but Vladimír Karfík and his team as well (who mentioned the book in his new schools publication). Roth’s book was available and studied literature in Czechoslovakia in the late 1950s. Dedeček and Miňovský as architects of new pavilion schools, along with their reviewer Juraj Švaniga, requested in published periodical texts on both variations – pre-fabricated light weight construction and brick wall construction – a two-year testing period term, expert opinions and a public discussion on experimental schools. None of this came about. The solutions as designed were rejected or permitted without further opportunity for the public's opinion, and without a broader architectural discussion. In architectural publications, the architects of the light weight construction school criticized the inadequate construction realization and unsuitable technical equipment (radiators instead of heat lamps in the park's pergolas) and inappropriate furniture (e.g. standard double desks, standard-sized blackboards on the middle of the long wall). They further savaged the lagging construction technology, poor materials leading to excessive heat loss, and the absence of the proposed window shuttering necessary for effective light regulation in classrooms bilaterally lit.107 Moreover, the light weight materials very quickly depreciated, with high maintenance and repair costs. → 98 → KARFÍKOVÁ, Světla. Základný učebný priestor pre ZDŠ. Výťah zo študijnej úlohy školskej komisie SA ČSSR. Architektura ČSSR, 26, 1967, 5, p. 304. 0 80 0 81 99 St Crispin’s Secondary Modern School by David Medd’s team in Wokingham (project 1949–1950, PAŘÍZEK, Vlastimil. Pedagogické construction 1951–1953) as cited by Vladimír Dedeček in his dissertation: "By a Ministry of problémy vzdělávacích soustav. Education team: Secondary school in Wokingham, Berkshire, England 1951/53. School complex Prague : Academia, 1967. with segmented composition, with a 4-storey core of classrooms. Complex differentiation of spaces, 100 specifically equipped. The aula is connected to the physical education section. A gymnastics field TALYZINOVÁ, Nina Fiodorovna. surrounds the school. Light steel frame construction". [ Source → p. 811 ] [Теоретические проблемы программированного обучения. Изд-во Московского университета, 1969] Teoretické problémy programového vyučování. Prague : SPN, 1971. 101 RAMBERT, Charles. Constructions scolaires et universitaires. Paris : Vincent – Fréal, 1955; TEMPEL, Egon. Neue Finnische Architektur. Stuttgart : Hatje, 1968; Foster Associates London. Optimale Flexibilität. Neue Tendenzen im Schulbau. Bauen + Wohnen = Construction + habitation = Building + home : internationale Zeitschrift, 1970, 24, pp. 40–45; PETERS, Paul Hans. Schulen und Schulzentren. München : Callwey, 1971; ROTH, Alfred. The New School = Das neue Schulhaus = La nouvelle école. Zürich : Ginsberger, 1957 (1950). 102 [Educational Facilities Laboratories.] SCSD: The Project and the Schools. A Report. New York : EFL, 1967. 103 → for example PATOČKA, Jan. 082 085 → m work ↑ Náčrt Komenského díla ve světle Brick variant of prototype nových objevů. Pedagogika, 6, 1956, for an expandable pavilion 4, pp. 411–426. school in a park: Nine- 104 to twelve-year school, with Dated based on: [unsigned.] pavilions of 8, 10, 12 or Súťaže – projekty – realizácie. 24 classrooms (design TP, KPÚ Bratislava) / → p. 822/. Projekt. Časopis Sväzu slovenských [ Source and © → p. 811 ] architektov, 6, 1964, p. 60. 105 KARFÍKOVÁ, Světla: Základný učebný priestor pre ZDŠ /cited in Note 98 /, p. 304. 106 ← DEDEČEK, Vladimír. Vývoj 086 Schulhaus Riedhof by Alfred Roth as cited by Vladimír priestorovej koncepcie základnej Dedeček in his dissertation: “A. Roth: Primary school in školy (postgraduate dissertation). Riedhof, Zürich. A pavilion school with wide classrooms, 2 tomes. Bratislava : FS SVŠT, 1974, lit by zenith light. Each classroom has a corner for unpaginated pictorial addendum. independent work. Break spaces are open /‘Préau’/”. 107 [ Source → p. 811 ] → ŠVANIGA, Juraj. Systémy ľahkej montáže v školskej výstavbe. Projekt. Časopis Sväzu slovenských architektov, 5, 1963, 11–12, p. 244. 700 | 701 m cv ‹ 1959 › → k seg 3 n. 026 ← It was not just the light weight construction version that had problems. Dedeček's brick wall type for the expanding pavilion school was listed in the typification catalogues only as “návrh TP [proposal for the type project]”, even though the architect thought of it as a “regional type of pavilion-based school”.108 It was only ever built a few times as a slightly-modified recurring type, mostly in Bratislava / → p. 376 /. Thus the other regional or climatic variations were never developed. Further, although this school featured classic masonry, it also suffered from low-quality craftwork, technical installation, lighting technology, surfacing, etc. At this time in Prague, the main proponents of cluster schools were the architects Jindřich Forst, Ľubomír Kepka and Jiří Němec, cooperating with the educational research institute – for example in the experimental housing estate Prague-Invalidovna 109 (approved as state-wide example projects for pavilion schools, STÚ 1960). In Brno Miroslav Dufek designed the cluster-based Brno-Lesná nine-year primary school with square classrooms in 1963–1964 (built 1966).110 After 1960, the Institute for Development and Design of Cultural Buildings took over design of experimental schools in Slovakia, and a younger generation of architects began experimenting (Droppa – Hlavica, Experimental nine-year primary school in Zlaté Moravce). Thus, Studio II ended prematurely (1959–1960) its work on the third phase of typification of general and secondary vocational schools. The studio began focusing on design and typification of universities and atypical cultural and sports buildings, and offices for state companies and institutions. c The USSR's State Construction Committee announced a competition for design institutes in the Soviet Union and other socialist and people's democratic countries, for an experimental residential ward for 15 thousand inhabitants in the southwestern part of Moscow. Prospective building types to be built after 1970 were also in the brief. Five institutes in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic participated: the State Institute for Project Design in Prague, and the regional Krajský ústav institutes (KPÚ, later again part of Stavoprojekt) in Prague, Brno, Gottwaldov (Zlín) and Bratislava. Experts from research institutes and universities were also invited. Two variants were designed (variant I had a smaller construction module of 3 m, by KPÚ Bratislava and Prague; variant II had a large module of 6 m, by KPÚ Brno and Gottwaldov in cooperation with the VÚVA and VÚSV research institutes. The university architecture faculties of Prague, Brno and Bratislava proposed prospective projects (for example the Brno faculty team designed communal hotel-type buildings for small households; part of the designs included apartments of higher standards in terms of area and technical equipment). The Moscow project allowed a number of principles to be pre-formulated for later verification in Czechoslovak housing estates. Vladimír Dedeček, Rudolf Miňovský, Juraj Švaniga and Stanislav Talaš proposed a pavilion schools design with an innovative comb shape (separate pavilions joined together by a gallery) in their small-module variant I. This variant's chief architect was Štefan Svetko. Jozef Chovanec, Martin Kusý, Ivan Matušík, Miloslav Cajthaml, Vlastibor Klimeš and Vratislav Růžička designed the urban , residential and civil buildings. The project's structural engineer was Ondrej Dukát.111 [ february – august ] Vladimír Dedeček proposed his first solo competition project: the Divadlo Jonáša Záborského theatre in Prešov. He won one of the two second prizes (the jury awarded no first prize); the other went to František Grobauer and Karol Revický of Prešov. A first-class honourable mention went to the project by Anton Rokošný and Emil Slameň. Štefan Lukačovič and Miroslav Tengler received a third-class honourable mention as did a solo project by Rudolf Miňovský.112 n. 024 108 Ibid., pp. 244–247. 109 → ZIKMUND-LENDER, Ladislav (ed.). Invalidovna. Prague : Zikmund Hradec Králové – Národní památkový ústav, 2014 [texts by: Vladimír Czumalo, Martina Flekačová, Hubert Guzik, Václav Jandáček, Daniela Karasová, Pavel Karous, Matyáš Kracík, Ladislav Zikmund-Lender]. 110 → ŠEVČÍK, Oldřich – BENEŠ, Ondřej. Architektura 60. let: “Zlatá šedesátá léta” v české architektuře 20. století. Prague : Grada Publishing, 2011, p. 68. 111 → ČERVENKA, Vladimír. Československá účast v soutěži na project experimentálního obytného obvodu v jihozápadní části Moskvy. Architektura ČSR, 19, 1960, 9, pp. 586–587. → also [unsigned.] Soutěžní návrh pokusného obytného obvodu jihozápádní části Moskvy Krajského projektového ústavu v Bratislavě a Praze. Ibid., pp. 603–606; KUSÝ, Martin. Poznámky k súťažnému návrhu experimentálneho obytného rajónu mesta Moskvy. Ibid., p. 607. 112 → m work BREZINA, M.[?] Súťaž na Divadlo Jonáša Záborského v Prešove. 087 093 Study for competition project of the Divadlo Jonáša Záborského theatre in Prešov / → p. 822/. [ © → p. 811 ] Architektura ČSR, 19, 1960, 5, pp. 293–298. → also CHORVÁT, Miloš. K súťaži na Divadlo J. Záborského v Prešove. Projekt. Časopis Sväzu slovenských architektov, 1, 1959, 11–12, pp. 152–159. 702 | 703 m cv ‹ 1959 113 /→ Note 81. / 114 POTOKOVÁ, Katarína. S architektom Vladimírom Dedečkom nielen o architektúre: Aby Slovensko bolo ako záhrada. Poľnohospodár. Spravodaj Slovenskej poľnohospodárskej univerzity v Nitre, 53, 2009, 8. Accessible at: <http://www. polnohospodar.sk/kategoriespravodajstva/87-ponohospodar853/2001-s-architektom-vladimirom- c 094 A letter from the rector, Emil Špaldon, affirming Dedeček's authorship of the study (1959–1960) that formed the basis of the execution project and dedekom-nielen-o-architekture- construction of the University of Agriculture campus at the Nitra-Letisko site. In spite of this, the architect as always lists the two co-architects, Dedeček aby-slovensko-bolo-ako-zahrada>, and Miňovský, as both of them worked on the project's earlier phases: the competition urban design competition entry (1955) and the winning retrieved spring 2014. competition project for a university campus at the Nitra-Žrebčín site (1956) [ © → p. 811 ] 5 n. 011 ▶ Four years of disputation among experts over where to locate the new University of Agriculture building in Nitra concluded with the personal decision (bringing to an end a sequence of contradictory expert opinions) of the agriculture and forestry minister for Slovakia, and graduate of Baťa's school of work and later political university in Prague, Michal Chudík (who in the 1960s was Novotný's counterweight to Dubček in the Communist Party's Central Committee). He opted for situating the school in the new Nitra-Letisko site on the left bank of the River Nitra. This facilitated the city's further development beyond the river on the controlled riverbank, opposed by Slovakia's most influential authority on urban planning, Professor Emanuel Hruška, along with other planners and party functionaries. Dedeček and Miňovský started work on a campus in the new location of the former airport. This culminated in the presentation of many project variants over the years. These variants went to the rectorate for appraisal. On a summer excursion with a group of Czechoslovak architects, Dedeček for the first time visited Italy and Rome: the Pantheon and the contemporary in-progress Palazzetto dello Sport (Annibale Vitellozzi and Pier Luigi Nervi, completed 1960). Of the other participants, Dedeček currently [2014– 2015] best remembers the architects Jan Šrámek and Karel Prager. As he recalls, Prager and his colleagues shot a 16 mm film in Rome of the locations and buildings they visited. Because of a technical error, the film could not be developed. Supposedly Vladimír Dedeček has in his archives an 18 mm film he made in Rome (so far not found). He visited Vitelozzi's Stadio Olimpico (completed 1960), and the Stazione di Roma Termini (completed 1950) on which Vitelozzi collaborated. He also saw buildings on the EUR (Espozicione Universale Roma, designs 1936, work interrupted 1942, completed 1960 for the Olympics), where ancient Roman architecture and that of Fascist Italy intersected with Italian architects' renewed interest in post-war rationalism and realism. 5 [ 25 november ] The officials of the University of Agriculture in Nitra under the leadership of its rector, the member of Academy of Sciences, Prof. Ing. Emil Špaldon, DrSc., approved Dedeček's campus variant, with its domed aula maxima situated near the university's entry. Meanwhile the health of Rudolf Miňovský worsened. It was mainly Dedeček as architect, in collaboration with architects and specialists of Studio II, that further developed this variant. n. 011 095 Architects of Studio II for educational buildings at Stavoprojekt, with the model of University of Agriculture campus at the Nitra-Letisko site (Vladimír Dedeček is in the first row, first on the left; Rudolf Miňovský is not pictured). [ © → p. 811 ] [ 16 november ] The Dedeček couple welcomed their newborn son Vladimír jr. “That morning, actually at 2 a.m., my wife woke me and said: ‘Your second child is on the way’. We lived in a small housing estate between Rača and Bratislava, but the clinic was in Rača. She told me: ‘Saddle up the horse, we're going on foot.’ It was winter, and snow started flying. Whenever the labour pains came, I took off my jacket and laid it on the ground with my wife on it, and I was afraid she would have the baby right on the road. Fortunately we made it. After all the travails she gave birth to our son Vladimír in the maternity ward. The same day I travelled to Nitra and the agriculture university's council recommended approval of my research studies... Tell me, can a person ever forget such a day?” 114 ▶ Ing. Dedeček received his administrative approval for project design (certification) specialized in educational and culture construction. The Ministry of Construction issued it to practicing architects who submitted and presented their own projects. Working trip to Austria.113 704 | 705 m cv 1960 n. 012 | Completion of the Eight-year school with 9 classrooms for primary education, economized design (prototype in Čiližská Radvaň, repeatable project by Stavoprojekt), currently Mór Kóczán primary school with Hungarian language of instruction. → m biblio | Completion of the implementation of repeated projects for primary schools in Slovakia. [ as of january 1960 ] Dedeček and Miňovský designed a competition project for the All-TradeUnions House and Regional Labour Union Council (KOR) in Plzeň, which received an unranked award. The jury gave second prize to Štefan Svetko and Emil Vician, and a second-class honourable mention to the team of Ferdinand Konček – Iľja Skoček sr – Ľubomír Titl.115 Dedeček and Miňovský completed their second research study on school building typification. In it they critically assessed the weaknesses, strengths and possible improvements of earlier phases in Czechoslovak primary and secondary school typification compared to that abroad. The section addressing foreign typical (typified) and atypical schools makes up almost one-quarter of the text. In contrast to three spare pages in the first research study from 1958, here they express themselves much more openly and comparatively as to select information on international school typification in the countries of eastern and western Europe and the USA / → p. 834 /. n. 027 n. 029 Competition project for the University of Transportation Sciences in Žilina 116 received a first-class honourable mention. First prize went to Marián Marcinka and Milica Marcinková. n. 028 Competition project for the Embassy in Brazil (project plans so far not found).117 Jozef Chovanec received a joint first-and-second prize. 1961 2 → m biblio 5 | Completion of the workshop building for the Secondary Agriculture Technical School (currently Joint School – Secondary Vocational School of Y. A. Gagarin □ n. 005 n. 011 Work on the Campus of the University of Agriculture in Nitra. The campus was completed in the late mid-1960s. in Bernolákovo and Primary Arts School, Bernolákovo). Ľubomír Titl reviewed school for the journal Projekt / → p. 835 /. 1962 c Designed the atrium-based Secondary school of electrical engineering in the Bratislava-Pošeň residential district, planned for the “sector F" centre (unrealized). A centrally-located workshop hall separated the low atrium school building from a mid-rise residence hall (family double-cell units). He innovatively designed the school's front wing as a row of right-angled three-cell/three-leaf clusters (2 square classrooms + 1 large classroom) with bilateral daylight and access from perpendicular ramps, which facilitated moving teaching technology by battery-powered carts. The school wing's atria housed laboratories with top daylight. The laboratories' flat, walkable and living roof was intended as a green terrace for the upper-storey classrooms. This was the project plan where he pre-formulated the future Natural Sciences Faculty pavilions for Comenius University in Bratislava-Mlynská dolina. As in earlier and later school designs, here he introduced a plan with a more suitable, wider and more flexible module of 720 × 720/730 cm (appropriate for classrooms, residence halls and laboratories) in place of the conventional span of 600 × 600 cm. → k int IV iv n. 032 n. 033 After discussions with SNG director Dr. Vaculík, Ing. Dedeček designed a preliminary study for the addition to the southern Danube SNG wing / → p. 88 /. n. 031 With Ivan Adamec and Dušan Tesák, he designed a competition project for the All-Trade-Unions Club and the Regional Labour Union Council (KOR) in Banská Bystrica. The jury awarded a lower first price to Jozef Chrobák, Jozef Pálka and Karol Tisončík. → k seg 3 / → m biblio □ The journal Projekt published a review by Juraj Švaniga (of Dedeček's Studio II for educational buildings) on the problem of the typification research study for pavilion schools / → p. 376 / → p. 835 /. [ 23 october ] Rudolf Miňovský died. Vladimír Dedeček asserts that this was not, as many authors suggest, a sudden or unexpected death. Miňovský's health had been getting worse since late 1959: “He told me 'I don't have much time left'.” [ V.D. ] Juraj Švaniga became chief architect of Studio II for educational buildings, at the latest after Miňovský's death (Vladimír Dedeček remembers that Švaniga had led the studio since 1957; it has not been possible to verify this). Dedeček headed the preliminary project plan for the Nitra university, on which he worked closely with builder Jozef Stohl and interior architect Jaroslav Nemec. The circle of his closest collaborators was taking shape: Jozef Stohl on construction, Jaroslav Nemec for interiors, and the architects Mária Oravcová, Eva Volková, Rudolf Fresser and Peter Mazanec. Later, in the 1970s and 80s, a younger generation of collaborating architects joined them: Tibor Čellár (graduate of FA SVŠT, the architecture faculty of the University of Technology FA SVŠT, 1975), Milan Škorupa jr and Ľubomír Hollý (both FA SVŠT, 1982). To the specific question of women architects' work on his projects, Dedeček replied: “On Mária Oravcová and Eva Volková I could always rely. Sometimes I gave them smaller concepts to work on. They didn't want more. One of them had 6 kids and the other 3 or 4. Once in a while they had to be absent. And when I couldn't be there, they stood in for me.” [ V.D. ] These women worked on collaborative projects and their own concepts, and as supervising architects of Dedeček's designs. Furthermore, “konštruktérky” (woman construction specialists), who finished construction vocational schools, worked on collaborative drafting, especially G.[?] Boďová, Eva Valašíková, Z.[?] Mozoľová and A.[?] Sulíková. iv n. 033 Designed the Secondary Political Economy school / 33-classroom Economics school at Ulica Februárového víťazstva street (currently Business Academy on Račianska street in Bratislava, completed cca 1965); supervising architects were I.[?] Adamec and [?] Kusovský. The interior design was by Jaroslav Nemec / → p. 382 /. His solution entailed letting ceiling daylight into the classrooms, by their shifts to the front of or behind the facade plane. He was later to further develop this in his first design for the front wing (bridging) for the Slovak National Gallery in Bratislava / → p. 88 /. Slovak National Gallery director PhDr. Karol Vaculík began preliminary consultations on an addition for the demolished southern wing of the historical Water Barracks building (1759–1763). He decided to consult with architect Štefan Svetko regarding the urban planning design, and on his recommendation then addressed architectural aspects with Vladimír Dedeček.118 115 ČEJKA, Jan. Veřejná soutěž na všeodborový kulturní dům a organizační budovu KOR v Plzni. → m work → k int IV → k seg 4 4 n. 030 096 Architektura ČSR, 19, 1969, 6, View of Secondary Political Economy school / 33-classroom Economics school at Ulica Februárového víťazstva / → p. 822/. [ © → p. 811 ] pp. 367–371. 116 [unsigned.] Súťaže – projekty – realizácie. Projekt. Časopis zväzu slovenských architektov, 6, 1964, p. 57. 117 [unsigned.] Soutěže vypsané (journal column). Československý architekt, 7, 1961, 18, p. 4. 118 Interview with Vladimír Dedeček, in Bratislava, summer 2014 – summer 2015. 706 | 707 m cv 1963 6 n. 034 n. 036 Project for the Secondary agricultural technical school in Ivánka pri Dunaji (currently Secondary vocational school, construction completed after the mid-1960s). Jaroslav Nemec designed the interior. An expert committee of the Ministry of Education and Culture, headed by Prof. Emil Belluš, selected (for further development) studies by Jozef Lacko of the architecture faculty of SVŠT (the Slovak University of Technology) and by Vladimír Dedeček of Stavoprojekt, for the faculty and residence hall area of the Comenius University Natural Sciences Faculty and University of Technology Electrical Engineering Faculty in Bratislava-Mlynská dolina. After studying both proposals, faculty representatives preferred Dedeček's design; the rectors of the two universities approved Dedeček's design for realization. Work commenced on project planning for residence halls and faculty buildings / → p. 406/. Design for the Secondary agricultural technical school in Piešťany, with residence hall and separate teacher residences (currently Secondary vocational school for gardening, built in the late 1960s, refurbished and converted, design and construction of residence hall and teachers' houses after the mid-1970s). The interior was designed by Jaroslav Nemec. → k seg 6 n. 035 iv n. 033 The architects' organization Association of Slovak Architects (ASA) issued a call: Research Study for an Urban and Architectural Design for the Addition to the Slovak National Gallery in Bratislava. This expanded the task of the Gallery addition to include construction of an entire corner building. Four individuals or teams applied with designs: Martin Beňuška and Štefánia Rosincová; Vladimír Dedeček; Jaroslav Fragner and his team; and finally Eugen Kramár and Ján Šprlák. The final jury minutes record that the jury of Alojz Dařiček, Ján Steller, Ľubomír Titl, Milan Škorupa and Karol Vaculík assessed research studies in the following order: 1. Dedeček's, 2. Kramár and Šprlák's, 3. Fragner and team's, and 4. Beňuška and Rosincová's. [ 1 october ] He began his first post-graduate scientific level (CSc.) study at the architecture faculty of SVŠT in Bratislava, supervised by Prof. Emil Belluš. He did his work at the Department of Architectural Design. His dissertation topic was Developing the Spatial Concept of Primary Schools. Thus as a architect-employee of Stavoprojekt he set up conditions for independent research and study tours domestically and abroad: “I learned methods of how to work and think.” [ V.D. ] He submitted and defended his work in 1973, ten years later, with his new supervisor Prof. Ladislav Beisetzer. iv [ 6 january ] An expert commission of the Architects' Society of Slovakia (ASA) pronounced Dedeček's project the winning design for the new SNG building: “Whereas the overall judgment of the architectural and societal contribution on the part of individual solutions is complete, it hereby awards first place to Ing. arch. Vladimír Dedeček's design for his urban and architectural and functional solution for the SNG and its attendant spaces, mastered by the architect at a high level.” 119 / → p. 88 /. He began work on the project for building permission. → k int IV n. 033 [ 15–16 june ] 2nd ASA conference. Jozef Lacko was elected chairman. c → k seg 1 / → m biblio 1964 1 □ n. 018 The journal Projekt published a review by Juraj Švaniga of Studio II for educational buildings, called: “School on ‘Februárka’ street” [Škola na “Februárke”] / → p. 366 / → p. 835 /. 5 □ n. 011 Jan E. Koula and Ľubomíra Fašangová, art and architecture historians from the architecture faculty of SVŠT in Bratislava, noted several projects in their preliminary textbook (course materials) on the history of new visual art and architecture. These included the partly-finished campus of Nitra's University of Agriculture together with Karfík's, Miňovský's and Marcinka's experimental schools, noting: “Dedeček's University of Agriculture in Nitra creatively employs the newest discoveries, and can be rated as the most modern of its kind in our republic.” 120 This shows an early-1960s emphasis on this project's creativity and discovery in the context of typified and experimental schools in Slovakia. Though they also mentioned a variety of contemporary buildings from other countries, in both socialist and capitalist blocs, they did not imply any direct association between any of these and the Nitra campus. ▶ 097 U  nbuilt first variant: Renovation of and Addition 098 to Slovak National Gallery complex in Bratislava / → p. 822/. [ © → p. 811 ] Model of unbuilt second variant: Renovation of and Addition to Slovak National Gallery complex in Bratislava. [ © → p. 811 ] → m work → m work Second study tour, in Austria.121 099 U  nbuilt second variant: Renovation of and Addition to Slovak National Gallery complex in Bratislava / → p. 822/. [ © → p. 811 ] ◉ n. 031 Second prize in the Czechoslovakia-wide Survey of Architectural Projects, 1962–1963 for the design for the Regional Labour Union Council (KOR) building in Banská Bystrica.122 1 00 Registration document to the first post-graduate scientific level (CSc.) study, with specialization in architecture and typology, with supervisor Prof. Emil Belluš at the University of Technology's Faculty of Building Construction in Bratislava. [ © → p. 811 ] 119 [multiple authors.] Záverečné technicko-ekonomické vyhodnotenie stavby Rekonštrukcia a prístavba SNG, Bratislava 1979, p. 3. 120 KOULA, Jan E. – FAŠANGOVÁ, Ľubomíra. Vývoj k novej architektúre (course text). Bratislava : Stavebná fakulta SVŠT a Slovenské vydavateľstvo technickej literatúry, 1964, p. 179. 121 /→ Note 81. / 122 [unsigned.] Výsledky přehlídky architektonických prací 1962–63. Československý architekt, 10, 1964, 13–14, p. 4. 708 | 709 m cv 1965 4 | The Secondary Political Economy/Economics school with canteen and gym pavilions was completed on the street formerly called Februárového víťazstva, currently Business Academy on Račianska street. n. 030 5 | Completion of the rectorate, aula, faculty pavilions and anatomy pavilion at the University of Agriculture campus in Nitra. Landscaping and construction of other pavilions continued. n. 011 6 → k seg 5 / → m biblio → k seg 6 n. 036 Project for the building permission for the Campus of Comenius University Natural Sciences Faculty in Mlynská dolina, currently Campus of Comenius University and Ľudovít Štúr residence halls, construction well into the late 1970s). The supervising architects were Jozef Stohl for the pavilions, and Jaroslav Prokop for the residence halls. Jaroslav Nemec designed the interiors / → p. 406 /. 5 □ n. 011 The architect Ján Antal reviewed the project and buildings being completed of the University of Agriculture (Slovak initials VŠP) in Nitra / → p. 388 / → p. 835 / for the journal Projekt. The next review came out three years later. 1 01 Project for Campus of Comenius University, Natural Sciences Faculty in Bratislava-Mlynská dolina; black and white photograph unsigned, undated. [ Source → p. 811 ] 6 ◉ n. 036 The project for the university campus won an award in the Czechoslovakiawide Survey of Architectural Projects for 1964–1965: “To Ing. arch. Vladimír Dedeček, for the university campus at Mlynská dolina in Bratislava.” 123 5 ◉ n. 011 The Nitra campus won the Dušan Jurkovič Prize for civil building projects. It was awarded: “To Ing. arch. Vladimír Dedeček, and to Ing. arch. Rudolf Miňovský in memoriam, for the architectural concept and realization of the University of Agriculture in Nitra.” 124 123 [unsigned.] Výsledky celoštátnej prehliadky. Projekt. Časopis Sväzu slovenských architektov, 8, 1966, c ◉ 8–9, p. 173. At the government's recommendation, President Antonín Novotný awarded Ing. Vladimír Dedeček state honours “For Services to Construction”. This was bestowed “... to individuals who by their superior work have become forefront warriors for socialist construction work, and furthermore to those role models of socialist shock workers whose utilization of technical possibilities fundamentally contribute to increasing work productiveness, and to those who are causative agents of the development of science, culture or technology”.125 The honours were “... for years of pioneering tenacious work and for a significant share in applying progressive ideas and notions in educational buildings in Slovakia, with respect to the numerous built architectural projects and project planning at a high level”.126 Other such honours that year went to the architects Dušan Kuzma of the Academy of Fine Arts and Karol Paluš of Stavoprojekt in Bratislava. Architects who that year received Rad práce [Order of Labour] honours included Prof. Emanuel Hruška, Jiři Voženílek, Vojtěch Krch and Jindřich Kumpošt. 124 → LACKO, Jozef. Ceny Dušana Jurkoviča za rok 1965. Projekt. Časopis Sväzu slovenských architektov, 8, 1966, 9, p. 193. 125 → the “Hero of labour” legislation, § 6 Predpisu č. 30/1951 Zb. Nariadenie, ktorým sa zakladajú rady a vyznamenania a upravuje udeľovanie čestného titulu “Hrdina práce”. 126 (journal editors) Vyznamenaní architekti. Projekt. Časopis Sväzu slovenských architektov, 8, 1966, 5, p. 109. 127 /→ Note 77. / ▶ → m work As vice-chairman of the ASA working group for educational buildings, Vladimír Dedeček participated in the 8th UIA Congress, in France (his second working trip to Paris). 127 The Congress theme was The Training of Architects. 1 02 P  roject for the front atrium pavilions of Campus of Comenius University, Natural Sciences Faculty in Bratislava-Mlynská dolina / → p. 822/. [ © → p. 811 ] 1 03 V  ladimír Dedeček, Composing atrium pavilions on the hillside, sketch, black pen on ruled paper, 2014. [ © → p. 811 ] 710 | 711 m cv 1966 › | Completion of the Secondary agricultural technical school in Piešťany (currently Secondary vocational school for gardening). n. 035 5 | More pavilions of the University of Agriculture campus in Nitra were completed. n. 011 5 □ 104 n. 011 The art and architecture historian Udo Kultermann (b. 1927, Stettin) wrote on the new buildings of Nitra's University of Agriculture campus in the book Neues Bauen in der Welt 128. Kultermann lived and worked in the USA from 1964 until his death (2013 in New York). In both the typological order of the book and layout of photographs, he suggested a relationship between the Nitra university and Escuela Nacional de Agricultura (ENA), Valle de San Andrés, El Salvador, 1954 by the architects Karl Katstaller and Ehrentraut Schott de Katstaller. This brought to the global discourse an international parallel or analogy between the school construction in Nitra and San Andrés. Thus far, there has been no reaction in Slovakia's architectural discussion or historiography to Kultermann's transcultural parallel. Then and now, in Slovakia the comparisons primarily centre on the cultural contexts of western and eastern European architecture. S  econdary agricultural technical school building in Piešťany after completion. [ © → p. 811 ] 128 KULTERMANN, Udo. Současná světová architektura. Translation by Gustav Solar. Prague : Nakladatelství Československých výtvarných umělců, 1966, pp. 17 and 62. [On p. 17 the Vysoká škola poľnohospodárska in Nitra is attributed to the non-existent architect Chovánek (apparently through the process of translating the name Jozef Chovanec from German to Czech. Chovanec's 1 05 Sports hall is attributed correctly); In English published as New Architecture in the World (1966). [ Source → p. 811 ] and p. 62 by a close-up photograph of the aula maxima, the building is identified without the architect: “Grand hall of the the University of Agriculture in Nitra.” Next to it is a comparative photograph of ENA, Valle de San Andrés, El Salvador by Karl Katstaller and Ehrentraut Schott de Katstaller. The text draws an analogy between the buildings.] 129 [Editors.] Výsledky celoštátnej prehliadky. Projekt. Časopis Sväzu slovenských architektov, 8, 1966, 7–8, p. 173; [Editors.] Vyhlášení přehlídky architektonických prací 1964–1965. Československý architekt, 12, 1966, 17, p. 3. c 130 /→ Note 81. / Cover of Současná světová architektura (1966), the Czech translation of Udo Kultermann's book Neues Bauen in der Welt (1965). 1 06 Detail of aula maxima in Nitra under construction, reproduced in this book by Kultermann. [ Source → p. 811 ] 1 07 Escuela Nacional de Agricultura (ENA), Valle de San Andrés in this Kultermann book. [ Source → p. 811 ] 6 → k seg 6 □ n. 036 The architect Iľja Skoček sr wrote a review for the journal Projekt of the concept of the Mlynská dolina university campus under the title: “Construction of the Universities Campus in Bratislava” [“Výstavba areálu vysokých škôl v Bratislave”] / → pp. 406, 423 /. 6 n. 036 Execution project for the Campus of the Comenius University Natural Sciences Faculty in Bratislava-Mlynská dolina. n. 037 Project for the Sports hall in Brezno "na Mazorníku" (currently Indoor pool BreznoMazorníkovo, construction continued into the early 1970s). Jaroslav Nemec designed the interior. The hall was built in cooperation with Mostáreň Brezno as a suspended (steel) construction with zigzagged glass facade. n. 038 Project for a Family house in Ivánka pri Dunaji (built in the second half of the 1960s) ▶ Second working trip in Italy.130 108 A  erial view of Campus of the University of Agriculture in Nitra after completion. [ © → p. 811 ] 6 ◉ n. 036 In the Czechoslovakia-wide Survey of architectural projects for 1964–1965, Dedeček's Bratislava-Mlynská dolina campus received first prize in the Projects category.129 ◉ Commendation For Services to Construction. ◉ Badge of honour for Best Worker in the Field of Construction. 712 | 713 m cv ‹ 1966 Because of the scope and deadlines of project work for Dedeček's competition entry Campus of the Comenius University Natural Sciences Faculty in Bratislava-Mlynská dolina, the director of Stavoprojekt Vladimír Fašang spun a new studio off from Studio II. Vladimír Dedeček became the chief architect and head of the newly-formed Studio X (for university and cultural buildings) 131 : “Fašang stood next to me in front of the whole studio and said: ‘Whoever wants to stay, stand and come to my left, whoever wants to go with Dedeček, to the right.’” [ V.D. ] Generations of collaborators worked in Dedeček's studio during the twenty-nine years of its existence: “Architecture is a craft of teamwork, and it is a great injustice when everyone is not listed together with the main architects of a project.” [ V.D. ]. In 2015 Vladimír Dedeček reconstructed for the current publication, from memory aided by Stavoprojekt's first year book 132, a list of the studio's working group members and those who worked on the University of Agriculture project in Nitra: c 131 both he and Dedeček agreed. Those The studio's brief expanded from who did such work for Dedeček's schools to other cultural buildings, studio included the architect and and buildings for sports, health care historian Ivan Kuhn (lighting and and offices. Because Stavoprojekt acoustics) during a period when he archives are not accessible, it was politically undesirable and had has not been possible to identify departed from the Technology the studio's various name changes University's Faculty of architecture; in individual periods. and the physician, theologian, Jesuit 132 and secret Roman Catholic priest MASNÝ, Rudolf – LOJDL, Milan (eds.). with a mathematics doctorate Michal Stavoprojekt Bratislava 1949–1969. Kumorovitz, who was employed by Bratislava : Práca, 1969, 220 pages. the concern Tesla in its Bratislava 133 branch (as an expert in acoustics Per a decision by the Stavoprojekt and electroacoustics). It is thanks in director, for some time the monument part to their work that the innovative group under Dr. Karol Chudomelka educational and cultural buildings was part of Dedeček's studio. designed by Dedeček's studio 134 had high-level lighting and sound In addition to the internal full time quality. “Fathers Michal Kumorovitz, professionals, heads of Stavoprojekt Valér Závarský, and Jozef Daniš studios employed (and paid directly gave support as clergy in Bratislava from studio budgets) external part parishes, and with Emil Krapko time specialists and technicians supervised the formative studies whom the regime had identified as of the young Jesuits who in secret problematic for a variety of issues but took the cloth from 1970 to 1980”. whose work was crucial for a project, → HUDAČEK, Milan. História, ktorá with other architects “covering” for nás obohacuje VI. Zvesti slovenských them. The studio manager Viktor jezuitov, 2008, 6, pp. 12–13. Faktor commissioned their work → also JAKUBČIN, Pavol (ed.). for Dedeček's studio – in Dedeček's Likvidácia reholí a ich život v ilegalite words – using official contracts v rokoch 1950–1989 (proceedings from signed solely with institution scholarly conference). Bratislava : representatives (Mostárne Brezno, Ústav pamäti národa, 2010. Tesla etc) rather than with 135 individuals. This meant the studio Stavoprojekt archives in Bratislava could employ those already working are not accessible, and so it has not elsewhere, or those who had been possible to verify this list. someone else provide their name as 136 a “cover” and then pass the fee over According to Vladimír Dedeček the to them. Viktor Faktor – in Dedeček's studio employed at least 21 part time words – regularly testified to the ŠtB employees, and at least 91 full time secret police on studio activities as employees. Group I, for architecture design and design for renovation of historical monuments: R. Miňovský (d. 1960), V. Dedeček, M. Oravcová, E. Volková, J. Piekert, R. Fresser, A. Achberger, T. Čellár, Ľ. Hollý, M. Škorupa, I. Horáková, P. Mazanec, P. Kubaš, A. Tekula, J. Kosorín, I. Šimko, /?/ Peráček, P. Černo, /?/ Švolík, P. Chudý, J. Sturmayr, V. Jurčo, /?/ Koštial, /?/ Koštialová, F. Slanina, D. Tesák, J. Poničan, /?/ Milina; J. Stohl, s. Gašparovič; G. Boďová, E. Valašíková, Z. Mozoľová, Z. /?/, A. Sulíková; 133 II, for interior design: J. Nemec, V. Zvada, L. Krpala, /?/ Kvasnica, /?/ Berec; III, for structural engineering design: K. Mesík, M. Hartl, Ľ. Farkaš, M. Rothová, V. Tončev, J. Bučko, M. Baranovič, H. Matušková, J. Barnáš, M. Barnášová; IV, for steel construction design: O. Pečený, L. Pečená, A. Hámošová, J. Kozák, /?/ Šubr, /?/ Agócs, /?/; V, for surveying documentation for renovation of historical monuments: /?/ Babál; VI, projects for organizing construction: M. Ďuriš, /?/ Ďurišová; VII, projects for central heating: J. Tomits, /?/ Libíč, P. Fischer, /??/; VIII, projects for ventilation: J. Kramár, J. Porubský, J. Pavil, J. Adame, /?/ Flassík; IX, projects for laboratory technology, equipment and technological elements: /?/ Pavelka, O. Bydžovský, /?/ Križko; X, audio-visual technology projects: /?/ Meyer; XI, projects for acoustics and natural light design: I. Kuhn, /?/ Fehér, M. Kumorovitz; 134 XII, projects for water and sewage installation: /?/ Blažek, O. Helmich, M. Sláviková, G. Kolman, /?/ Kubala; XIII, for construction budgets: J. Hruška, J. Matúšek, /?/ Prokop, J. Vrana, D. Kusalík, E. Kusalíková; XIV, for construction economics: A. Balogh, P. Chovanec; XV, for electrical power system projects, high- and and low-voltage currents: Z. Horváth, F. Písečný, L. Danielis, V. Jurkovič, inžinierka J. Nackina, /?/ Bednár; XVI, for road, terrain and landscaping projects: Š. Richtárik, H. Slováčková, E. Žilavá; XXVII, for dewatering drainage and sewerage projects: /?/ Ždímal, /?/, I. Chorváth; XVIII, for measurement and regulation: F. Tesař; XIX, for studio administration and finances: Viktor Faktor (studio manager and deputy head), J. Orthová, A. Sorelová, M. Harenčáková; XX, for legal issues: J. Jazík.135 Thus as Dedeček remembers it, from the time of the Nitra university project and on other of his studio's project, at least 40 architects worked for his office, and including other professionals at least 112 employees 136 in 20 different professions. → m work 109 110 The  scope of work on the Comenius University, Natural Sciences Faculty campus project in Bratislava-Mlynská dolina spurred the separation of Dedeček's group from Studio II for educational buildings and the origin of Studio X at Stavoprojekt / → p. 822/. [ © → p. 811 ] 714 | 715 m cv 1967 6 n. 036 n. 041 As the year began, construction was under way for the first stage of the Comenius University Natural Sciences Faculty in Mlynská dolina: Faculty of Mathematics and Physics with the Universities' Central Computer Centre.137 Project for Family house pod Zoborom in Nitra (construction begun in the early 1970s). 6 → k seg 6 n. 036 The minister for education and culture PaedDr. Matej Lúčan (1963–1968, education minister 1969–1970) expanded the Mlynská dolina university program to include the faculties of arts and law and their residence halls, intending to build school buildings, administration and sports areas for all Comenius University faculties except Medicine, which had suitable historical buildings in the centre of Bratislava. Thus during the pro-reform years, the idea returned of a Bratislava university city. Dedeček as architect began work on an expanded university campus variant (unbuilt) / → p. 406 /. iv At the invitation of Prof. Štefan Lukačovič, Ing. Dedeček started part time lecturing for the Department of Building Construction II at the Faculty of Civil Engeneering of the Slovak University of Technology. He taught subjects related to designing, and supervised state examination projects, where students focused on developing a concept, execution project and detailing. He taught foreign students, mostly from Korea and Vietnam, in French. As he recalls, he lectured in Lukačovič's department until the 1974–75 or 1975–76 academic year, when he was working on the projects for the Incheba exhibition facility and the sports hall in Ostrava, and stopped teaching for reasons of time.141 He was not to return to teaching. n. 033 Finalized the project for building permission for Renovation of and addition to Slovak National Gallery in Bratislava. This was submitted to a committee of experts 138 of the Ministry of Education and Culture.139 Headed by Prof. Belluš, the committee wrote up a position stating some objections. As the architect wrote later, the committee discussed the project as “... conservative – supposedly it was inessential to adjust to the scale and shape of the surrounding and (architecturally) less relevant buildings”.140 The committee requested the design be innovated, and Ing. arch. Štefan Svetko as the head of the Office of the City Architect of Bratislava asked the view from the street and the opposite bank of the Danube into the courtyard and historical Water Barracks be opened up. Evaluations by the preservation bureau expressed reservations as to how the bridging was linked to the historical Water Barracks building, but gave approval to the overall project. 13 → k nonseg 13 n. 040 Project for Shared administrative building of the Directorate of Poultry Production and Construction/Project Centre of Bridge-Production Plant Brezno in Bratislava (currently head office of Social Insurance Agency; construction continued into the early 1970s). Interior designed by Jaroslav Nemec. / → p. 490 /. n. 039 5 □ n. 011 Oldřich Dostál, Josef Pechar and Vítězslav Procházka published their six-language photographic book Modern Architecture in Czechoslovakia 142 featuring the University of Agriculture campus in Nitra. Their evaluations of the Nitra building (the book cover features colour photographs of it), and of the ČSAV Institute of Macromolecular Chemistry by Karel Prager (design 1958, built 1960–1964) and the Student city at Strahov (especially the students' canteen by Stanislav Franc and Luděk Hanf, completed 1965), were polemical: “While these pieces of work are indicative of the increasing quality of our current architecture, there is too a hitherto one-sided unity of expression, from a rational functional and construction mode of thinking. There is more initiative in the indoor solutions of the new buildings and reconstructed landmarks, often yielding emotionally evocative results... In recent years in Nitra, Mladá Boleslav, České Budějovice, Pelhřimov and other towns, it has proven necessary to resolve organically the task of fitting the silhouettes of large new residential units penetrating even to the town's historical core. Contemporary architecture's efforts both artistic and emotional are judged by how they establish contact with fine art works.” 143 Thus the criticism came also from an interest in renewal of the polarity of rational/ emotional modernity, and more specifically from the tradition of discourse on both scientific and poetic functionalism in the Czech Republic. Project for Sports hall in Brezno-mesto/Ice stadium in Brezno for 5,000 spectators (unbuilt). 111 c 137 Vladimír Karfík, and Ing. arch. I.K. (unknown author's initials) Anton Zimmermann [Cimmermann]. Investičná výstavba Univerzity Ing. arch. Jozef Lacko excused Komenského. Naša univerzita. himself. → Príloha listu Dr. Karola Spravodaj Univerzity Komenského, 23, Vaculíka arch. Vladimírovi Dedečkovi 1976, 2, p. 8. zo 4. septembera 1967. Typewritten, 138 19 pages. In: Fond Karol Vaculík, One opinion was written by Prof. Archív výtvarného umenia SNG. Dr. Ing. Jozef Harvančík and Ing. arch. 139 Marián Marcinka, with another Pokyn Komisie SNR pre školstvo opinion having illegible signatures a kultúru zo dňa 28. decembra 1962. and no names given. Within the RSDr. Vasil Biľak, the education and commission, views on the design culture minister, was responsible were presented by Prof. Ing. arch. for this order. → [multiple authors.] Emil Belluš, Prof. Dr. Ing. Jozef Záverečné technicko-ekonomické V  ladimír Dedeček, Section of unbuilt Sports hall Harvančík, Ing. arch. Štefan Svetko vyhodnotenie dokončenej stavby, in Brezno-mesto/Ice stadium in Brezno for 5,000 spectators, (for the Office of the City Architect Rekonštrukcia a prístavba SNG. sketch, black pen on ruled paper, 2014. [ © → p. 811 ] of Bratislava), Prof. Ing. arch. Bratislava 1979, p. 3. ▶ Third study trip to France and first to Switzerland, primarily focused on university buildings. He visited Geneva.145 Vladimir’s wife Oľga travelled to Italy. 112 113 Cover  and double page featuring photographs of the University of Agriculture in Nitra. [ Source → p. 811 ] 140 Vladimír Dedeček. Areál Slovenskej národnej galérie in Bratislava. Projekt. Revue slovenskej architektúry, 23, 1981, 1–2, p. 9. “Ing. Marcinka took exception to the dominant solution of the administrative building, which conflicted with the main function of the exhibition spaces and their architectural form.” In: DEDEČEK, Vladimír. Technická správa k alternatívnemu riešeniu ÚP SNG, typewritten. Bratislava 11 june 1967, p. 1. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 141 The study programs of this period for the university do not give detailed 115 Prime Minister Jozef Lenárt awarded Vladimír Dedeček information on the subjects Vladimír the Order of Klement Gottwald state award at Prague Castle Dedeček taught, and do not list “on the eve of May Day celebrations”. [ © → p. 811 ] him as a member of Lukačovič's department. Such information may be in the department's archives. 142 DOSTÁL, Oldřich – PECHAR, Josef – 114 PROCHÁZKA, Vítězslav. moderní Official portrait for the occasion of receiving the state award. [ © → p. 811 ] architektura v československu / sovremennaja architektura v čechoslovakii / moderne architektur in der tschechoslowakei / modern architecture in czechoslovakia / l’architecture moderne en tchécoslovaquie / la arquitectura moderna en checoslovaquia. Prague : Nakladatelství československých výtvarných umělců, 1967, pp. 194–232. 143 Ibid., p. 194. 144 ČTK Press agency report on May Day celebrations just before this holiday, on 29 April 1967, in the Prague Castle's Spanish Hall. Source of text: From back of award ceremony photograph. Vladimír Dedeček's archives. 145 /→ Note 81. / 5 [ 29 april ] Ing. Dedeček received the Order of Klement Gottwald “for architectural activity of import, primarily for design and realization of the University of Agriculture in Nitra”. Prime Minister Jozef Lenárt bestowed the award at Prague Castle. Other architects so honoured were František Zounek and Viktor Rudiš of Stavoprojekt in Brno – Rudiš was then its director.144 The same year the prime minister granted this award to the scholar Otto Wichterle as Director of the ČSAV Institute of Macromolecular Chemistry in Prague, the writer Alfonz Bednár, and Ladislav Slovák as conductor and Director of the Slovak Philharmonic. ◉ n. 011 716 | 717 m cv 1968 › [ 19 january ] Dedeček passed his first postgraduate examination. Committee chairman: Prof. Vladimír Karfík; committee members: Prof. Viktor Formáček, Prof. Štefan Lukačovič, Prof. Emil Belluš. 8 → k seg 8 n. 043 Won architectural competition between IPO ŠŠ and Stavoprojekt for designing University of Forestry and Wood Technology in Zvolen (currently Technical University of Forestry and Wood in Zvolen) / → p. 442 /. The university was under construction until 1984. n. 044 Project for Church in Svit (unbuilt, project drawings so far not found). n. 042 Project for Jaroslav Nemec family house in Bratislava at Červený kríž (construction begun in the early 1970s, extension 1998 based on Jaroslav Nemec's design). [ 13–14 june ] Conference of the Association of Slovak Architects (ASA). → k seg 5 / → m biblio [ 1 january ] The education minister Matej Lúčan established a ministry planning organization for the design of educational architecture (Inžinierskoprojektová organizácia školských stavieb, abbreviation IPO ŠS, in Bratislava; after 1989 IPO ŠS, a.s.). Ing. arch. Aladár Búzik was named director. Vladimír Dedeček – as the chief architect of the in-process Campus of the Comenius University Natural Sciences Faculty – decided to remain at Stavoprojekt and continue working in his Studio X, but after 1973 had to relinquish the Mlynská dolina campus project to IPO ŠS. The architect Manol Kančev and other architects left Stavoprojekt for IPO ŠS, which gradually took over all stages of the design process and building supervision for school commissions in Slovakia.146 5 □ The periodical Architektura ČSSR published the second review of the University of Agriculture campus in Nitra, after more pavilions were completed. Vladimír Karfík is credited as the reviewer / → p. 388 / → p. 836 /. A third and “summarizing review” by Dr. Martin Kusý came out together with the Architect's and Investor's Statements twenty years later. → m cv □ 116 R  ecord of candidate's minimum examination (equivalent of PhD exams). [ © → p. 811 ] c n. 011 n. 019 The architect and historian Felix Haas, in his publication Modern International Architecture [Moderná svetová architektúra], included the building of Tatras National Park administration in Tatranská Lomnica / → 1957/ in the chapter “Inclination to the Neo-Romanticism [Nové sklony k romantizmu]”. He noted as forerunners to this direction buildings by the Slovak architect Dušan Samuel Jurkovič (1868–1947), and selected buildings by Le Corbusier (Villa le Sextant at Les Mathes, design and construction 1935,147 with Pierre Jeanneret) and by Lúcio Costa (Parkhotel São Clemente, Nova Friburgo near Rio de Janeiro, design and construction 1944–1945 148 ), Ernst Gisel (Family house in Zweisimmen, Switzerland, built about 1950 149 ) and even Frank Lloyd Wright (Romeo and Juliet Windmill Tower for Nell and Jane Lloyd Jones, Spring Green, Wisconsin, USA, completed 1896, refurbished 1938 150 ). Haas thought of these buildings as bearers of “modern Romanticism”, and the precursors of contemporary romanticizing tendencies in the later modern. He pointed to the influence of traditional materials on modern projects, design processes and building technology. He put particular emphasis on the buildings' relationship to their landscape. From this the author inferred “... the modern establishing a connection to a local countryside building tradition” 151 in 1960s Switzerland, Denmark, Hungary, Italy and Czechoslovakia. In his opinion, the buildings listed above had modern, functional floor plans; they resonated with the mettle of the land, in how they were set in the terrain, in the roof lines, and most of all in their building material (wooden timbered or log structures, buildings of rough-hewn stone or raw plastering, composed in harmony with the landscape relief and local building traditions). Haas took all these features as an expansion of the modern's regional sources.152 117 M  odel of project for University of Forestry and Wood Technology campus in Zvolen. [ © → p. 811 ] 146 DROTÁR, Pavol. IPO a univerzitná výstavba. Naša univerzita, 16, 1970, 10, pp. 4–5. 147 Dates originally missing, but added here according to: ETLIN, Richard A. Frank Lloyd Wright and Le Corbusier: The Romantic Legacy. Manchester : Manchester University Press, 1994. 148 Missing dating added according to: MINDLIN, Henrique Ephim. Modern 118 D  ouble page with reproduction of Frank Lloyd Wright's water tower and windmill and Dedeček's “log cabin” for the Tatras National Park administration building in Tatranská Lomnica in book by Felix Haas Modern International Architecture [Moderná svetová architektúra] (1968). [ Source → p. 811 ] Architecture in Brazil. Rio de Janeiro / Amsterdam : Colibris, 1956. [Introduction by Siegfried Giedion.] 149 Unfortunately it has not been possible to verify the name or date of this work. 150 Missing dating added according to: STORRER, Villiam Allin. The Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright. A Complete Catalogue. Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2002. [First edition 1974.] 151–152 HAAS, Felix. Moderná svetová architektúra. Bratislava : Vydavateľstvo Slovenského fondu výtvarných umení, 1968, p. 193. 718 | 719 m cv ‹ 1968 [ in summer and fall ] Dedeček criticized the transfer of studios “of new design methods under the guidance of leading architecture personalities”, taken out of Stavoprojekt and then assigned to the architects' organization Association of Slovak Architects (ASA) as a separate management structure under the Partnership of Architectural Design Studios / Združenie projektových ateliérov (ZPAT). “In ‘68 I was against this new grouping of project studios. [Štefan] Svetko thought that we in Stavoprojekt would do the tedious work – draw all the execution project, school everyone, and make room for others in the profession... This I rejected. That is how I got the reputation of a 'normalization architect'.” [V.D.] He argued against this breaking down of project planning stages among studios under the oversight either of ministries and Stavoprojekt or of the ASA, stating that the architects of Stavoprojekt and other state design organizations were using new design methods as well. “Svetko wanted ZPAT to work only in ‘hundreds’ [studies and preliminary designs in the scale of 1:100]. Vykonáváky [execution projects in scale of 1:50 and less] were to be done by engineering organizations. So my dispute with Svetko was not because of politics. It was because he thought Stavoprojekt should become an engineering organization. And I wanted to work through all a project's phases, to coordinate technologies, and so I could have some full time architects and other part time professionals – [the director] Fašang concentrated them all into a technical unit. The studios [of Stavoprojekt] were financially independent and had their own [bank] accounts, but the finance director and bank checked everything. Studios had the possibility of lending each other money [in case of need], but if Stavoprojekt was to be competitive to ZPAT, it would have to transform into [a limited company called] Stavoprojekt s.r.o. That's what I suggested, but it didn't happen. Later [after 1968] they made studios at ZPAT, equal to those of Stavoprojekt.” [V.D.] He described his relationship to politics as follows: “I get a commission, and there's no reason for politics to interest me, I have an architectural problem to solve. Even as a soldier I took up my weapon – as ordered. But architecture is a creative profession. An architect doesn't just have to do what the client wants… An architect is like a physician, serving everyone. That doesn't mean giving communist medicine to a communist. I worked on the commission as I wanted, and it was for me to persuade the ministry's commission that I had done it well. I made some concessions: on the number of occupants for a building and their spatial needs, and on unavoidable changes in technology and materials… I didn't make conceptual concessions.” [ V.D. ] After the incursion of Warsaw Pact troops into Czechoslovakia, he like all Czechoslovak citizens was required to make a statement on how he acted in 1968–1969. He stated in his 1987 biography: “I acted in defence of socialist design organizations against elitist tendencies and basing architectural studios around 'excellent personalities', and also against various resolutions within Stavoprojekt.” 153 c □ On the 50th anniversary of the birth of Czechoslovakia, the autumn issue of the journal Československý architekt ran survey responses that included Vladimír Dedeček's on his work as an architect: “I remember my first impressions of the office work very precisely. One of my colleagues was drawing half an elevation, and constantly checking the composition axis in a mirror. We've come a long way since designing was done that way... There was organization [of the struggle for a comprehensive realization of a work of architecture] concentrating on these partial interests and its main purpose: the protection of an unconstrained creative process, of the ordinary architect against the monopoly of typification-prefabrication-building, was something only in proclamations and programs, with little practical outcome for the creative work and life of the working architect, who was under pressure from all sides.” 154 An an interview with Katarína Andrášiová and Mária Topolčanská (2004), he answered a related question. “ka: Did the changing social atmosphere produce better working conditions for you? (...) I can't say I experienced any feeling of freedom. You understand, the question is: ‘In what does one see freedom?’ I am a free person by nature. I never felt enslaved, by communists, or by anyone else. If I thought something was right, I stood up for what I thought was right. When I knew something is worthless – I said that too, even if I was sitting in front of, let's say, the Secretary of the Party. I never experienced the feeling of not being able to speak my mind. So I never felt any personal feeling of freedom either. The thing that oppressed me the most, which was having to beg the gentlemen at Pozemné stavby state building company, was oppressing me further, nothing changed there. There was just a hope that something could change. There were no changes in the economy, it came through only in the intellectual area. People were not afraid of talking any more [in public]. Everyone started talking at once – too much and needlessly. If they had talked less, maybe the Russians wouldn't have had to come. The Russians got afraid they would lose the outcomes of the Second World War, especially East Germany. From a military perspective it's clear to me that the incursion was inevitable.” 155 Later he added: “I base my opinion on the 'hot line' phone call between [Leonid Ilyich] Brezhnev and the US president [Lyndon B. Johnson], reported by the press agency NSR: ‘That is your sphere of influence. Tehran – Yalta – Potsdam.’” [ V.D. ] Dedeček was named to architectural sub-committee of the federal Government Committee for awarding the Klement Gottwald State Prizes of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic (until 1982). Prof. Emil Belluš headed the committee. This year Ferdinand Milučký, architect of Bratislava's Stavoprojekt, received the prize. “Considering projects, the best time was from 1957 to 1968, because we were mainly resolving architectural issues. The only politics was at Party meetings, and none of us architects [from Studio II for educational buildings] attended. The Party started backing away from architectural issues. A new technical intelligentsia was developing, in whom they trusted and among whom there were experts. It wasn't like that before or afterwards.” [ V.D. ] 153 DEDEČEK, Vladimír. Životopis. Signed by hand, 26. novembra 1987. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 154 [unsigned, DEDEČEK, Vladimír among others] Slovo tvůrců (odpoveď na anketu pri príležitosti 50. výročia založenia Československej republiky). Architektura ČSSR, 27, 1968, 9–10, pp. 629–664. 155 Vladimír Dedeček. Rozhovor zo dňa 2. júna 2004; Vladimír Dedeček, Katarína Andrášiová, Mária Topoľčanská. In: URLICH, Petr – VORLÍK, Petr – FILSAKOVÁ, Beryl – ANDRÁŠIOVÁ, Katarína – POPELOVÁ, Lenka. Šedesátá léta v architektuře očima pamětníků. Prague : Česká technika – nakladatelství ČVUT, 2006, pp. 284–285. 156 Interview with Vladimír Dedeček, ◉ Plaque presented by the Stavoprojekt director on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of this state design organization: 20 Years of Slovak Design Institutes. in Bratislava, summer 2014 – summer 2015. 157 /→ Note 81. / ◉ Commemorative medal, 50 Years of Czechoslovak Architecture. [ march – june ] ▶ Four-month study tour of West German universities, at the invitation of the German Academic Society (as part of an exchange program). Among others, Ing. Dedeček visited the university at Bochum.156 In France in subsequent years, he visited Dijon, Arles, the Palais des Papes at Avignon and Paris.157 720 | 721 m cv 1969 iv n. 033 → m work Approval came for the new project for building permission for the SNG addition with a bridging wing of the Vodné kasárne building by the Danube. Ing. Dedeček did work on the general project design and working plans for the SNG complex in Bratislava (construction lasted until the late 1970s). The supervising architects were Peter Mazanec, Mária Oravcová and Ján Piekert. The interior was designed by Jaroslav Nemec. 119 Section of third, built variant of SNG reconstruction and extension: front wing – bridging of the historical Vodné kasárne building on the Danube's bank / → p. 822/. [ © → p. 811 ] → k seg 8 8 n. 043 Completed the study for University of Forestry and Wood Technology, currently Technical University of Forestry and Wood in Zvolen / → p. 442 /. n. 045 Completed competition project for Extension to Stavoprojekt building (unbuilt). → m biblio □ c The company's first ceremonial publication came out: Stavoprojekt Bratislava 1949–1969. It featured buildings by Vladimír Dedeček, Rudolf Miňovský and Studio II / → p. 836 /. [ 13 march ] The 3rd Congress of the architects' organization Zväz architektov ČSSR in Prague elected Prof. Emil Belluš chair, and in the sense of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic's constitutional law (no. 143/1968 from 27 October 1968) approved the establishment of two independent national organizations. The Association of Czech Architects started functioning; the Association of Slovak Architects had already existed in parallel to the common Zväz architektov ČSSR. As of this Congress, the previously formed Zväz architektov ČSSR disbanded. ▶ Two study tours in West Berlin and one in Austria 160 related to the SNG project. ▶ Family holiday in Yugoslavia. [ 18–19 april ] 3rd Congress of the Association of Slovak Architects (ASA). Štefan Svetko was elected chair. The nature conservation organization Slovak Union of Nature and Landscape Protectors [Slovenský zväz ochrancov prírody a krajiny, known by its abbreviation SZOPK] was founded. As a member of the relevant commission, Ing. Dedeček proposed awarding the Klement Gottwald State Prize to the Memorial and Museum of the Slovak National Uprising building in Banská Bystrica. The architects behind the first competition project were Dušan Kuzma and Vojtech Vilhan (1952, unbuilt). Part of Kuzma's later solution (competition project 1959, construction 1964–1969 158 ) is a monumental sculpture by Jozef Jankovič (Victims Admonish [Obete varujú], 1964–1969). In Dedeček's words, after discussions the commission decided against honouring this building; after debate its chairman Prof. Emil Belluš reclassified this structure into the auspices of the sculpture committee. The First Secretary of the reformed Communist Central Committee, Alexander Dubček, took personal charge of building the monument. The approval process took place in Prague. The Prague critics of the 1964 design, among architects and politicians, disdained it as “cosmopolitan” and “Brazilian-like”, nicknaming it “Brasiliana”.159 Analogously, though in a different context, Dedeček's domed aula maxima of Slovak University of Agriculture in Nitra is now being regarded as influenced by Oscar Niemeyer. After 1968 Kuzma and Jankovič's monument became a symbolic sign of Slovakia's federalization and greater socio-political freedoms. Jankovič's sculpture was deinstalled in 1972 (and not reinstalled in the monument's middle section until 2004 [!]). “Kuzma's memorial is the greatest memorial to war victims we have in Slovakia. It is in fact an architectural pietà.” [ V.D. ] 1 20 158 Dated according to [unsigned.] Kalendárium. In: KUZMOVÁ, Slovak National Uprising memorial and museum in Banská Bystrica by Dušan Kuzma, with the sculpture Obete varujú by Jozef Jankovič, nominated for the Order of Klement Gottwald state award. [ © → p. 811 ] Katarína (ed.). Dušan Kuzma, architekt. Bratislava : SAS – Jaga, s. d., p. 72 [texts by Ľudovít Petránsky, Peter Lizoň and Karol Kahoun]. 159 LIZOŇ, Peter. Architekt, pedagóg, mysliteľ. In: KUZMOVÁ, Katarína (ed.). Dušan Kuzma, architekt. Ibid, p. 14. 160 /→ Note 81. / 722 | 723 m cv 1970 5 6 8 n. 046 n. 011 / n. 036 / n. 043 / n. 048 Designed the Bus station in Zvolen (unbuilt). Dedeček began work on the documentation for a typification research study of university buildings and campuses (the only documentation now available is the first chapter, typewritten: I. The Goal of Typification Work in Designing Universities). Ing. Dedeček based his work on evaluating and comparing the qualities of universities and residential halls he had co-designed in the decade 1960–1970. “This publication represents a significant contribution to the standardization of localization programs and with them the planar, volumetric and financial parameters of universities. It likewise is an attempt at standardization of modular grids and therefore of university structures... Once more it should be noted that this is not a mass volume typification of these university faculties for various sizes based on student numbers, but rather a typification design of component units for individual sections of a faculty.” 161 A table and drawings in the text assessed the parameters of the University of Agriculture in Nitra, the Building site of the Faculty of Arts – Bratislava, University of Technology Electrical Engineering Faculty – Bratislava, University of Technology Chemistry and Technology Faculty – Bratislava, University of Forestry and Wood Technology in Zvolen and finally Residence hall pavilion "E", i.e. the atrium-pavilion residence at the Mlynská dolina campus in Bratislava. “The projects submitted serve as a basis for determining optimal solutions of component units of sections for administration/teachers, laboratory (departmental and specialized), lecture rooms, aula and workshops.” 162 It was designs for primary and secondary schools and universities from the mid-1950s to the mid-1970s that formed Dedeček’s architectural thinking and designing. As he worked on his tasks, he was also formulating his own program for architectural projects / → pp. 19–47 /. n. 047 Design for ČSAD garages in Zvolen (unbuilt). 8 n. 043 Project for planning permit for the University of Forestry and Wood Technology in Zvolen. (?) n. 050 Apparently during this period Ing. Dedeček and the architect František Slanina proposed a project for organizing the Zvolen arboretum and seed cultivation structures (project plans so far not found, realization: ?). (?) At about this time Ing. Dedeček designed the Cultural Centre – multi-function hall (gym, cinema/theatre) in the Alexander Yegorov Barracks in Zvolen (project plans so far not found, realization: ?, reconstruction 1992–1994, currently apparently Seniors' home and Social services home, Zvolen [?]). n. 051 Project for the Chemical and technology faculty of the University of Technology in Bratislava (unbuilt, later realized on the basis of a new design by Igor Diklič, Jozef Liščák and Juraj Lupták, IPO ŠS, 1977). → a n. 048 n. 049 Project for the Public garages for 500 cars on the street ulica Viliama Paulinyho-Tótha in Bratislava (unbuilt). c 161 or ‘dismantle’ the basic principles to provide itself these services. Zápisnice Ústredného výboru ZSA od for Project Planning”. Slovakia's [unsigned. DEDEČEK, Vladimír.] of socialism. Progressive architects ZPAT had the character of a project III. zjazdu ZSA. 1.–5. riadne zasadnutie Ministry of Culture did not approve I. Cieľ typizačnej práce v oblasti regard such victories of socialism planning organization, but it was 1969, zasadnutie v roku 1970 this proposal. Therefore the projekcie vysokých škôl. /Základná as the nationalization of land, not subject to the state budget. /cited in Note 163 /, p. 2. ASA commission recommended skladobná jednotka, sekcia, central planning, nationalization → STELLER, Ján. [Vystúpenie na 170 “rebuilding Architectural Service vzorová fakulta/ (documentation of industry and construction and etc Konferencii ZSA] In: FELLINGEROVÁ, JENDREJÁK, Ľudovít. [Vystúpenie na on new foundations within the for typification research study). as indispensable conditions for the Elena (ed.). Konferencia Zväzu Konferencii ZSA] In: FELLINGEROVÁ, Slovak Visual Arts Fund, and setting [Stavoprojekt: Bratislava]. healthy evolution of architecture. slovenských architektov. Bratislava Elena (ed.). Konferencia Zväzu sloven- up a separate architecture section Typewritten, undated (after 1970)], There was never any lack of clarity 30. marec 1972. Bratislava : ZSA, ských architektov. Bratislava 30. marec under a commission of architects' pp. 1, 5 and 6. In: Fond Vladimír among us on this... However, by the 1972, pp. 44–45. 1972 /cited in Note 167 /, p. 165. supervision.”→ STELLER, Ján. Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, same token it is wrong for errors 168 171 [Vystúpenie na Konferencii ZSA] Applied Arts and Design SNG. and omissions to be absolutized and From 1966 to 1976, the architect The NKÚ SSR investigation found In: FELLINGEROVÁ, Elena (ed.). 162 insensitively focused on. The events Ján Lichner was director of the that “Architectural Service” was Konferencia Zväzu slovenských Ibid., p. 6. of 1968 have given us sufficient lessons preservation institute Slovenský a project planning organization. architektov. Bratislava 30. marec 163 of this, where honourably intended ústav pamiatkovej starostlivosti It had four permanent employees, 1972. Ibid., pp. 45–47. Minutes of extraordinary meeting criticism of the errors in our preceding a ochrany prírody in Bratislava. but facilitated activities between 172 of the ÚV ZSA on 21 may 1970. evolution and of the Communist Party After resigning this post, he was investors (who commissioned The Bratislava “Architectural In: [Sekretariát ZSA.] Zápisnice itself was abused, in order to negate employed by Slovakia's Ministry work) and individual architects Service” was set up in 1966 based Ústredného výboru ZSA od III. zjazdu all that had been positive, and to of Construction and Technology, (as suppliers), and this was not on its Prague counterpart (1964). ZSA. 1.–5. riadne zasadnutie 1969, construct an anti-society program.” and later by the Slovak Commission in keeping with part time work It mediated the working-up of zasadnutie v roku 1970. Bratislava : Ibid., pp. 7–9. for Science and Technology contracts. Like ZPAT, they also studies and projects authorized ZSA, 1969–1970, pp. 1–11. 167 and Investment Development. paid no taxes. Neither NKÚ nor by a permanent architectural 164 An investigation by Slovakia's He taught at the architecture the relevant ASA commission found committee. For project design, Ibid., p. 4. inspection bureau, the NKÚ faculty at the University a way to legalize “Architectural it employed professionals from state 165–166 SSR, determined that ZPAT was of Technology in Bratislava. Service”, and they proposed planning institutes, which came Chairman Štefan Svetko stated in established in conflict with 169 eliminating it altogether. In its in for criticism by the NKÚ bureau. defence of the ASA's work: “For the economic law, because the ASA Records from the ÚV ZSA meeting on place, the publisher “A-Press” was After it merged with “A-Press” ASA it was never important to deny needed no such organization 7 October 1970. In: [Sekretariát ZSA.] to establish after 1971 a “Department publishing, it was intended to be → [ 7–8 october ] At its meeting, the ASA Central Committee (Slov.: ÚV ZSA) discussed “the free-lance, independent business activity of this Federation's specialized unit” and criticized discussions among professionals on the question “Is architecture an art?”, i.e. whether the ASA should be considered a creative arts organization or not, as such discussions culminated in the establishment of the aforementioned ASA management and specialized units. New members were co-opted into the ÚV ZSA: Vladimír Fašang, Dušan Boháč and Tibor Horniak. The new ÚV ZSA leadership was announced: Ľudovít Jendreják, Iľja Skoček sr, 1 22 At the 5th Congress of USSR Architects in Moscow [ © → p. 811 ] Stanislav Talaš, Ferdinand Milučký, Viktor Malinovský, Dušan Boháč, Vladimír Fašang, Tibor Horniak and Ján Lichner.169 The collective studios of Partnership of Architectural Design Studios [Združenie projektových ateliérov (ZPAT)] were detached from the ASA, and delegated to Slovakia's Ministry of Construction and Technology as a separate “Projektová organizácia spoločenských stavieb” organization (POSS; the studios functioned as “independent bookkeeping units ruled by the planned state budget” 170 ). Architectural Service 171 and A-Press were merged (as of 31 December 1970).172 There were nine candidates proclaimed for the new ÚV ZSA leadership: Ladislav Beisetzer, Dušan Boháč, Vladimír Dedeček, Vladimír Fašang, Dušan Kedro, Ján Lichner, Viktor Malinovský, Ferdinand Milučký and Ján Šipkovský. The leadership of the ÚV ZSA announced its approval of the membership of the new committee and its working commissions. Vladimír Dedeček was named to a UIA working commission (possibly for school buildings).173 → m biblio → a [ 21 may ] Extraordinary meeting convened of the Central Committee of the Association of Slovak Architects (Slov. abbrev.: ÚV ZSA). The chairman Štefan Svetko and other ASA leaders (Marián Marcinka, Eugen Kramár, Ivan Kuhn, Jozef Lacko...) resigned.163 The inspecting organ – The Communist Party of Slovakia's Central Committee agency, Planned Economy Department, headed by Ing. Durný – reproached them for their 1968–1969 activities, above all the actions of ASA management/functional structures, and for a politically “distorted” position regarding the letter from the five Warsaw Pact countries on “an open counter-revolutionary assault” inside Czechoslovakia, with a warning of a threatening “abandonment of the socialist camp” in July 1968. It also reprimanded ASA leadership for not rejecting the document Two Thousand Words to Workers, Farmers, Scientists, Artists and Everyone [Dva tisíce slov, které patří dělníkům, zemědělcům, úředníkům, umělcům a všem] from June 1968. The inspection assessed the ASA Party group as “passive”. It also criticized the conference papers and resolutions of the April 1969 3rd ASA Congress as follows: “The papers' theses completely condemned the situation after liberation [1948]. It is of importance that such negative assessment of the recent past and assessment of socialist building came not from ASA members at large, rather it was ASA leaders and communists making speeches to this effect... The 3rd Congress resolution was contaminated with negativity, and wanting in unambiguous identification with active support for the Party's policies.” 164 The inspection was to lead to reassessment of the relationship between the ASA and its management/specialized units, and personnel changes in its Party group and ASA leadership. This meant the main criticism was intended internally: for Party groups and leading members of the ASA,165 the secretariat and management/design structures. “The leaders were advised to resign from their offices” and “the reconstructed organs” 166 were directed to make a detailed analysis and new program of activities for the ASA and its functional and management structures: Architectural Service, ZPAT Studios 167 and A-Press publishing editors. After the chairman and other ASA functionaries resigned, the Central Committee began overseeing the ASA under the leadership of Prof. Štefan Lukačovič. The latter deputized the new ASA chairman – Ing. arch. Ján Lichner, CSc.168 – until the convening of the extraordinary ASA conference. [ 21 october ] ▶ Ing. Dedeček participated in the ÚV ZSA delegation at the 5th Congress of USSR Architects in Moscow. One of the exhibitions he visited was that of the “USA educational system”. He was interested in “... schemes that graphically demonstrate the development of classroom sectors of California elementary schools, from fixed and static to completely flexible spatial layout”, to which he referred in his 1973 dissertation / → p. 37 /. For the journal Projekt he wrote a “Letter from Moscow” [“List z Moskvy”] / → p. 834 /. ←promotional. Besides the existing journal Projekt and its informational Bulletin, it was slated to run a magazine called Priestor, a book publisher and a service/exhibition department (never started). Slovakia's Ministry of Construction's new directive 137/1970 meant that the ASA had to abolish “Architectural Service” as of July 1971. Ibid. 173 Together with Tibor Alexy, Ladislav Bauer, Ladislav Beisetzer, Dušan Boháč, Vladimír Fašang, Ladislav Horniak, Juraj Hocman, Jozef Chovanec, Ľudovít Jendreják, Dušan Kedro, Ján Kurč, Ján Lichner, Viktor Malinovský, Ivan Matušík, [ 8 october ] An ASA conference was held, endorsing the leading role of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia and its political program. [ 6 november ] A meeting of the ASA Central Comitee (ÚV ZSA) elected architect Viktor Uhliarik as the new chairman. Others elected to the ÚV ZSA leadership: Ivan Michalec (vice-chairman of ASA), Vladimír Fašang (Party group head), Jozef Chovanec, Dušan Kedro, Viktor Malinovský, Ferdinand Milučký, Cyril Sirotný and Ján Šipkovský. Vladimír Dedeček remained, as before 1968, the vice-chair of the UIA working group for school buildings in the ASA. Pavol Merjavý, Ivan Michalec, Ferdinand Milučký, Cyril Sirotný, Iľja Skoček sr, Štefan Sojka, Gabriel Strážovec, Ján Šipkovský, Stanislav Talaš and Viktor Uhliarik. After the original proposal was corrected, the following were also named: Rudolf Blažo, Ivan Gürtler, Cyril Hagara, Lumír Lýsek, Bartold Míček and Martin Oríšek. Ibid. 724 | 725 m cv 1971 ii → k int II n. 052 Designed the State Central Archives of the Slovak Socialist Republic project for building permission (currently Slovak National Archives, construction begun in the early 1980s). Mária Oravcová was supervising architect; Jaroslav Nemec designed the interior / → p. 64 /. 174 /→ Note 81. / → also KUŠÍK, Michal. Nová budova Štátneho ústredného 1, p. 21. c 175 /→ Note 81. / → m work archívu SSR. Archivistika, 19, 1984, 123 124 Project for State Central Archives of the Slovak Socialist Republic in Bratislava-Machnáč / → p. 824/. [ © → p. 811 ] 1 25 Vladimír Dedeček, Variant of State Central Archives of the Slovak Socialist Republic as stepped mastaba, sketch-diagram, black marker on paper, 2014. [ © → p. 811 ] [ 30 march ] ASA conference. [ 10 september ] The ASA Central Committee (ÚV ZSA) approved a new organization structure, reorganized working groups and established 21 new expert commissions. Out of the original 16 commissions, 5 urban planning and 10 architectural units were formed. Ing. Dedeček recalls that he asked to be relieved of the role of vice-chair of the UIA working group for school buildings. The ASA concluded international agreements with similar organizations in Bulgaria, Hungary, East Germany and Poland. A new editorial board was appointed for the ASA journal Projekt, to be chaired by Cyril Sirotný. The Bulletin was created to compile information on the activity of the central agencies for the ASA's membership and regional organizations. ▶ 1 26 On the building site of State Central Archives of the Slovak Socialist Republic (Dedeček third from right). [ © → p. 811 ] Fourth study tour in France, this time including Paris, Orleans and Rouen, with the director of the State Central Archives and a representative of the Slovak Socialist Republic's interior ministry economic department, related to building the Central Archives.174 On this occasion they studied archives buildings in Moscow, Kiev, Karlsruhe and Berlin. “When I designed something, I would take three days off, and I tried to see everything I could get to in the given area.” [ V.D. ] ▶ visited on a summer package tour, with his son Vladimír jr, the Greek islands of Crete, Kos and Rhodes.175 5 ◉ n. 011 Commemorative medallion for the 25th anniversary of the University of Agriculture's founding in Nitra. 726 | 727 m cv 1972 [ 30 march ] At the first regular ASA conference, a “purge” took place to remove “carriers of rightist and opportunist tendencies” from grass-roots membership and legitimize ASA membership.176 On 25 February, the ASA was subject to a delimitation protocol, transferring from Slovakia's Ministry of Culture to its Ministry for Construction and Technology, taking on a new geographical organizational structure; this despite opposition to the change from the ASA's leadership, Central Committee and Party group. This act isolated the ASA's architects from other artists' organizations. The 1970 vetting process led to there being only 89 Communist Party members out of 620 ASA members; and the membership was decreased by another 60 individuals (28 expelled, 18 with membership not renewed, 13 with membership suspended). Again a central Federálny zväz architektov ČSSR was reestablished, headquartered in Prague and comprised of two national organizations: Svaz architektů ČSR and Zväz architektov SSR. The federal union fell under the Federal Ministry for Technological and Investment Development. As Dr. Kusý wrote in his thirty-year history of the ASA in 1981, ASA leadership was reprimanded by the national Communist Party's State Economics Department for “insufficient efforts at purging membership and completing total consolidation. It therefore tasked ASA leadership to undertake a thorough purge among members in the ASA secretariat and apparatus”. The architect Ivan Michalec was elected ASA chairman at this conference (and from mid-1975, the vice-chair Peter Nahálka substituted for him). ASA Central Committee members became: Ivan Adda, Stanislav Dúbravec, Ladislav Horák, Peter Nahálka and Tibor Risztvey (and Rudolf Šteis as an alternate). The newly established ASA Central Committee had 25 members and 5 alternates,177 including Vladimír Dedeček. In his own words, he never took up this function: “From the time I gave up UIA membership, I stopped involvement in the ASA. I considered the rise of the architect Nahálka to be ill-advised.” [V.D.] By-elections made Peter Nahálka second vice-chair. Ladislav Horák replaced Dušan Kedro.178 As part of the “purge” Ladislav Bauer and Martin Oríško were “released” from the Central Committee, and the ASA reviewing commission forced the departure of Stavoprojekt's founding director, Prof. Štefan Lukačovič. [ 8 april ] The Czechoslovak interior ministry in Prague approved the constitution of the Federálny zväz architektov ČSSR. L.[?] Horák, Vladimír Meduna (chair), Ivan Michalec, J.[?] Sedláček, Zdeněk Strnadel, and J.[?] Zeman were elected Presidium members of the UV FZA. The Central Committee consisted of the Czech and Slovak delegations. This brought to an end the two independent Czech and Slovak unions of architects. c Studio X now had, because of the character and scope of buildings and complexes being designed, about 80 employees. It was re-numbered in Stavoprojekt's organizational hierarchy (in order from the largest to the smallest) to become Studio IV. Ing. Dedeček worked in this unit until the end of his active design work in 1996. 1 28 Model of Extension to Forest Economy Institute building in Zvolen. [ © → p. 811 ] i → k int I n. 055 Building permission project for Institute for Employees of Regional National Committees, later reclassified as Regional Political School in Modra-Harmónia (currently Teaching facility of Slovak Medical University, completed in the late 1970s). Rudolf Fresser was supervising architect; Jaroslav Nemec designed the interior / → p. 56 /. [ by 30 november ] n. 054 Competition project submitted for a new Slovak National Council parliament building in Bratislava, which for this competition was still located on the Danube bank. Third prize. First prize went to the team of Ľudovít Jendreják – Vladimír Husák – Ladislav Kušnír and Ján Šilinger; second prize to Jozef Chovanec. 176 1 27 M  odel of the Institute for Employees of Regional National Committees, function changed to Regional Political School in Modra-Harmónia. [ © → p. 811 ] 9 → k seg 9 n. 056 The mayor of the city of Zvolen asked Dedeček's Studio X to design an extension to Belluš' 1928 Forest administration building. Dedeček designed the project for building permission for Extension to Forest Economy Institute in Zvolen, currently National Forest Centre in Zvolen (completed in the late 1970s). Jozef Stohl was supervising architect; Jaroslav Nemec designed the interior / → p. 454 /. FELLINGEROVÁ, Elena (ed.). Konferencia Zväzu slovenských architektov. Bratislava 30 march 1972 /cited in Note 167 /, p. 12. 177 Members of the ASA Central Committee (ÚV ZSA): Ivan Adda, Tibor Alexy, Dušan Boháč, Vladimír Dedeček, Stanislav Dúbravec, Vladimír Fašang, Cyril Hagara, Ladislav Horák, Ladislav Horniak, Jozef Chovanec, Ľudovít Jendreják, ii n. 052 Execution project for State Central Archives of the Slovak Socialist Republic in Bratislava-Machnáč. Ján Lichner, Viktor Malinovský, Ivan Matušík, Pavol Merjavý, Ivan Michalec, Ferdinand Milučký, Peter Nahálka, Tibor Risztvey, Cyril Sirotný, Iľja Skoček sr, Gabriel Strážovec, Ján | Design for the State Archives in Nitra (unbuilt). n. 058 Šipkovský, Stanislav Talaš and Viktor Uhliarik. Alternates: Rudolf Blažo, Ivan Gürtler, Lumír Lýsek, Bertold Míček and Rudolf Šteis. Those elected n. 059 Design for the Teacher residences for the Secondary technical vocational school in Piešťany (completed in the later 1970s). as ÚV ZSA members, besides Vladimír Dedečed, were: Ivan Adda, Stanislav Dúbravec, Ladislav Horák, Peter Nahálka a Tibor Risztvey (alternate Rudolf Šteis). Ibid., pp. 171 and 178. 178 Ibid., p. 175. 728 | 729 m cv 1973 n. 060 Design for the House of Agriculture Workers / House of Agricultural Cooperative of Rača-citizens, later House of Culture in Bratislava-Rača (completed in the late 1970s). Jaroslav Nemec designed the interior. n. 061 Design for the Dormitory of 500/600 beds / Worker's hotel in BratislavaVýchodná stanica (currently the Defence Ministry's Bytová agentúra [BARMO], Bratislava-Rača, Východné area, construction into the later 1970s). The interior was designed by Jaroslav Nemec. n. 057 Preliminary study for the Palace of Culture in Prague. Jaroslav Nemec designed the interior. Third-class honourable mention. i n. 055 Construction of Regional Political School in Modra-Harmónia, currently Teaching facility of Slovak Medical University. 1 29 Regional Political School in Modra-Harmónia under construction [ © → p. 811 ] 1974 13 | Completion of the Shared administrative building of the Directorate of Poultry Production and Construction/Project Centre of Bridge-Production Plant Brezno in Bratislava (currently head office of Social Insurance n. 040 Agency). 7 → k seg 7 n. 062 Study for the Multi-purpose exhibition facility in Bratislava-Petržalka (later Incheba, currently Incheba Expo Bratislava). The supervising architects were Rudolf Fresser and Alojz Tekula. The interior was designed by Jaroslav Nemec / → p. 424 /. 10 → k seg 10 n. 063 Study for Institute of the Interior Ministry of the Slovak Socialist Republic for Local National Committees (currently Institute for Public administration in Bratislava-Dúbravka, Horné Krčace, construction continued into the late 1980s). Peter Mazanec was supervising architect; Jaroslav Nemec designed the interior / → p. 462 /. 1 30 1 32 Shared administrative building of the Directorate of Poultry Production and Construction/Project Centre of Bridge-Production Plant Brezno in Bratislava after completion. [ © → p. 811 ] c ◉ Commemorative plaque for 25 Years of Socialist Design. “The hardest years were 1969–1973. Then there was a gradual thaw.” [ V.D. ] 1 35 Unbuilt entry to the Incheba complex from the Danube river bank. [ © → p. 811 ] 133 Model of the three stages of Multi-purpose exhibition facility (Incheba) complex in Bratislava-Petržalka. [ © → p. 811 ] 1 36 Working model of Multi-purpose exhibition facility (Incheba) complex in Bratislava-Petržalka, photographed at the Hotel Diamant balcony in Dudince, during therapeutic convalescence following a tram accident injury at the Račianske mýto crossing in Bratislava.[ © → p. 811 ] ▶ 134 M  odel of the first etage of the Multi-purpose exhibition facility (Incheba) complex in Bratislava-Petržalka. [ © → p. 811 ] ◉ Commemorative plaque for 30th anniversary of the Slovak National Uprising. 8 ◉ n. 043 Medal For Services to Construction of the University of Forestry and Wood Technology in Zvolen. In connection with designing Incheba, Ing. Dedeček visited exhibition centres and halls in Paris, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Hannover, Hamburg and Amsterdam.179 179 /→ Note 81. / 730 | 731 m cv 1975 8 n. 043 Began work on the execution project for the University of Forestry and Wood Technology in Zvolen (completed in the early 1980s). Alojz Tekula was supervising architect; Jaroslav Nemec designed the interior. [ april ] Ing. Dedeček began work on designs for Office building complex on [Trenčianska and] Priemyselná street in Bratislava, starting with the first project for the unbuilt House of Agriculture Workers. Supervising architects Tibor Čellár, [?] Hollý, and Rudolf Fresser. Jaroslav Nemec designed the interior. c → m work n. 066 1 37 141 Project for unbuilt Agriculture Workers House in Office building complex on [Trenčianska and] Záhradnícka/Priemyselná street in Bratislava / → p. 826/. [ © → p. 811 ] n. 065 His competition project for Jan Evangelista Purkyně University in Brno, with interior by Jaroslav Nemec, received second prize; first prize was not awarded. The highest prize given was an upper second for Jaroslav Paroubek's team from the construction faculty of Prague's polytechnic. 8 → k seg 6 / → m biblio → k seg 8 n. 064 Project for State Company for Administration Rationalization and Computing in Zvolen (currently Faculty of Ecology and Environmental Sciences, University of Forestry and Wood Technology, construction completed by the beginning of the 1980s). Jaroslav Nemec designed the interior / → p. 442 /. 6 □ n. 036 The journal Projekt published “The University City is Growing” [“Vysokoškolské mestečko rastie”], an informative review by Milan Beňuška, together with an Architect’s Statement by Vladimír Dedeček / → p. 406 / → p. 836 /. [ 10 october ] Ing. Dedeček successfully defended his dissertation at first post-graduate level (candidatus scientiarum or CSc.).180 The reviewers (“opponents”) were Prof. Ing. arch. Karel Neumann of the Prague polytechnic's civil engineering faculty and Prof. Ing. arch. Dr. techn. Martin Kusý of Bratislava's Academy of Fine Arts. Committee members: Prof. Ing. arch. Peter Nahálka, CSc. (head), Prof. Emil Belluš, Prof. Ing. arch. Jan E. Koula, Prof. Dr. Ing. arch. Ján Svetlík, and doc. Ing. arch. Antonín Krasický, in addition to the reviewers and his supervisor. Support was unanimous. In the official record recommending academic rank to the academic council of SF SVŠT, Prof. Nahálka noted: “The scholarly discussion, in the course of which Ing. arch. Vladimír Dedeček demonstrated his ability in independent scholarly thought, was of a remarkably high quality... It is concluded that Ing. arch. Vladimír Dedeček's work is beneficial for project planning work.” 181 The academic council of the civil engineering faculty of the University of Technology then granted him the title. At their 3rd Congress, in Bratislava, the Slovak Union of Nature and Landscape Protectors (Slovenský zväz ochrancov prírody a krajiny, known by its abbreviation SZOPK) elected new leadership, and accepted the decentralized constitution of Local Organizations [Mestská organizácia] with their own legal identity down to the local organizations. In addition to a group of natural scientists who had long been concerned with protecting the Roháče mountains area, other conservation organizations began forming in Bratislava. They focused on protecting Danube land related to the upcoming construction of waterwork dams (a group centred on the biologist and biophysicist Dr. Pavel Šremer and Ivan Ondrášek), Devínska Kobyla hill (Ivan Ondrášek, doc. Viera Feráková, Dr. Mikuláš (Maňo) Huba and others) and the Devín Castle crags (Milan Kovačič), as well as endangered areas of the Záhorie wetlands, parts of the Tatra Mountains, and so on. In association with preserving culturally significant architecture, the movement renewed late 1960s activities, mainly civic initiatives in protecting wooden folk architecture and work by an informal collective of woodworking enthusiasts and individual efforts to preserve the area surrounding Bratislava Castle, in which Ing. arch. Igor Thurzo, a long-term SZOPK associate, became involved. He put his attention on documentation and studies of Slovakia's folk architecture.182 180 He defended this dissertation in the scientific group Science and Technics, in the specialization of Building and Survey Engineering and the sub-group Architecture, specified as Architectural design and typology. His first supervisor was Prof. Emil Belluš; after Belluš retired Prof. Ing. arch. Dr. techn. Ladislav Beisetzer, CSc took over his students. 181 Personal writings of Vladimír Dedeček. Fond SvF, signatúra C-III./5, šk. 115. Archív STU v Bratislave. The committee recommended book publication of the dissertation, which never occurred. The diploma was awarded on 18 February. His external work was done from 1 October 1963 to 28 September 1973. 182 HUBA, Mikuláš Maňo. Ideál – skutočnosť – mýtus. Príbeh bratislavského ochranárstva. Banská Bystrica : PRO, 2008, p. 8. [Pen drawings by Janka Krivošová.] 732 | 733 m cv 1976 › | Completion of Individual housing for teachers at Secondary agricultural technical school in Piešťany (currently Secondary vocational school for gardening). n. 059 11 → k seg 11 n. 067 He began designing the Palace (Hall) of Culture and Sports in OstravaVítkovice (currently OSTRAVAR Aréna in Ostrava). Construction was completed in the later 1980s. Rudolf Fresser and Mária Oravcová were supervising architects; the interior was designed by Jaroslav Nemec / → p. 468 /. → m work 142 c 143 Model and project for Multi-purpose sports hall for Vítkovice steelworks and Klement Gottwald machine works (VŽSKG) at Ostrava-Vítkovice / → p. 826/. [ © → p. 811 ] Calculation requirements and project for the Slovak Technical Library (Centrum VTEI SSR) on Námestie slobody square in Bratislava (unbuilt). The library was supposed to stand opposite Belluš' Pavilion of Theoretical Institutes of the University of Technology and architecture faculty, between what is now Námestie slobody square and Jozefská street. An underground corridor would have joined it to Belluš' building. The library design built on Dedeček's early sketches of the taller faculty pavilions with the cross arrangement at the University of Agriculture in Nitra, which he eventually discarded for the comb layout of lower pavilions. Even this continuation of the early phases of the Nitra project shows that from his earliest school designs Dedeček's work built on relationships between central/longitudinal, cross and pyramid distribution of spaces, between monumentalization and de-monumentalization of corridor-, atriumand cluster-based buildings. The Slovak Technical Library was to have had a form-volume of a “crossed mastaba”. Dedeček had been thinking in terms of a pyramidal (rather than crossed) mastaba for the National Archives in Bratislava / → p. 64 / and this is another of his polar oscillations: between cubic and prismatic spaces and cuboids/pyramids/cascades. The demanding Slovak Technical Library project assumed the razing of historical residential buildings on Jozefská street. That and the large budget were the reasons why this Utopian project was not given building permission in the late 1970s. No central technical library was ever built in Slovakia. 144 → m work → k int II n. 068 147 Project for unbuilt building of the Slovak Technical Library (Centrum VTEI SSR) on Námestie slobody square in Bratislava / → p. 826/. [ © → p. 811 ] 148 Vladimír Dedeček, Composing crosswise ground plan and mastaba silhouette of library with natural lighting scheme, sketch-diagram, blue and black marker on paper, 2014. [ © → p. 811 ] 734 | 735 m cv ‹ 1976 n. 069 Project for Complex of administrative buildings for the Ministry of Construction on Miletičová street in Bratislava (unbuilt). 149 1 51 Model of unbuilt Administrative buildings complex for the Ministry of Construction on Miletičová street in Bratislava [ © → p. 811 ] 183 “Construction has begun on a second imposing university centre featuring the first group of Comenius University's Natural Sciences Faculty institutes, on the western margin n. 070 Design for ten Ten row family houses on Bezeková ulica street in Bratislava-Dúbravka (construction 1976–1980). of Bratislava at Mlynská dolina, based on a 1965 concept by V. Dedeček.” In: KUSÝ, Martin. Architektúra na Slovensku 1945–1975. Bratislava : Pallas, 1976, p. 173. 184 Dated according to: [unsigned.] Kalendárium. In: KUZMOVÁ, Katarína (ed.). Dušan Kuzma, architekt /cited in Note 158 /. 185 Dated according to: ANDRÁŠIOVÁ, Katarína – BARTOŠOVÁ, Nina (eds.). Konček Skoček Titl (exhibition catalogue). Bratislava : STU, 2013, p. 40. 186 KUSÝ, Martin. Architektúra na Slovensku 1945–1975 /cited in Note 183 /, pp. 208–209. 187 Ibid., p. 171. c 188 /→ Note 81. / ▶ 6 → k seg 5 □ n. 036 Dr. Martin Kusý, in his closing chapters of the history Architecture in Slovakia 1945–1975, in the university context addressed the upcoming Chemistry Faculty building (Dedeček's design, unbuilt) also mentioning the construction of the university centre in Bratislava-Mlynská dolina,183 then begun with the group of institutes of the Comenius University Natural Sciences Faculty. Dr. Kusý used the opportunity to point to the intolerably long time it took to build cultural projects, which in the examples of Kuzma and Cimmermann's Matica slovenská institute in Martin (construction 1964–1975 184 ) and the Trade Unions House by Konček, Skoček and Titl (construction 1968–1981 185 ) in Bratislava lasted more than a decade. “Such events unfavourably affected our overall development of architectural concepts, as generally old concepts were creeping into the consciousness of the public and the architectural community. The unquestionable qualities present could, over a more moderate construction period, have had a much more intensive effect...”.186 But Dr. Kusý gave most of his attention to the University of Agriculture campus in Nitra, emphasizing the city's expansion to the left bank of the River Nitra: “On the open land, a university environment had been grandly conceived... The complex, which was built based on a 1960 concept and structural design by Karol Mesík, Ľudovít Farkaš, Jozef Poštulka and J[ozef] Bučko, impacted the formation of the whole city.” 187 / → p. 388 / 15 3 1 52 Cover of the book KUSÝ, Martin. Architecture in Slovakia 1945–1975 [Architektúra na Slovensku 1945–1975]. Bratislava: Pallas, 1976. [ Source → p. 811 ] At his desk in the Stavoprojekt studio. [ © → p. 811 ] [ 13 october ] The Czechoslovak Socialist Republic legal code published the International Accord on civil and political rights and the International Accord on economic, social and cultural rights, signed by Czechoslovakia's representatives in 1968 and confirmed in Helsinki in 1975 (the Helsinki Accords), committing to observing them in Czechoslovakia. While designing the Ostrava sports hall, Ing. Dedeček visited the Olympiastadion in Munich (1972), sports and health facilities in Lausanne, Switzerland, and the Olympiahalle (1964) in Innsbruck, site of the 1976 Winter Olympics.188 From the mid-1970s to 1989, his study and working travels were associated with serving on competition juries, and with much-observed, exemplary building projects for state administration, sport, health care, and the extensive exhibition complex Incheba, which he designed. He usually took these trips with representatives of relevant ministries, or commissioning or contractor organizations. In Finland he visited Helsinki's University of Technology Otaniemi campus, built on the basis of Alvar Aalto's urban plan, who also designed the main building with its outdoor amphitheatre (Otakaari 1, completed 1965) and the main library (completed 1969). In the Netherlands, in addition to the conurbation of Arnheim and the Rotterdam multi-purpose station (Centraal Station, Sybold van Ravesteyn, construction 1950–1957, metro station opened in 1968), Ing. Dedeček got most interested in the Amsterdam RAI convention centre (Rijwiel-en AutomobielIndustrie, completed 1961; later supplemented by the new congress centre Elicium, by Benthem Crouwel, completed 2009, and currently by the new Headquarter Hotel RAI, OMA, design 2014). 736 | 737 m cv 1977 › [ 1 january ] With reference to international treaties the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic legal code publicized at the close of the previous year, Charter 77 [Charta 77] was formed in support of respecting human rights in Czechoslovakia. One of its first spokesmen was the philosopher Jan Patočka. One year later the support organization Charter 77 Foundation was founded in Stockholm. In November 1989 it relocated to Czechoslovakia, and after the country dissolved it reorganized as separate Slovak and Czech foundations. [ 17 february ] The Ministry of Interior's State Security "ŠtB" secret police (Branch III, Department 1) started its first file on Vladimír Dedeček (in the category PO, "preverovaná osoba" or investigated person) with the code name "DEDKO". The file contains information from the regional office for passports and visas, noting Vladimír Dedeček as inactive politically, a member of the ROH trade union and ČSSA architects' organization. There is also passport information on his parents, wife and children, and a list of foreign travels for work and recreation by himself, his wife and children.189 Part of the file is a proposal to archive under PO DEDKO item no. 19845, dated 2 March. The reasons given were: "Ing. arch. DEDEČEK Vladimír was investigated for suspicion of cooperating with French intelligence services, together with two individuals from the company n.p. KOVOPROJEKT... The investigation in the PO's files was opened based on information obtained by Branch 3 of Administration XI of National Security Corps (NSC, Slovak abbrev. ZNB) Prague. Because there was no confirmation of the original suspicion of cooperating with a foreign secret service during investigation of PO DEDKO, I propose placing the PO DEDKO file in the archives of Department for Statistics and Record-keeping Administration XII of NSC Bratislava for a period of 5 years." 190 154 C  over of Vladimír Dedeček’s file in the archives of the ŠtB state secret police. [ © → p. 811 ] c 6 | Completion of the faculty and residence hall buildings of the Campus of Comenius University Natural Sciences Faculty in Bratislava-Mlynská dolina, n. 036 currently Campus of Comenius University and Ľudovít Štúr residence halls. 189 Vladimír Dedeček's foreign travels 15 5 View of completed part of atrium residence halls at Campus of Comenius as registered by the ŠtB secret University, Natural Sciences Faculty in Bratislava-Mlynská dolina. [ © → p. 811 ] police: Italy 1959, 1966; France 1957, 1965, 1967, 1971; Austria 1959, 15 6 15 7 Faculty buildings and completed atrium residence hall. [ © → p. 811 ] 1963, 1969; Switzerland 1967; West Germany 1968; West Berlin 2x 1969; Yugoslavia 1969, 1970; Greece, tour 1971; Algiers, 1971. Travels by Oľga Dedečková: Italy 1967, 1969 and 1974; Netherlands 1956; France 1957, 1968, 1969; Yugoslavia 1969, 1970; USSR 1958, 1970; Greece, tour 1971; Switzerland 1967. 190 Zväzok s registračným číslom 40164, pp. 6 and 7. Fond KS ZNB SŠTB BA-SR, sig. no. SR-51691, Box 63. Archív Ústavu pamäti národa Slovenskej republiky in Bratislava. 738 | 739 m cv ‹ 1977 9 | Purported completion of the extension to the Forest Economy Institute in Zvolen, currently National Forest Centre in Zvolen. n. 056 | Completion of House of Agriculture Workers / House of Agricultural Cooperative of Rača-citizens, later called House of Culture in Bratislava-Rača. n. 060 n. 061 | Completion of the Dormitory of 500/600 beds / Worker's hotel in BratislavaVýchodná stanica (currently the Defence Ministry's Bytová agentúra [BARMO], Bratislava-Rača, Východné area). 8 n. 043 Continuation of work on execution project for the University of Forestry and Wood Technology in Zvolen. Construction commenced. 158 159 L  aying the foundation stone of the new university building in Zvolen. In the background is a hall built on a design by Prof. Jozef Lacko. [ © → p. 811 ] n. 066 Another phase of designs for Office building complex on [Trenčianska and] Priemyselná street in Bratislava: Central Committee of Union of Cooperative Farmers (completed in the early 1980s). 7 n. 062 Project for building permission for Multi-purpose exhibition facility in Bratislava-Petržalka. 11 n. 067 Project for building permission for Multi-purpose sports hall at Ostrava-Vítkovice. 10 n. 063 Study for Institute of the Interior Ministry of the Slovak Socialist Republic for Local National Committees. 1 60 1 62 c Exteriors and interiors of House of Culture for Agricultural Workers, later House of Culture in Bratislava-Rača after completion [ © → p. 811 ] [ may ] Within the local nature preservation organization SZOPK, a section was established for protecting folk architecture and its surroundings. “Traditional buildings in harmony with their environment represent the national culture's most marked expression, in part handed down to this day and helping shape the impression of the whole landscape. Far from being lifeless historical monuments, they are living exemplars of how man and nature can live symbiotically, and as such continue to teach and provoke present-day architects.” 191 Those initiating and coordinating the section's activities were the geographer Dr. Mikuláš (Maňo) Huba (“chairman”) and the art historian PhDr. Peter Kresánek (“secretary”). They offered assistance to the preservation institute Slovenský ústav pamiatkovej starostlivosti a ochrany prírody (SÚPSOP) in registering folk architecture sites. Each area in Slovakia had its own correspondent. The section organized work sessions for renovating individual and groups of wooden structures (in Podšíp, Biele Vody, Borové, Tertež under Veľka Rača, Papradno, Horná Mariková, and Bryzgalky, and for the houses of the Rogoň and Michalec families…) 192 SZOPK authorized dissemination of texts in the form of “appendices to the minutes” of local chapters' membership meetings, published the newsletter Spravodaj MV SZOPK Ochranca prírody, and starting in the early 1980s the legendary Interné informácie bratislavských ochranárov of SZOPK organizations in Bratislava. Some editions of the newsletter, posters and invitations became collectables for both their information and graphic design. [ 16 september ] In Budapest, Prime Ministers Lubomír Štrougal and György Lazár signed the Czechoslovak-Hungarian Treaty on the construction and operation of the Gabčíkovo-Nagymaros hydroelectric dams. The treaty was ratified by both parliaments and signed by the heads of both states. [ 18–19 november ] The 4th ASA Congress elected Vladimír Fašang chairman. iii [ november ] Volumetric study and project for project permission for the Supreme Court and Ministry of Justice of the Slovak Socialist Republic in Bratislava (currently the Supreme Court and the Ministry of Justice of the Slovak Republic, construction continued into the late 1990s). The supervising architects were Beata Juríková, Jaroslav Nemec and Eva Volková (d. 1988). Jaroslav Nemec designed the interior / → p. 74 /. → k int III n. 071 1 63 1 64 Model of Supreme Court of the Slovak Socialist Republic in Bratislava. [ © → p. 811 ] 191 Príloha 2. Koncepcia činnosti Sekcie pre ochranu ľudovej architektúry a jej zázemia (1977). In: HUBA, Mikuláš Maňo. Ideál – skutočnosť – mýtus. Príbeh bratislavského ochranárstva /cited in Note 182 /, p. 137. 192 Ibid., pp. 26–27. 740 | 741 m cv 1978 i | Completion of Institute for Employees of Regional National Committees/ Regional Political School in Modra-Harmónia. n. 055 [ november ] Study for the buildings of the Veterinary hospital with small animal quarantine in Bratislava, with variants for locations at Horné Krčace, Polianky and Sitina, continuing work on them until 1983 (the Polianky variant was completed by the early 1990s). n. 072 → m work 16 5 16 7 193 BEISETZER, Ladislav. Väzby architektúry. Dielo a verejnosť. c Projekt. Revue slovenskej architektúry, 20, 1978, 9–10, pp. 67–68. Study for set of buildings, Veterinary hospital with small animal quarantine in Bratislava / → p. 826/. [ © → p. 811 ] 168 C  ompleted building of the Institute for Employees of Regional National Committees / → k int IV / → m biblio Regional Political School in Modra-Harmónia. [ © → p. 811 ] iv □ n. 033 Igor Thurzo wrote an informational review for the journal Československý architekt on the Slovak National Gallery building and its history / → p. 88 / → p. 836 /. iv □ n. 033 Prof. Ladislav Beisetzer, in an article subtitled “The Work and the Public” for the journal Projekt, discussed the Slovak National Gallery buildings then being completed: “Or the National Gallery extension in Bratislava: in brief, one could say it represents the contemporary touchstone of the metals industry. We would have expected the architect's intention to testify to the prowess in craft that our people command, as they have for ages mastered this material. This composition's strength is in activating the front of the old building's arcades, up to the river's promenade... In responding to an architect's aim for a work, a recipient may accept it, accept it with reservations, or reject it... It must be reckoned with that in architectural creation, as in any art, works will come about that strive for new conquests; and when they come about the public will find them difficult to accept, indeed will excoriate them. Should such a creation rely on well t­ hought-out questions of architectural theory, and should it be in harmony and according to a program, as it keeps to the developmental tendencies and becomes style-informing, then this is useful for the art, as it stimulates deeper work... All the more imperative is it as we recognize that art cannot be imposed, that the public at its own level may accept it or reject it. Rejected architectural works have the worst of positions, as they must be suffered, and at the same time set in their concrete bases for long decades.” 193 1 69 With the architect Ohrablo on a building site (in Modra-Harmónia [?]). [ © → p. 811 ] 742 | 743 m cv 1979 iv | Slovak National Gallery addition completed in Bratislava. The SNG complex was never completed in its entirety. n. 033 7 n. 062 Construction of Incheba, first stage. 11 n. 067 Execution project for Multi-purpose sports hall at Ostrava-Vítkovice. → k int III n. 073 In the foreground of the Supreme Court in Bratislava, he designed the Reconstruction of the church and [one of four wings] Capuchin friary in Bratislava with extension, to function as the new Ministry of Culture and Historic Monuments Conservation Institute (unbuilt) / → p. 74 /. [ september ] n. 075 Study for a group of buildings, the Operations building of OSP and General directorate of Strojsmalt on Radlinského street in Bratislava (so far only a situation plan sketch has been found; unbuilt). It was a series of longitudinal “slab building” blocks, two of them crossing in a single high-rise at the corner of Mýtna and Radlinského streets. 170 Front wing of completed SNG complex renovation and addition. [ © → p. 811 ] [ october ] Project for reconstruction of the centre of the Bratislava-Dúbravka district including the Consolidated offices of the Local National Committee for Bratislava IV and the Communist Party Local Committee and several versions of a pedestrian terrace covering Saratovská street (unbuilt). n. 074 iv n. 033 The architect and historian Josef Pechar, in his book Czechoslovak Architecture 1945–1977 [Československá architektura 1945–1977], put the SNG addition back into association with Prager's ouvre here with the building of the Federal Assembly of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic in Prague (with Kadeřábek and Albrecht, construction 1966–1973, from 1995 the base of Radio Free Europe, currently part of the National Museum in Prague). Similar to the front wing of the SNG, the four wings of the Federal Assembly have a designed construction of bridge-like longitudinal girders carried by end supports. “More than once nowadays, there has been an architectural mastery of large steel constructions and industrial designs, which has ingeniously affected both the exterior architectural form and the interior.” 194 In this text Pechar regarded the aforementioned buildings by Prager and Dedeček as innovations of construction and materials on the one hand, and on the other hand as new sources of contemporary architectural forms. 171 c Cover of the book PECHAR, Josef. Czechoslovak Architecture 1945–1977 [Československá architektura 1945–1977]. Prague : Odeon, 1979. [ Source → p. 811 ] 172 176 Drawings and model for unbuilt centre for the city district of Bratislava-Dúbravka: Consolidated offices of the Local National → m work □ Committee for Bratislava IV and the Communist Party Local Committee and several versions of a pedestrian terrace covering Saratovská street / → p. 826/. [ © → p. 811 ] → m work 177 P  roject for unbuilt complex of buildings: the Operations building of OSP and General directorate of Strojsmalt on Radlinského street in Bratislava / → p. 826/. [ © → p. 811 ] 194 PECHAR, Josef. Československá architektura 1945–1977. Prague : Odeon, 1979, p. 38. ◉ City of Bratislava plaque awarded for his years of work for the capital city. 744 | 745 m cv 1980 n. 076 Project for Training institute for Union of Journalists in Modra (completed in the late 1980s). Rudolf Fresser was supervising architect; Jaroslav Nemec designed the interior. [ september ] Project for planning permission for Addition to Martin Benka Museum in Martin (unbuilt). 178 M  artin Benka in his studio. [ © → p. 811 ] → m work n. 077 179 1 82 Project for unbuilt Addition to Martin Benka Museum in Martin / → p. 828/. [ © → p. 811 ] 195 HUBA, Mikuláš Maňo. Ideál – skutočnosť – mýtus. Príbeh bratislavského ochranárstva /cited in Note 182 /, pp. 25–26. 196 Ibid., p. 27. c The Section for preservation of folk architecture obtained permission for the renovation of the "upper mill" in the Kvačianska dolina valley. Peter Kresánek, Marta Pichová, Ivan Gojdič and Vladimír Kohút began work on project documentation for the reconstruction and future program of the Kvačianska dolina-Oblazy mills area. Work began on preserving the two wooden mills, saws and other farming and technological equipment (dams to raise water levels, flumes, etc) and to cultivate the land again; this continues to the present day, including educational and public security services.195 More than a thousand volunteers engaged in the work during the 1980s and 90s, with some from among Bratislava's University of Technology Faculty of Architecture and Academy of Fine Arts. Cooperating with local SZOPK organizations, the Section organized presentations in schools and other educational facilities, and held the exhibitions How to Repair Folk Architecture Structures (held first in 1981, at Smena newspaper Gallery / Galéria denníka Smena) and Preservation Through Recreation, and Recreation Through Preservation.196 197 HAAS, Felix. Architektura 20. století. Prague : Státní pedagogické nakladatelství, 1980, 2nd edition, p. 371–372. 198 Ibid., p. 372. 199 VEBR, Jaroslav – NOVÝ, Otakar – VALTEROVÁ, Radomíra. Soudobá architektura ČSSR. Prague : Panorama, 1980, p. 129 [Accompanying side text, initialled: rav. (Radomíra Valterová)]. 5 5 □ n. 011 In the chapter “Efforts at Expressive Form” [“Úsilí o výrazovou formu”] of the survey book 20th Century Architecture [Architektura 20. století] 197 the architect and historian Felix Haas, from the architectural history institute at Brno's Faculty of Architecture, published photographic details of the lecture hall at Nitra's University of Agriculture next to those of Le Corbusier's later work and the government buildings of Brazil's new capital Brasília (design 1954–1956, construction from 1956, since 1986 a UNESCO World Heritage Site). Through the selection and arrangement of photographs, Haas implicitly indicated possible relationships (parallels, analogies and cross-inspirations) among these and contemporary buildings in Italy, the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic and Czechoslovakia, i.e. across the architecture of east and west, capitalist and communist blocs. Haas noted explicitly the differentiation of form in connection with its relation to function. In a text describing the lecture rooms, which he referred to as “expressive”, he stated: “The form [of auditoriums], in the first instance devoted to the function (the stepped floor [according to sight-line]), is by its architectural resolution elevated to an eloquent and distinctive form.” 198 This architecture's form did not follow its “function” as a functionalist form; it was not classicizing either. It became contemporary – according to Haas – in the sense of becoming autonomous in the process of “communicating” the period's intra-architectural as well as contextual, extra-architectural meanings. 200 within them", and originally from the “The addition to the middle ultimate beginning of human society's 18th-century building of a new wing constitution. The etymological of robust stuff layered above (resting correspondence between the German on two supports) gives a new scale words Wand (wall) and Gewand to the entire surroundings. In contrast (clothing) allowed him likewise to this monumentality there opens to observe in Greek architecture up behind it a delicately-structured polychromy, even back to the arcade courtyard. A building of clothing-ness of the most ancient intrepid construction, if architecturally architectures. → SEMPER, Gottfried. somewhat contradictory.” Ibid., Die vier Elemente der Baukunst. caption to Image, p. 137. Ein Beitrag zur vergleichenden 201 Baukunde. Braunschweig : Druck und Ibid., caption to Image. 103, p. 124. Verlag von Friedrich Vieweg und 202 Sohn, 1851, p. 54. Cited according to Ibid., caption to Image 3, p. 11. KRUFT, Hanno-Walter. Dejiny teórie 203 architektúry od antiky po súčasnosť. “The Aula maxima lentoid sits lightly Bratislava : Pallas, 1993, p. 343. on the ground floor socle. It enlivens 205 the entire campus' austerity and /→ Note 198. / underscores its most important 206 space. Indoors the reinforced concrete Ibid., Image 112, p. 137. lace arch augments the airiness 207 and spaciousness as well as the SERT, José Luis – LÉGER, Fernand – ceremoniality of the Aula.” Ibid., GIEDION, Siegfried. Neun Punkte caption to Image 5, p. 13. über Monumentalität – Ein 204 menschliches Bedürfnis [1943]. In considering the four basic In: GIEDION, Siegfried. Architektur elements and crafts (hearth and und Gemeinschaft: Tagebuch einer mound or ceramics, roof or carpentry, Entwicklung. Hamburg : Rowohlt, enclosure or weaving) Semper 1956, pp. 40–42. Cited according to: among other things pointed out SERT, José Luis – LÉGER, Fernand – that, although the building art takes GIEDION, Siegfried. Nine Points of materials and construction with Monumentality. In: OCKMAN, Joan. regard to its inherent needs, neither Architecture Culture 1943–1968. expression nor shape derives from A Documentary Anthology. New York : materials, but rather from the "ideas Rizzoli, 1993, pp. 29–30. 1 83 iv n. 011 / n. 033 / n. 037 In the photographic publication by Jaroslav Vebr Contemporary Architecture of CSSR [Soudobá architektura ČSSR] 199 (with an introduction by the architect and historian Otakar Nový, and text accompanying Vebr's photographs by the architect and historian Radomíra Valterová [Sedláková]), the University of Agriculture in Nitra and Slovak National Gallery addition in Bratislava 200 were noted, together with the Sports hall in Brezno “at Mazorník” (currently Indoor pool Brezno-Mazorníkovo /→ 1966/), which was not mentioned in any other books before or after. Radomíra Sedláková characterized this sports hall, in part from the standpoint of construction and form: “The artistic form makes use of construction, massive steel frames on which the swimming hall is suspended contrasting with the light glass wall breaking toward the sunlight; they symbolize the town's key industry – mechanical engineering.” 201 In contrast to Oldřich Dostál, Josef Pechar and Vítězslav Procházka in the 1970s, Sedláková in the 1980s detected, somewhat like Felix Haas, the relationships between function, form and construction, and their artistic and architectural impact. In keeping with the research at the VÚVA institute from the 1960s, and with post-modern discussion, she also observed a building's semantic aspects. In her opinion, the University campus in Nitra was “... a solution of classicist grandeur while respecting the needs for ensuing growth. The composition of clean shape of six-storey pavilions is joined by a glass-walled corridor. Behind this rises the mass of the lecture hall with its crown in the conspicuously singular Aula maxima.” 202 She considered the aula's ceremonial aspect to be enhanced “... by the arch's lacelike reinforced concrete”, 203 thanks to which the aula is airy and spacious. All the qualities mentioned (modern and classical, international and regional) join the campus into an integral whole. Sedláková further underscored the organic relationships by comparing the self-supporting aula canopy's triangular ribbing to lace fabric – not just to the lacemaker's craft, but to modern notions of techniques among the first invented (weaving...) and basic elements (textiles, woven mats, fences...) of the builder's art (Semper).204 She characterized the SNG addition in Bratislava as the layering of robust volumes that endow the surroundings with a new scale.205 She found the monumentality of the bridging to contrast markedly with the more delicate articulation of the historical Water Barracks' arcaded courtyard. The bridging was an “[o]bject of bold construction, yet architecturally Cover of the book VEBR, Jaroslav somewhat contradictory.” 206 In other words: the [– NOVÝ, Otakar – VALTEROVÁ, greater the contrast in scales, the greater the Radomíra]. Contemporary Architecture architectural “contradiction”. Whereas modernists of CSSR [Soudobá architektura ČSSR]. understood monumentality as the expression of Prague : Panorama, 1980. [ Source → p. 811 ] spiritual and cultural needs (possible in their view only in times of unifying consciousness and culture that represented a new spirit and collective sense for the modern post-war era through cooperation between all artists 207 ), by the early 1980s such a modern understanding of monumentality – i.e. an innovative synthesis of old and new layers – no longer presented itself as the result of societal consensus. What came to the forefront in European cities' historical centres was the preservation of the layers and scale of historical architecture and varying forms of carryover between historic and contemporary architecture, in both postmodern thinking and urban and architectural design. → m cv □ 746 | 747 m cv 1981 › n. 064 | The State Company for Administration Rationalization and Computing was completed in Zvolen (currently Faculty of Environmental Sciences, Technical University of Forestry and Wood Technology). n. 072 Continuation of work on the Veterinary hospital with small animal quarantine in Bratislava (Polianky variant, study for alternative building placement). n. 082 Project for Termostav, n.p. – trade professions training centre (unbuilt). n. 079 c Project for Reconstruction of the Art Nouveau Vila Szondra in Modra (construction commenced the following year). Jaroslav Nemec designed the interior. → m work 1 84 1 89 Project for Veterinary hospital with small animal quarantine in Bratislava – Polianky variant / → p. 826/. [ © → p. 811 ] 748 | 749 m cv ‹ 1981 › [ june ] Competition project for Hospital and polyclinic in Bratislava-Petržalka (unbuilt). Designed with Stanislav Talaš. Jaroslav Nemec designed the interior. → m work n. 080 c 1 90 1 96 Model and drawings for unbuilt competition project for Hospital and polyclinic in Bratislava-Petržalka (with Stanislav Talaš). / → p. 828/. [ © → p. 811 ] 750 | 751 m cv ‹ 1981 n. 078 → m work Project for building permission for tram terminus station at Main train station in Bratislava (unbuilt). Jaroslav Nemec designed the interior and architectural detailing. 1 97 Perspective drawing of unbuilt tram terminus station area at Main train station in Bratislava / → p. 828/. [ © → p. 812 ] iv → k int IV / → m biblio □ n. 033 The journal Projekt published a series of texts about the SNG site. It included a text by Jozef Liščák (for the ASA Central Committee's cultural and school buildings commission) and the Architect's Statement; the then-sitting SNG director Štefan Mruškovič provided a occupant's critical opinion / → p. 88 / → p. 837 /. [ 11 november ] Mikuláš (Maňo) Huba and local SZOPK organization no. 6 sent a protest letter to the mayor, Ladislav Martinák, with documentation of the damaging "reconstruction" of four of Bratislava's historical cemeteries: Židovský (Jewish), Evanjelický (Protestant), and Mikulášsky and Ondrejský (Catholic). Part of the work done in Ondrejský cintorín was the demolition of walls, decrease of area and removal of most headstones. Ján Budaj and local SZOPK organization no. 6 – Section for protection of historical parks, gardens and cemeteries – initiated the protection activities.208 Some five hundred citizens signed petitions this year and next. In addition to surviving families, signers included some of Slovakia's leading artists and scientists, such as the archaeologist, historian and member of the Academy of Sciences Ján Dekan; the geographer and academic Ján Mazúr; chairman of the Matica slovenská organization, the writer Vladimír Mináč; the ethnographer and photographer Ester Plicková; the historian Dr. Ladislav Šášky; the architect and historian Dr. Martin Kusý; the sculptor Jozef Kostka; the painters Orest Dubay, Albín Brunovský and Viera Žilinčanová; the composer Ján Cikker; the opera singer Juraj Hrubant; the husband and wife musicians Michalicas; and the “transcultural” Huba family...209 These citizen protests were supported in state radio (Ľuboš Machaj) and the Nedeľná Pravda newspaper (Hana Somorová). SZOPK leadership (Kovačič, Lisický) and interested parties (Huba, Budaj, Machaj) met with the Bratislava mayor. Some 1,800 headstones were allowed to stand in the Ondrejský cemetery instead of the planned 9. One wall of the Evanjelický cemetery had already been taken down, but the other two cemeteries were left unaltered. c n. 081 → m work Project for planning permission for Branch of State bank of Czechoslovakia in Bratislava, District II, Ružinov-Ostredky (completed in the late 1980s). Jaroslav Nemec designed the interior. 1 98 201 Project for Branch of State bank of Czechoslovakia in Bratislava, Ružinov-Ostredky / → p. 828/. [ © → p. 812 ] 208 Ibid., pp. 84–87. 209 BUDAJ, Ján. Príbeh Ondrejský cintorín aj Príloha 31. Petition form. Ibid., pp. 84–87 and 181. 752 | 753 m cv 1982 › | In the Office building complex on [Trenčianska and] Priemyselná street in Bratislava the Central Committee of Union of Cooperative Farmers building was completed. The final work on designs for the further parts of this complex began: Mäsopriemysel Bratislava (construction from 1982); Food Research Institute (project and construction from 1983); and Supreme Audit Office (project and construction from 1984). n. 066 20 2 Detail of Central Committee of Union of Cooperative Farmers building in Office building complex on [Trenčianska and] Záhradnícka/Priemyselná street in Bratislava. [ © → p. 812 ] c [ march ] Study for Swimming pool by the Castle in Bratislava (unbuilt). → m work n. 083 203 208 Model and project for unbuilt Swimming pool by the Castle in Bratislava / → p. 828/. [ © → p. 812 ] 754 | 755 m cv ‹ 1982 n. 084 Design for the TAZ sports hall in Trnava (unbuilt). n. 086 Project for Reconstruction of Baroque chateau with Neo-Renaissance extension in the park at Vinosady, Malé Tŕnie in Pezinok district (construction in the early 1980s). n. 085 → m work Project for Family house on Pod Zečákom street in Bratislava-Lamač (completed in the early 1980s). c 209 21 4 Project for Family house on Pod Zečákom street / → p. 828/. [ © → p. 812 ] iv □ i The architecture historians Tibor Zalčík and Matúš Dulla built on Dr. Martin Kusý's histories in their book Slovak Architecture 1976–1980 [Slovenská architektúra 1976–1980]. In it they mentioned several of Dedeček's buildings. They categorized the Slovak National Gallery complex in the same group with architectural works such as Spoločenský dom in Dunajská Streda by Jozef Slíž, Eva Grébertová and Alexander Braxatoris, and the House of Arts in Piešťany by Ferdinand Milučký, in the chapter “Massiveness of form and shape”; this was their analogy or parallel to the international New Brutalism movement in Great Britain. “However this artistic expression in our country never took on extreme brutal forms, softened always by the introduction of classical harmonic principles of human-scale composition.” 210 (In a different article the same year, in his consideration of post-functionalism Matúš Dulla openly classified the SNG addition as Brutalism 211 ). These two authors – in keeping with Dr. Kusý's contemporary periodical texts – considered a strength of the Gallery's addition to be the grandness and scale of intent 212 in building the Gallery's first building to exhibit modern art in Slovakia (grandness here C  over of the book ZALČÍK, Tibor – DULLA, Matúš. probably being the reverse Slovak Architecture 1976–1980 [Slovenská architektúra and more credible side of 1976–1980]. Bratislava : Veda, 1982. [ Source → p. 812 ] the criticized collosalness, massiveness – terms to replace the more complex monumentality). They found another strength in the artistic contrasting effect of the new wing's horizontal lines, with a vista through to the historical building's arcades. They found less convincing the SNG front's “colossal scale” and its “insensitive joining into the neighbouring buildings”.213 They likewise criticized the symmetrical composition relationship of the historical building with the new front wing (bridging) and the asymmetrical circulation (entry into the complex in the right front courtyard “corner” ). They in fact considered non-functional the entire courtyard and space under the front Danube-facing → k seg 6 215 6 n. 033 / n. 036 / n. 055 wing, i.e. the bridging. “Another compositional discrepancy lies in resolving the back wing, as to the materials and colours used in finishings.” 214 They acknowledged that these shortcomings originated in part in the incomplete, unfinished realization of Dedeček's design, and noted that if the complex were to be fully completed in the terms of the design project the discrepancy would be “partially subdued".215 They conceived another chapter, “Seeking new forms”, on varying style derived from international (particularly Soviet) criticism of “architectural technicism" 216 in a world that had overdone technology (in the Czech Republic, criticism of technicism and technocracy in architecture and urban planning developed partly in the context of Czech phenomenological philosophy, the discussion of relationships between the known and lived world and home).217 Zalčík and Dulla understood deviation from technicism as an inclination to humanism, or humanization. “Humanization” was meant to bring architecture closer to people, paradoxically through “... a convincing and unambiguous principle of shape”.218 In the chapter “Seeking new forms” the book's authors called one of the streams of such contemporary architecture in Slovakia “horizontalism”, a term that Vladimír Dedeček had used to characterize (in his 1965 architects’ statement to accompany the project for planning permit made for the Bratislava-Mlynská dolina “university city”) his horizontallydefined atrium for the low buildings of the natural sciences faculties.219 In addition to the Slovak Academy of Sciences buildings in Bratislava by a group of architects of Marián Marcinka, the main buildings Zalčík and Dulla attributed to horizontalism were Dedeček's Comenius University atrium residence halls in Bratislava, and his Regional Political School in Modra-Harmónia (currently Teaching facility of Slovak Medical University). “In both cases there is a predominant distribution of functions/program into multiple units that permeate one another. The horizontal lines of the railings, the main motif of the building's front, break in a regular rhythm.” 220 They thus understood horizontalism – in contrast to Dedeček's terms / → p. 421 / – mainly as a quality of architectural form per se. This category of style did not broadly resonate in Slovakia, as similar terms did not resonate elsewhere, such as styles or trends as formulated by Kultermann for the globalized Modern (new classicism, neo-libertism, new empiricism etc), but Zalčík and Dulla at least provisionally named a given trend before, in the context of post-modern thought, Matúš Dulla re-formulated it in relation to the terminology of post-modern styles in Charles Jencks' writings. 210 213–214 that made for a palpable joining of scale a number of spurious attendant factors, 218 ZALČÍK, Tibor – DULLA, Matúš. “The enormous steel construction and framework of setting and material- to which we have briefly referred.” ZALČÍK, Tibor – DULLA, Matúš. Slovenská architektúra 1976–1980. bridges a span of 54.5 meters, making technical capacities.” Ibid., p. 65. Ibid., pp. 65–66. Slovenská architektúra 1976–1980 Bratislava : Veda, 1982, p. 63. possible a visual connection and view 215 216 /cited in Note 210/, p. 69. 211 from the banks to the courtyard's “It must be noted that the building ŠVIDKOVSKIJ, Oleg Alexandrovič. 219 DULLA, Matúš: Otázky formy glassed arcades. This connecting and was not finished to the extent that the Nemoci architektury technického Vysokoškolský areál, výstavba v slovenskej architektúre 70. rokov. contrasting of the new wing's horizontal original project design anticipated. věku. Československý architekt, fakúlt PF UK. B – Súhrnné riešenie Architektúra a urbanizmus, 16, lines and the arcades' curves is Completing the whole would have 25, 1979, 1, p. 4. stavby. Úvodný projekt. Signed by 1982, 1, pp. 13–32. a strength of the Gallery architecture's partially muted the discord with 217 Dedeček. Dated 1965, pp. 1–9. 212 visual effect. Less convincing is the surrounding buildings. The overall For this issue → the chapter In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection ZALČÍK, Tibor – DULLA, Matúš. facing's colossal scale, and insensitive contrast and excessive scale – which Architektura a přirozený svět. of Architecture, Applied Arts and Slovenská architektúra 1976–1980 joining into the neighbouring produce the primary impression, and In: ŠEVČÍK, Jiří – MITÁŠOVÁ, Monika Design SNG. /cited in Note 210/, p. 72. buildings. The architect has himself together with the use of elementary (eds.). Česká a slovenská architektura 220 acknowledged that he pushed himself, geometric forms are characteristic of 1971–2011. Texty, rozhovory, ZALČÍK, Tibor – DULLA, Matúš. at the prompting of the first round the architect's other production – could dokumenty. Prague : VVP AVU, SNG, Slovenská architektúra 1976–1980 adjudicators, to a leap of such a degree be regarded positively, were it not for VŠVU, 2014, pp. 11–84. /cited in Note 210/, pp. 72–73. 756 | 757 m cv 1983 ii | The State Central Archives of the Slovak Socialist Republic in BratislavaMachnáč (currently Slovak National Archives) was completed. n. 052 n. 072 Project for the Veterinary hospital with small animal quarantine in Bratislava (the Polianky variant was completed by the early 1990s, currently a refurbished Veterinary Hospital). n. 087 Project for Administrative building for Engineering-geological and Hydrogeological survey (IGHP) in Bratislava (currently GEOS, construction completed in the mid-1980s). Jaroslav Nemec designed the interior. n. 088 Project for Family house in Devínska Nová Ves (construction from the mid- to late 1980s). 216 A  rchives building under construction. [ © → p. 812 ] 1984 217 A  ula maxima and main faculties building on University of Forestry and 21 8 Wood Technology campus in Zvolen. [ © → p. 812 ] 21 9 Details of the building. [ © → p. 812 ] 1985 | Completion of Reconstruction of Baroque chateau at Vinosady, Malé Tŕnie in the district of Pezinok. 8 □ n. 089 Project for a School of fire protection in Bratislava-Záluhy (unbuilt). 7 n. 062 Project for planning permit for Multi-purpose sports hall, 1st and 2nd variant at the Incheba exhibition site in Bratislava-Petržalka. c → m biblio n. 086 n. 043 The journal Projekt published a review by the architect Ivan Šimko on the University of Forestry and Wood Technology in Zvolen. Part of the text included the Architect's Statement. František Ohrablo prepared for the “Details” column a presentation of this university's lecture hall soffit / → p. 837 /. n. 080 His competition project for Hospital and polyclinic in Bratislava-Petržalka 221 received second prize in the Survey of architectural works of Association of Slovak Architects for 1980–1981 in the Studies category, together with Stanislav Talaš. The survey's first prize went to a study for the New Slovak National Theatre in Bratislava by Peter Bauer – Martin Kusý – Pavol Paňák – Eduard Šutek. ii [ 17–20 october ] The Archives building was awarded a plaque at the international conference XXII. Table ronde des Archives in Bratislava ◉ n. 052 ◉ Pavol Križko medal [Križkova medaila] received for services to the development of archiving in Slovakia, awarded by Slovakia's interior ministry. ◉ Medal from the National Security Corps received. 8 | Completion of the first stage of the University of Forestry and Wood Technology in Zvolen. The library, ancillary university buildings and bus station were not built. n. 043 n. 091 Project for the Reconstruction of the Koospol building on Námestie 4. apríla square in Bratislava (currently Kooperatíva, Hlavné námestie). Jaroslav Nemec designed the interior. Realization began the following year. iii n. 071 Execution project for the Supreme Court and Ministry of Justice of the Slovak Socialist Republic, currently the Supreme Court and the Ministry of Justice of the Slovak Republic. [ december ] Study for Operations building of Branch of State bank of Czechoslovakia in Považská Bystrica and initial work on further phases of the project and construction. Pavol Kubaš was supervising architect. n. 090 n. 081 Project for State bank of Czechoslovakia (currently VÚB Banka in Bratislava-Ružinov, completed in the late 1980s). ▶ The time of the Gorbachev reforms began (on 11 March, Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev was elected General Secretary of the Communist Party's Central Committee in the Soviet Union). The reforms in the USSR were first introduced as uskoreniye (acceleration of economic development), and later as glasnost (repeal of censorship, and right to free speech) and perestroika (restructuring of socialist economies). In philosophy, culture and art, the reforms resulted in more open reflection on postmodern thought in Czechoslovakia; for architecture this meant a changing relationship to modern thinking and design, and criticism of modern architecture from post-modern positions, accompanied by a differentiating, plural notion of relationships between a home, a house, a city, and both urban and non-urban landscapes. Study tour, in Switzerland.222 221 [unsigned.] Výsledky prehliadky architektonických diel Zväzu [ 13 september ] Charter 77 sent a letter, call for action and report to the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic leadership, on the call of the Hungarian citizens' Kruh Dunaj initiative, regarding nature preservation in the Danube basin, addressed to the Czechoslovak public. These documents reported on the consequences of Gabčíkovo hydroelectric dam construction in the Žitný ostrov area (document 22/85). slovenských architektov za obdobie 1980–81. Československý architekt, 29, 1983, 6, p. 6. 222 /→ Note 81. / 758 | 759 m cv 1986 › 7 | Completion of the first stage of Incheba exhibition facility in Bratislava. n. 062 10 | Completion of Institute of the Interior Ministry of the Slovak Socialist Republic for Local National Committees (currently Institute for Public administration n. 063 in Bratislava-Dúbravka, Horné Krčace). n. 093 Preliminary study and initial project for the District court in BratislavaDúbravka, Záluhy (unbuilt). n. 090 Execution project for Operations building of Branch of State bank of Czechoslovakia in Považská Bystrica (completed in the second half of the 1980s). → m work 220 c 226 In-progress building and project for Operations building of Branch of State bank of Czechoslovakia in Považská Bystrica / → p. 828/. [ © → p. 812 ] n. 092 Project for planning permission for Addition to Alfa publishers and headquarters of Railway building administration on Panenská street in Bratislava (unbuilt). Rudolf Fresser was supervising architect. 227 229 P  reliminary study for Addition to Alfa publishers and headquarters of Railway building administration on Panenská street in Bratislava. [ © → p. 812 ] | The Section for Preserving Folk Architecture and its Surroundings, with local SZOPK branch no. 6, began concentrating on research and preservation of historical buildings in Banská Štiavnica. The art historian Dr. Peter Kresánek, who until 1989 lectured in art history at the Slovak Technological University's Faculty of Architecture in Bratislava, inspired enthusiasm for preserving folk and historical architecture, including sites in Banská Štiavnica, among a generation 223 of his university's students. n. 008 / n. 019 223 Ibid., p. 176. [ 22 september ] ◉ He received the socialist Ostrava badge: “For exemplary and sacrificial work in building the Hall of Culture and Sports at Ostrava-Vítkovice.” 224 224 Certificate. In: Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection of Architecture, Applied Arts and Design SNG. 760 | 761 m cv ‹ 1986 n. 094 Project for Family house on Cádrová street in Bratislava (unbuilt). [ november ] Study for a building complex and volumetric study for the Ice stadium at Všešportový areál in Košice (unbuilt). Rudolf Fresser was supervising architect. n. 095 c → m work 230 234 Study for unbuilt building complex and volumetric study for Ice stadium at Všešportový areál in Košice / → p. 828/. [ © → p. 812 ] 762 | 763 m cv 1987 | The Administrative building for Engineering-geological and Hydrogeological survey (IGHP) was completed in Bratislava (currently GEOS). The interior was designed by Jaroslav Nemec. n. 087 235 237 Administrative building for Engineering-geological 225 Fedor Gál, Eugen Gindl, Ivan Gojdič, and Hydrogeological survey in Bratislava (currently DULLA, Matúš. Slovenská Mikuláš (Maňo) Huba, Vladimír Ira, GEOS) after completion. [ © → p. 812 ] architektúra a urbanizmus za Gabriela Kaliská, Vladimír Kohút, posledných päť rokov. Projekt. Judita Kokolevská, Juraj Kubáček, Revue slovenskej architektúry, Ivan Kusý, Peter Kresánek, Igor 29, 1987, 4–5, p. 10. Levský, Zora Okáliová-Paulíniová, 226 Juraj Podoba, Kamil Procházka, → Appendix 22 and 29. Stručný Pavel Šremer, Ivan Štúr, Peter Tatár, katalóg aktivít mestskej organizácie Jana Višváderová, Hana Volková medzi V. a VI. zjazdom SZOPK (Zemanová). The 42 reviewers (1984–1989) and Pár slov o mestskom included: Gabriel Bianchi, Matúš výbore a stručný prehľad aktívnych Dulla, Andrej Fiala, Andrej Ferko, Základných oganizácií... In: HUBA, Mikuláš Gažo, Jana Geržová, Anna Mikuláš Maňo. Ideál – skutočnosť – Grešková, Ján Hanušin, Milan Hladký mýtus. Príbeh bratislavského sr, Roman Hofbauer, Štefan Holčík, ochranárstva /cited in Note 182 /, Jozef Holomáň, Anton Jurko, Viera p. 165 and 175. Káľavská, Imrich Kostolný, Juraj 227 Králik, Martin Kusý, Ján Lacika, → Appendix 10. Návrh vládneho Mikuláš Lisický, Michal Majtán, nariadenia na vyhlásenie národného Vladimír Mináč, Ladiaslav Mlynka, parku Podunajsko (cover letter). Vladimír Ondruš, Ján Oťaheľ, Ladislav Ibid., pp. 145–147. Snopko, Miloš Stankoviansky, 228 Jaroslav Šíbl, Koloman Tarábek, Igor Annotated list. Anotovaný seznam Thurzo, Ladislav Volko and Dušan dokumentů Charty 77 za léta Závodský. Other collaborators: 1977–1989. In: PREČAN, Vilém (ed.). Daniel Fischer, František Guldan, Charta 77. 1977–1989. Od morální Anton Hodál, Marián Huba, Andrea k demokratické revoluci. Scheinfeld- Chorváthová, Jozef Klepáč, Martin Schwarzenberg – Bratislava : Kvasnica, Magda Kvasnicová, Čs. středisko nezávislé literatury – Vladimír Kokolevský, Ján Langoš, ARCHA, 1990, p. 433. Martin Mašek, Marta Pichová, 229 Igor Strinka, Josef Vavroušek, Jozef [BUDAJ, Ján (ed.).] BRATISLAVA/ Vojta and more. In: HUBA, Mikuláš nahlas. Bratislava : Základné Maňo. Bratislava/nahlas. In: Idem. organizácie SZOPK č. 6 a č. 13, 1987, Ideál – skutočnosť – mýtus. Príbeh 7 n. 062 Preliminary study and initial project for the Multi-purpose sports hall (unbuilt) at the Incheba exhibition site in Bratislava-Petržalka. 8 □ ii n. 043 / n. 052 The architect and historian Matúš Dulla, in his assessment of the last five years' architecture, used Dedeček's buildings to illustrate the disagreement between generations and various intellectual groups of (late) modernists and post-modernists. Dulla understood Dedeček's work as the stagnation and exhaustion of late modern architectural design processes: “The classical modernist conception in this period meant an array of major new architecture that doggedly repeated known schemas. V. Dedeček contributed to this list with two large projects: the University of Forestry and Wood Technology in Zvolen and the State Central Archives in Bratislava... Yet his concept of scale and size and their relationship to architectural quality went completely against the opinions forming in the incoming generation of architects.” 225 c 61 pages and attachments with bratislavského ochranárstva questionnaire. The publishers were /cited in Note 182/, pp. 100–103. Mikuláš (Maňo) Huba and Juraj 230 Flamik as the official representatives Ibid., p. 101. of the local SZOPK branches no. 6 231 and 13 in Bratislava. Editing team: HUBA, Mikuláš Maňo. Ideál – Ján Budaj, Juraj Flamik, Fedor skutočnosť – mýtus. Príbeh Gál, Eugen Gindl, Mikuláš Huba bratislavského ochranárstva and Peter Tatár. Author team: Ján /cited in Note 182/, pp. 47–48 Budaj, Mária Filková, Juraj Flamik, and 160–161. Local SZOPK branch no. 16, coordinated by the biologist Pavel Šremer, supervised the natural rehabilitation of the alluvial forest near Rusovce, and made plans for taking on part of the alluvial forest in Petržalka. They proposed new protected areas for the forest territory. They worked up map documentation and specifications of the natural assets in this part of Bratislava, with a text appendix. In the same year they submitted these to state administrative organs.226 [ february ] Dr. Mikuláš (Maňo) Huba, chairman of local SZOPK branch no. 6, sent a letter with their Proposal for a government directive to proclaim a Danubeland National Park [Návrh vládneho nariadenia na vyhlásenie národného parku Podunajsko] to the first secretary of the Slovak Communist Party's Central Committee Jozef Lenárt, the Slovak Prime Minister Peter Colotka, and the Ministry of Culture. Dr. Huba developed the proposal together with a team of authors: Dr. Anton Magula, Dr. Ivan Ondrášek, certified biologist Pavel Šremer, Dr. Jaromír Šíblo, certified historian Ladislav Snopko, and others. This proposal was the culmination of preservationists' activities to protect the most vital landscape near the Danube and the lower regions of its tributaries. It was intended to contribute to the ongoing updating of the regional planning documentation for Gabčíkovo-Nagymaros hydroelectric dams.227 [ 10 february ] Charter 77 sent Prague's mayor a letter On the housing problems of young people in Prague [O problematike bytov pre mladých ľudí v Prahe] with analysis (document 9/1987), and copies to the prime ministers and to the speakers of the legislative bodies of the Czechoslovak and Czech Socialist republics.228 [ 4 june ] The general membership meeting of local SZOPK branches no. 6 and 13 published, as an attachment to the minutes of its discussions, a compendium of criticism with its Bratislava/out loud [Bratislava/nahlas (B/n)] survey. 84 authors and reviewers of many professions shared the work of preparing and creating the anonymous texts, survey and graphics of this compilation.229 The document grew from a cross-disciplinary network, which brought together disciplines from both the parallel and the official sciences, arts and culture. It openly and comprehensively pointed to the problems of contemporary Bratislava. “This was the first truly broadly-conceived and thoroughly-formulated criticism of the regime since the end of the 1960s. Criticism not for criticism's sake, but as a starting point for finding solutions. It is not by chance that Bratislava/nahlas contains around 300 specific proposals.” 230 The compilation started to be seen as an expert, civic and political expression mainly after the daily Pravda launched a campaign against it (text Nothing new under the sun [Nič nového pod slnkom] by deputy editor Arnošt Bak and published under the pseudonym Dana Piskorová, which according to his later statements gave the Communist Party Central Committee's opinion) and after Voice of America radio broadcasts reported on the B/n survey. This initiative, which had been supra-political or implicitly political, turned explicitly political in its actions, and when they were refused rebuttal space in Pravda they pressed charges in court (based on the formal reasons given for refusal). There followed letters to the newspaper's editor and expressions of solidarity. The work on this insert was the basis for the Commission for Bratislava, formed and led by Ján Budaj in cooperation with Vladimír Ondruš, Peter Tatár and Eugen Gindl. [ august – september ] Andrej Ferko, Mikuláš (Maňo) Huba and other signatories addressed a protest to President Gustáv Husák, on the new siting of the Slovak parliament building (by Ľudovít Jendreják – Peter Puškár – Ján Šilinger, construction started 1986) on Vodný vrch. The founding nature preservation organization SZOPK branch no. 6 sent a letter, requesting the halting of construction, to the Department of Construction and Planning Department Bratislava I. Since 1985, a broad-based community of architects, historians and structural engineers, including Ivan Gojdič, Jaroslav Liptay, Peter Kresánek, Andrej Fiala, Vladimír Kohút, Matúš Dulla and Ferdinand Milučký, had also been critical of this localization.231 764 | 765 m cv 1988 11 | Completion of Multi-purpose sports hall at Ostrava-Vítkovice. n. 067 As the winter ended, the sculptor Marko Huba and other nature preservationists and artists worked on renovating the monastery at Marianka, and were joined by local inhabitants. This worked occurred on “days off”, and took two and a half years. In the renovated space they organized public art exhibitions, concerts and happenings. The art happenings influenced the character of Czechoslovakia's November 1989 revolution.232 Early in the year a preservation/conservation initiative launched Danube proclamation for Danubeland [Dunajské vyhlásenie za Podunajsko], a three-state National Park (in Vienna, Bratislava and Budapest). By November ’89 around 10,000 individuals had signed petitions of support.233 7 n. 062 Execution project for Multi-purpose exhibition facility and a study for Multipurpose sports hall at the Incheba exhibition site in Bratislava-Petržalka. At some point in 1987–1988 during work on the calculation requirements and study project, Šremer's group of forest preservationists and Stavoprojekt held discussions and “Debates with the architects of the sports area that is to be situated in the Danube flood plane below Petržalka”, meaning representatives of Dedeček's Studio IV. As Vladimír Dedeček recounts, he did not take part personally. A year later, he proposed adaptations and additions to the study for the Multi-purpose sports hall. The building was never built. [ 25 march ] On Hviezdoslavovo námestie square in Bratislava a peaceful “candlelight demonstration” was held in favour of preserving religious and civil rights and freedoms in the country. [ may ] Project for Bioveta complex in Nitra (study for a group of buildings in the southern area, and study of the location on building site; unbuilt). Rudolf Fresser was supervising architect. n. 096 | Project for the Virology pavilion in Bioveta complex in Nitra (project for planning permit, unbuilt). Rudolf Fresser was supervising architect. n. 097 5 → k seg 5 / → m biblio □ n. 011 In the journal Projekt, Dr. Martin Kusý ran his third and “recapitulating review” for the University of Agriculture in Nitra. With it were published texts by Dedeček and, on the investor's behalf, by the university's former rector and a member of the Academy of Sciences Emil Špaldon, who had made such pivotal contributions to its development. He confirmed that the main architect of the variant built is Vladimír Dedeček. / → p. 388 / → p. 837 /. 232 HUBA, Marián. Príbeh Marianka. In: HUBA, Mikuláš Maňo. Ideál – skutočnosť – mýtus. Príbeh bratislavského ochranárstva /cited in Note 182 /, pp. 92–93. 233 HUBA, Mikuláš Maňo. Národný park Podunajsko. Ibid., p. 61. 234 Anotovaný seznam dokumentů c Charter 77 published the document (12/88) On the catastrophic state of protecting cultural landmarks in the Czech lands [O katastrofálnom stave ochrany kultúrnych pamiatok v Čechách]. A copy of this information was sent to the federal National Assembly, the Czech legislative body and the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences ecology research institute.234 Charty 77 za léta 1977–1989. In: PREČAN, Vilém (ed.). Charta 77. 1977–1989. Od morální k demokratické revoluci /cited in Note 227/, p. 445. 238 Multi-purpose sports hall at Ostrava-Vítkovice after completion. [ © → p. 812 ] → m work 239 24 0 24 3 Project for unbuilt Bioveta complex in Nitra / → p. 828/. [ © → p. 812 ] 766 | 767 m cv 1989 › iii | The building of the Supreme Court and Ministry of Justice of the Slovak Socialist Republic, currently the Supreme Court and the Ministry of Justice of the Slovak Republic, was completed. n. 071 24 4 The Supreme Court and Ministry of Justice of the Slovak Socialist Republic in Bratislava after completion. [ © → p. 812 ] | The Branch of State bank of Czechoslovakia in Bratislava, Ružinov-Ostredky, was completed n. 081 c → m biblio □ A second jubilee publication came out: Stavoprojekt, Bratislava 1949–1989, with a selection of buildings by Vladimír Dedeček, Rudolf Miňovský and Studio II/X / → p. 837 /. 24 5 24 6 Detention cell, and flat roof, of Supreme Court of the Slovak Republic and Ministry of Justice of the Slovak Republic, with spiral staircase and view of the city and Bratislava Castle. [ © → p. 812 ] 768 | 769 m cv ‹ 1989 [ 10 january ] The provisional coordinating committee of the Hnutie za občiansku slobodu (Rudolf Battěk, Václav Benda, Ján Čarnogurský, Tomáš Hradílek, Ladislav Lis and Jaroslav Šabata) publicized Jan Palach's Call [Výzva Jana Palacha] at a memorial: “And once more we recall that Jan Palach tells us not ‘Go and die’ but rather ‘Go and battle for your own share in making your own life and that of your nation in the spirit of truths that are known and lived. Try to return sense to our communal fate through the courage to act. Go with renewed hope that the government will return your affairs to you. Go, for this is your moment.’” 235 On 15 January, the civil agitations of Palach's week began. [ 5 april ] The fifth city conference of SZOPK took place at the Stanica mladých prírodovedcov on Búdkova cesta road (by Miloš Chorvát, design and construction 1950-1955, with sculptures titled Youth Builiding Slovakia [Slovenská budujúca mládež] by Fraňo Gibala and four wall relief art pieces [date unknown] by Ján Kulich). The conference drew nature preservationists and a broader public of kindred personalities. In an open discussion, the sociologist Martin Bútora, sociologist/prognosticator Fedor Gál and Vladimír Krivý spoke; the latter stated: “... There are two types of task now before our society, and we are too focused (not too successfully but too tenaciously) on the first set of problems, which might be characterized as 'the attempt to catch up'. This is an attempt to get out of the grouping into which we have been categorized – undeveloped countries – and catch up to countries in the world's vanguard. The second type of task is advancing the creation of an ecologically sustainable civilization. This entails a change in cultural/civilizational sensibility... Yet I have the impression that it is essential that we combine modernization with traditionalism. It is not enough to introduce new technologies, abandon all the old structures and seek new ones. Rather simultaneously the old, genuine values and structures have to be renewed and revitalized. Here we must, in my opinion, reassess the often-perverse understanding of effectiveness, which we see in the form of disbanding village schools and consigning some towns to the category of 'unpromising', and notoriously dense settlements, gross clear-cutting of the forest, and prioritizing monocultures in our lives... in an overdone unified typification in construction, and the like.” 236 The local nature preservation organization SZOPK began preparing new By-laws for its 6th Congress (11-12 November), which included secret balloting and eliminating from the Constitution the article on the Communist Party's leading role. They succeeded at winning approval for the By-laws and electing new leadership. This was followed by November's protest events. Mikuláš (Maňo) Huba was later to write of this: “We believed the November events would benefit the natural environment and our monuments, but at the same time we feared, more to ourselves than out loud, the hazards that such too easily-won freedom would bring with it. Freedom for all, including the bullies... Now, almost two decades after the Velvet Revolution, there is no need to argue about how legitimate these hopes (and fears) were.” 237 235 Dokumenty a svědectví. In: VLADISLAV, Jan – PREČAN, Vilém (eds.). ACTA. Horký leden 1989 v Československu. [Čtvrtletník Čs. dokumentačního střediska nezávislé literatury. Scheinfeld-Schwarzenberg], 3, 1989, 9–12, p. 61. 236 KRIVÝ, Martin. [Príspevok na V. mestskej konferencii MO SZOPK]. In: HUBA, Mikuláš Maňo. Ideál – skutočnosť – mýtus. Príbeh bratislavského ochranárstva /cited in Note 182/, pp. 113–114. 237 HUBA, Mikuláš Maňo. Posledné dni pred... Ibid., pp. 118–119. 238 Grass-roots SZOPK organizations did volunteer preservation work (with assistance from Ing. arch. Igor Thurzo, doc. Janka Krivošová and structural engineer Ján Kohút) on the preservation of the Štefánik memorial in Ivánka pri Dunaji, roof repair on wine-maker's houses on Obchodná and Vysoká streets, repairs using recycled materials of a burned house at the corner of Zelená and Ventúrska streets, and helping preserve the Roman spa excavation in Bratislava-Dúbravka.238 Ibid., p. 110. 239 Anotovaný seznam dokumentů Charty 77 za léta 1977–1989. In: PREČAN, Vilém (ed.). Charta 77. 1977–1989. Od morální k demokratické revoluci /cited in Note 227/, Charter 77 sent the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic government a letter (22/1989) On the need to revisit the GabčíkovoNagymaros hydroelectric dams as experts from Czechoslovakia and six surrounding countries met. They followed up with a letter (43/1989) to the government on this topic on 28 May.239 On 8 August they sent a letter (53/89) to the government and the interior ministry, Stanovisko k výstavbe koksárne pri Stonave, in which they expressed neighbouring Poles' concerns about ecological threats regarding the coke plant.240 [ 2 june ] The interior ministry's state secret police (Branch I, Department 3) proposed maintaining a file on the investigated person (IP) code named “DEDEK”. The reason: “This is the former target of the action DEDKO [3 lines erased]. He was in contact with the French citizen NOWAK Joseph, condemned in Prague for the felony offence of jeopardizing economic secrets as stipulated in paragraph 122 [of the] Penal Code. Hence I propose vetting this individual in the file IP DEDEK on the topic of FRANCE.” The proposal was approved. An explanatory report on 14 September stated: “The measures undertaken substantiated no negative facts from the state's police point of view. At present therefore the reasons for the vetting have subsided.” 242 pp. 454 and 458. 240 Ibid., p. 460. 241 Zväzok s registračným číslom 40164, /cited in Note 190/, p. 8. 242 Ibid., pp. 10–11. 243 Několik vět. In: VLADISLAV, Jan – PREČAN, Vilém (eds.). ACTA. Horký leden 1989 v Československu /cited in Note 235/, pp. 14–16. 244 Ibid., pp. 17–18. 245–246 [unsigned.] Slovenskí architekti na prahu nového summerpočtu. c Projekt. Revue slovenskej architektúry, 32, 1990, 4, p. 2. [ 29 june ] About 1,800 citizens signed, and published (submitted to the ČTK press agency) to get more signatories, a declaration entitled A Few Sentences [Několik vět], which Václav Havel called a peaceful call to dialogue. In addition to the first requests – on 1. the release of political prisoners; 2. the end of limits on free assembly; 3. the end of persecution and criminalization of various civil initiatives; 4. the end of censorship; 5. respecting the just requests from religious citizens – point 6. formulated a request “... that all planned and built projects which are to permanently alter the environment on our planet and therefore foreordain the lives of future generations be immediately subjected to comprehensive judgement by experts and the public”. Point 7 closed the declaration with a request for free discussion of the 1950s, of the events of 1968, of the five Warsaw Pact countries’ invasion of Czechoslovakia and the subsequent “normalization.” The fact that Několik vět, along with other citizens’ petitions, included a request to open a society-wide discussion on the topic of the environment, urban planning, and architecture, was the climax of the long-term activity of nature conservationists, preservationists, architects, and urban planners. These individuals were rescuing the disappearing historical and folk architecture, and criticizing the failing system of socialist planning and lingering opinions of both built-up areas and building-free landscapes. [ 4 july ] The newspaper The Independent published Václav Havel's article “Testing Ground” on the Czechoslovak situation: “... Perhaps today this small and for many uninteresting land has become again that 'testing grounds' where it will become clear what is in fact at hand: whether the Communist world has a true yearning to move beyond its current dark shadow and choose universal values over those of power and prestige, as Gorbachev has promised, or whether at this historic juncture the desire for freedom and human dignity must after all give way, at the last moment, to the questionable ideal of a monolithic imperium and its system of omnipotent functionaries.” 244 Student gatherings began in Prague and Bratislava, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Gestapo's shutting universities on 17 November 1938, and continued with demonstrations, strikes, negotiations between representatives of the opposition and the Party and government, and the fall of the socialistic establishment in Czechoslovakia. [ 27 november ] The newspaper Pravda reported that the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Slovakia rescinded the constitution's Article 4 on the Party's leading role in Slovakia. [ 29 november ] The federal parliament approved the rescinding of the constitution's Article 4 on the Party's leading role, and amended Article 6 on the National Front's standing in supervising all organizations and political parties under the Communist Party and Article 16 on applying Marxism-Leninism in policy and education. These changes made possible the founding of new civil movements, societies and political parties. [ 30 november ] The Central Committee and leadership of Association of Slovak Architects resigned. [ 7 december ] Most of the file on the investigated person, code named “DEDEK”, was shredded. The file was 102 pages; the archived file is 13 pages and does not include any records from the questioning of those summoned to testify. [ 16 december ] In Bratislava a Convocation of all Slovakia's architects gathered, including some who had been expelled from of the architects' organization ASA after 1968, along with students and many who were not ASA members for a total of 906 participants.245 In a resolution, the Convocation “... endorsed the continuing social and political changes. It expresses admiration and gratitude to Czechoslovakia's students and artists for their creative initiative and level of morals, by which means they achieved change in our society.”246 770 | 771 m cv 1990 | The Operations building of Branch of State bank of Czechoslovakia in Považská Bystrica was completed. n. 090 iii | The Supreme Court building in Bratislava passed approval of construction work. n. 071 | The Reconstruction of the Art Nouveau Vila Szondra in Modra was completed. n. 079 2 47 L  etter confirming completion of military obligation as reserve Captain, which also released Dedeček from the People's Army. [ © → p. 812 ] [ 17 december ] An anonymous letter written in a decorative script was sent to Vladimír Dedeček: c “Dear unesteemed architect. It's a pity you were not present at the assembly of architects, to hear the applause for your monstrosities itemized there: the Gallery, the Archives and the exhibition complex [Incheba]. You should have gone to hell long ago to make room for those younger. [signed] An architect.” 247 5 □ 8 iv i n. 011 / n. 043 / n. 033 / n. 055 In the historiography publication Transformations in Slovakia's Contemporary Architecture [Premeny súčasnej architektúry Slovenska],248 which had been readied for print before 1989, its authors – the painter and architect/ historian Janka Krivošová and architect/historian Elena Lukáčová of the the architecture faculty at the University of Technology in Bratislava – likened the Nitra university campus, with its ellipsoid, vaulted aula maxima, to the Brazilian National Congress building by Oscar Niemeyer (1907–2012, Rio de Janeiro) with its two semi-spherical cap assembly halls (project and construction 1958).249 At the distance of about twenty years since the university was realized, the authors primarily at the level of an influence included the only internationally acknowledged building regarded as an emblematic work of the Late Modern, originating in cooperation with Le Corbusier, who created the program of modern architecture. The authors acknowledged that the Nitra campus has “... an extraordinarily significant place in the history of our architecture", emphasizing that “in terms of urban planning it formed a fitting counterpoint to the undisturbed old town and the castle".250 In a world that has been over-technicized, they underlined the preservation of historical Nitra as it relates to the contemporary, developing part of town on the other side of the river.251 248 C  over of the book KRIVOŠOVÁ, They appraised the University of Janka – LUKÁČOVÁ, Elena. Forestry and Wood Technology in Zvolen Transformations in Slovakia's (now the Technical University in Zvolen), in Contemporary Architecture [Premeny comparison to Nitra, as problematic, in súčasnej architektúry Slovenska] Bratislava : Alfa, 1990. [ Source → p. 812 ] part because of its functional-operational solution: "Close by the rail station and in visual contact with the Zvolen Castle, as a counterpoint to it, the university campus sprung up. It is composed in an angular mono-block of departments seeming to embrace the aula's central octagon. The generous, impressive and yet economical concept links well to the group of faculties' residence halls past the green cemetery… Yet some parts of the solution are questionable. The lecture spaces with audio-visual equipment are set in concrete cubes with no direct lighting and ventilation. The aula is accessed only by means of two humblyproportioned staircases; the wooden cladding in the entrance spaces envelop many cubic meters of vacant space – hence the interior as a development in such work is highly disputable. In this project Dedeček preferred form over content. Compared to Nitra we can posit that this newer building is no step forward." 252 The authors also reflected on the period's discussion on the SNG addition, referring to contradictory opinions: "The whole extension has sparked many conflicting opinions. Most criticized was the application of large coloured surfaces and forms without segmenting, which give an impression of being overly technical and stand as an immoderate counterpoint to the historical building's architectural elements. A lesser contrast between the old and new buildings would probably have been more acceptable and likeable." 253 In this sense their opinion was analogous to that published previously by Radomíra Sedláková. They took an opposite view of the Regional Political School in ModraHarmónia as it related to the Harmónia countryside and hiking region: "The building is an outstanding work of architecture: its values are not only incorporated thoughtfully into the undulating Little Carpathians environment, but put in excellent aesthetic and functional parameters." 254 Thus in this context they evaluated the Modra political institute as something higher, partly with regard to its relatively diminutive area compared to extensive complexes and large buildings, although their concepts had something in common: Dedeček's concepts of his later buildings in a range of scales are an affirmation, transformation and advancement of those preceding. ii □ iii iv n. 052 / n. 0771 / n. 033 In an article titled “Sins of architecture", the architect and historian, postrevolution professor, Academy of Fine Arts rector and politician Štefan Šlachta commented on the archives and supreme court buildings, and also on the context or acontextuality of Dedeček's SNG addition and extension: “One of the dominant architectural sins is the Slovak National Gallery – more precisely the addition to the old Water Barracks... The aggressive mass of the Gallery vis-à-vis the neighbouring building is the first, characteristic error in the author's concept... What most documents the lack of comprehension of the ‘genius loci’ is the solution for the Gallery courtyard, or more precisely the former courtyard, which was here but has ‘departed’ with the new solution... The courtyard surface, filled in and raised, may have made a space for exhibiting sculptures, but it liquidated any chance of perceiving and feeling them in a cultured manner.” 255 Here he formulates the post-modern genius loci reference as a universal criterion of evaluation (a replacement for the modern Zeitgeist argument). 247 It rests on the low mass of the Fond Vladimír Dedeček, Collection foyer and its secondary circulation of Architecture, Applied Arts and spaces are lit by reflected light. In Design SNG. other lecture and teaching spaces 248 the architects had excellent solutions KRIVOŠOVÁ, Janka – LUKÁČOVÁ, on lighting and heating conditions. Elena. Premeny súčasnej architektúry Already in Trnava they tried out, Slovenska /cited in Note 76 /, p. 66. and in Nitra fully exploited, the 249 Stendhal pallete of white, red and Brazil's new capital city Brasília black. This university complex, which was realized using urban plans in generosity of space and mass by Lúcio Costa and the landscape and logical concept and emotional architect Roberto Burle Marx, impact recalls the builders of Brasília, and architectural designs by Oscar not only contributed to its city's Soares Niemeyer. Here Koula architectural values but also became and Fašangová's course text noted a creative impulse for later university that Niemeyer had just won solutions.” Ibid., p. 65. the Lenin Peace Prize. 252 /cited in Note 122 /, p. 178. Ibid., pp. 156–157. 250 253 KRIVOŠOVÁ, Janka – LUKÁČOVÁ, Ibid., p. 109. Elena. Premeny súčasnej architektúry 254 Slovenska /cited in Note 76 /, p. 65. Ibid., p. 159. 251 255 “The aula based on rotating a plane ŠLACHTA, Štefan. Hriechy curve consists of two cylindrical architektúry. Príroda a spoločnosť, shells covered with a ribbed dome. 39, 1990, 20, p. 18. 772 | 773 m cv 1991 | Reconstruction of the Koospol building on Námestie 4. apríla square in Bratislava completed (currently Kooperatíva, on Hlavné námestie square in Bratislava) n. 091 [ 26 february ] After the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic (CSFR) passed a government resolution on a portion of the state's property being placed in the private sector through “coupon privatization”, the Act on conditions for transfer of state property to other individuals came into force. At the federal level, the government approved 52 companies for privatization. An amendment to the law, approved by the Slovak parliament on 17 February 1994, launched the so-called large-scale privatization. [ february ] Study for Reconstruction and addition to Dunaj department store in Bratislava in two alternative heights (8- and 9-storey). Together with Jaroslav Nemec and Ivan Šimko n. 098 [ jún ] Dedeček sent the second 9-storey variant of the study to the architectural competition for Reconstruction and addition to Dunaj department store in Bratislava. Together with Jaroslav Nemec. Since the 1970s, the state research institute Štátny projektový ústav obchodu had been working on the Dunaj, in the studio of Ivan Matušík, where Ján Bahna then worked. Bahna's team won the published competition. → m work n. 099 249 25 3 Variants for Reconstruction and addition to Dunaj department store / → p. 828/. [ © → p. 812 ] [ november ] Competition study for Information centre and hotel on Októbrové námestie square in Bratislava (next to Supreme Court, unbuilt) n. 100 n. 101 Project for Reconstruction of Depository of Strojársky spotrebný tovar, a.s. company valuables in Bratislava (unbuilt). Alojz Tekula was supervising architect. c → k seg 11 / → m biblio 11 □ n. 067 The architect Ivan Šimko reviewed “The Ostrava Palace of Culture and Sports ‘Vítkovice’”. In addition to the review, the journal Projekt ran Dedeček's “Architect's Statement” and a text by František Ohrablo: “Architect and design of construction” [“Architekt a konštrukčný dizajn”] / → p. 468 / → p. 838 /. i □ n. 055 → k int III Martin Mašek and Henrieta Hammerová (Moravčíková), architects and researchers of the Academy of Sciences Institute of Construction and Architecture, assessed the building that was formerly the Regional Political School in Modra in the article “Allegiant architecture”. The “Architect's Statement" by Vladimír Dedeček was also run, before the review. In this issue of Projekt, devoted to buildings for the Communist Party as taboo symbols of power, the reviewers interpreted this political school as a symbol of Party loyalty: “The whole bears the mark of high stylization in that cultivated, abstract, clean form characteristic of buildings with political functions... As far as the interior goes the building would be hard to relate to others that represent or demonstrate power. Or could it be that the contrast and dissonance between the bombastic casing and the gloomy or joyless indoors is but a true symptom of its times? A symptom of the period of gradual decline and concealment of used-up ideas behind a megalomaniac form?” 256 Thus there were three stated opinions: the earlier one of Janka Krivošová and Elena Lukáčová, who late in the 1980s interpreted the institute's architecture as a harmonic solution and a shift toward late Modern trends in Slovakia; a second of Zalčík and Dulla's, attributing the institute to horizontalism, i.e. to the style or direction that in Slovakia around 1980 was creating a derivative, analogous or variation of the British New Brutalism; and the third, latest assessment by Martin Mašek and Henrieta Moravčíková, reviewing the institute as the sycophantic, uncritical and non-alternative product of architectural inclination to the normalized Communist Party. Mašek and Moravčíková assessed the building's form as, on the one hand, architecturally abstracted, geometric, and clean (i.e. universal and supertemporally modernizing: indeed belonging to the High Modern), while on the other hand the same form, from the perspective of its Party affiliation, was megalomaniac and tributary to the period's normalizing ideas and practices of a Communist Party in crisis (therefore in fact low and impure, dirtied by the era's political Zeitgeist, at the expense of the spirit of the place, i.e. Modra-Harmónia's genius loci). iii □ n. 071 The journal Projekt published a review of the Supreme Court of the Slovak Socialist Republic in Bratislava. With it the architects Bohuslav Kraus and Ján Kodoň used a quotation from Kafka's The Trial: “He is still in the service of the law, so he belongs to the law, so he's beyond what man has a right to judge,” 257 which is from the dialog that Kafka's protagonist Josef K. has with the priest in the cathedral, on the guilt or innocence of the cathedral's doorkeeper. The passage continues: “ ‘I can't say I'm in complete agreement with this view,’ said K. shaking his head, ‘as if you accept it you'll have to accept that everything said by the doorkeeper is true. But you've already explained very fully that that's not possible.’ ‘No,’ said the priest, ‘you don't need to accept everything as true, you only have to accept it as necessary.’ ‘Depressing view,’ said K. ‘The lie made into the rule of the world.’”258 The review suggested the lie made as of a world order seen through the prism of a lie made as of the socialist order in the Slovak Socialist Republic and socialistic Czechoslovakia. In this context, the reviewers assessed the building of the Supreme Court SSR as a building “... which in its meaning was one of the most salient of power symbols... of a corrupted judiciary,” recognizing it as one of “the last monuments of history of its kind”,259 i.e. at once a new building and a monument (and in this sense a building-historical monument). They depicted the architect Dedeček as a known and successful “courtier of architecture of post-1968 Socialism”.260 They based their conviction that he had designed a “power symbol” on the assertion that this was a building with no “creativity”. In other words: the court building is not architecture, but rather a power symbol, which is not destabilized by any architectural creativity, not even by a plurality of interpretations. It is a “dry and mechanically conceived shape”, they are “unconvincingly formally and stereotypically formed building volumes”, and moreover “Everything that generates the building's atmosphere, from consistency through composition to architectural detail, confirms my [(sic!) our: Kodoň and Kraus] feeling that this was never created of love for people.”261 As well, “... [its] only indisputable quality” is “that it is a genuinely faithful, expressive and most true portrayal of the moral and physical state of our society and its ruling class over the last 40 years”.262 Kodoň and Kraus especially criticized the court building's disturbed relationships with the surrounding historical buildings, the exterior's “broken form of dead spaces”. Besides interpreting the building as a conglomerate of concrete symbols of state power and architectural powerlessness / → p. 74 /, they pointed to the indoors that combined “crooked corridors” (meanders) with cells of offices such that it all: “... betokens a spiritless additive schematicness and rigourous effeteness in the whole architectural conception and functionaloperational organization of the building's interior. A sterility of solution combined with the untapped potential of location... led to a dehumanization, a loss of the whole structure's human scale.” 263 In the urban scale they considered the building “... a ‘solitary figure within a block’, or in other words: a hard-to-define hybrid”.264 These rebelling reviewers put all the antitheses and inconsistencies they detected in the building in a negative light: a hybrid overstepping modernity was a negative opposite of purity (modernity); contradiction in the form of broken, incomplete, fragmentary exteriors were called dead versus the living city and its strata growing one into another; and they came to the interpretation that: “Disrespect for the architectural message of the past, disrespect for the surrounding space, and finally disrespect for the human being are the chief and lasting attributes of this solution. The new building of the Supreme Court SR is... a genuinely expressive symbol of supercilious and brazen power, the ‘ministry of love’ of our mini-Orwellian post-1968 socialistic world, whose permanently erect admonitory presence was and perhaps still is there to monitor, train and punish.” 265 The review's conclusion changed political and architectural assessment of the building into a moral and ethical appeal. For both reviewers, this was a continuation of the revolution through architectural means and their own civic engagement. The building, in this first and last review called non-architecture, was not further reviewed or discussed in public. It was not included in post-revolution histories of Slovakia's architecture or in architectural guides. 256 HAMMEROVÁ, Henrieta – MAŠEK, Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Martin. [Krajská politická škola Foundation, 2005. Accessible at: v Modre-Harmónii] Lojálna <http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/ architektúra (review). Projekt. 7849>, retrieved 6 December 2016 Revue slovenskej architektúry, 259–260 33, 1991, 3, p. 19. KRAUS, Bohuslav – KODOŇ, Ján. 257 Budova Najvyššieho súdu KRAUS, Bohuslav – KODOŇ, Ján. Slovenskej republiky in Bratislava Budova Najvyššieho súdu Slovenskej /cited in Note 257/, p. 47. republiky in Bratislava. Projekt. 261 Revue slovenskej architektúry, Ibid., pp. 47–48. 33, 1991, 7–8, p. 47. 262 258 Ibid., p. 48. KAFKA, Franz. The Trial. Translated 263–265 by David Wyllie. Salt Lake City : Ibid., p. 49. 774 | 775 m cv 1992 [ as of 30 april ] The Stavoprojekt state concern for design and engineering in Bratislava was disbanded without bankrupting. The privatization project determined that Stavoprojekt in Bratislava be transferred to administration by the National Property Fund. Stavoprojekt Bratislava, a.s. became its successor. 266 → m work [ august ] n. 102 Architectural and urban study for Row of shops and services on Eisnerova street in Devínska Nová Ves (further project phases and construction later followed). A.[?] Sulíková was supervising architect. 257 [ september ] Design for Reconstruction of Strojársky spotrebný tovar, a.s. with a self-serve cafeteria and snack bar with terrace in Bratislava (unbuilt). Alojz Tekula was supervising architect n. 103 c 254 Project for the Row of shops and services on Eisnerova street in Devínska Nová Ves / → p. 830/. [ © → p. 812 ] 266 → Výpis z Obchodného registra Okresného súdu Bratislava I., Ministry of Justice of the Slovak Republic, file: 48/B. [ september ] Study for Parking garage for 300 cars with service, and Všeobecná úverová banka bank branch in Bratislava-Petržalka, Háje area (unbuilt) [ 30 september ] Study for Parking garage in Bratislava-Petržalka, in the Dvory I and Dvory II area (unbuilt). 258 260 S  tudy for unbuilt Parking garage for 300 cars with repair service, and Všeobecná úverová banka bank branch in Bratislava-Petržalka, Háje area / → p. 830/. [ © → p. 812 ] n. 105 / n. 106 → m work → m work n. 104 261 265 Study for Parking garage in Bratislava-Petržalka, in the Dvory I and Dvory II area / → p. 830/. [ © → p. 812 ] Charter 77 activities were officially concluded. 776 | 777 m cv 1993 [ 1 january ] Czechoslovakia dissolved. Based on negotiations between the leadership of bo