Register of modern architecture oA HÚ SAV

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Bratislava is a characteristic example of a city that was decisively shaped by the ideas of the 20th century. Over two-thirds of its current area was built in the spirit of the principles of modern architecture and urban planning across the 19th and 20th centuries. Yet these urban or architectonic conceptions, paradoxically, largely formulated the urban structure of Bratislava not within the sense of, but directly against the idea of planned aims. The reason for this contradiction between the ideal and the realized was largely the result of sharp discrepancies in social development under various political orders, yet also through competition between local ideas of the creation of the city and the plans of official representatives towards the form of a national (or regional) capital. The project focuses on the identification and evaluation of specific places within the urban structure that represent the investigated phenomenon of an unintended city. Compiled into a monograph publication, the acquired knowledge will then serve as a reference point in the process of working with the urban structure of Bratislava. With further generalization, it will create an architectonic-urban typology of key situations influencing the form of the city in the 20th century.

The collection was created as a part of the research project APVV-16-0584.

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ATRIUM The Architecture of Totalitarian Regimes in Urban Managements is an ambitious project which aims to put a key element of twentieth-century European history, heritage and memory into greater focus. It is ambitious in its scope but also in the extent and nature of the partnership.

The project is made up of 18 partners from 11 different countries from the area of South East Europe. The partners come from Italy, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Hungary, Slovakia, Romania, Greece, Croatia, Serbia, Albania and Bosnia-Herzegovina, and all share a desire to focus on the architectural heritage of the different totalitarian regimes which they have experienced in the twentieth century from a cultural and historical point of view. Through ATRIUM, researches, economic studies, documentations & tools will be prepared to submit a specific dossier to the Council of Europe to be acknowledged by it as European Cultural Route. This will also be a leverage for the economic valorisation of the Partners' territories.

The line outlined in the project is followed by the current research of the Department of Architecture focused on architecture and urban planning during the war-torn Slovak Republic (1939 - 1945) and in post-war socialist Czechoslovakia.

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Modern architecture of the second half of the 20th century forms a substantial part of the current building stock in Slovakia. These works represent an important phase in the history of Slovak architecture, which, after a short period of adopting Soviet models in the form of historicizing socialist realism, sought its new form, reflecting international developments and at the same time creating its own, locally specific variant of modernism. The architecture of post-war modernism is thus part of the cultural and social emancipation of Slovakia. Post-war architecture is also the work of the first generation of architects, structural engineers, designers and other professions - graduates of Slovak technical education - which represents another important moment in the contribution of architecture to the formation of the cultural identity of the country. Nevertheless, these works are still not sufficiently explored and socially valued, nor are they protected as monuments. The aim of the projects is a holistic research of the architecture of public buildings of the second half of the 20th century: to identify the scope and structure of this stock, reveal the facets of the professional debate of that time and social context they addressed, but also to deepen the knowledge of individual works and urban planning units. In this way, it will also be possible to define those values which should be the subject of future monument protection.

Projects:

APVV-23-0101 Slovak Variant of Modernism? Architecture of the Second Half of the 20th Century as a Manifestation of the Cultural and Social Identity of Slovakia
Project duration: 01. 07. 2024 / 30. 06. 2028

09I03-03-V04-00136 Architecture of post-war modernism in Slovakia: identification, evaluation and protection
Project duration: 01. 08. 2024 / 31. 07. 2026

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The concepts of social politics in the field of architecture and construction developed in 1930s were fully and massively applied after the World War II. This trend had universal character and was present after the first decade of post-war renewal, both in Western and Eastern Europe. Housing, schools, public services as culture and health care services that have been built at that time, represent till today core of the everyday architecture. In the context of the authoritarian socialist state was mass housing and connected public services one of the key tools of strengthening the trust of citizens in state.  Building of large modern housing estates become one of the main instruments of the implementation of the idea of welfare state.

Project: VEGA č. 2/0114/21

Project duration: 01. 01. 2021 / 31. 12. 2023

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DOCOMOMO (Documentation and Conservation of Buildings, Sites and Neighborhoods of the Modern Movement)
is an international organization aimed at research, documentation, promotion and preservation of Modern Movement architecture. Founded in 1990 in the Netherlands, Slovakia was one of the co-funding members. Today it operates from the headquarter in Barcelona and associates more than 40 national working groups.

The Slovak working group is one of the associations under Slovak Association of Architects. The working group members (architects, historians, theoreticians and critics of architecture) investigate and promote Modern Movement architecture and their activities include the elaboration of the national register of MoMo monuments. The international register currently implies 101 works of architecture from the whole Slovakia and it is permanently being developed. Its growth mirrors the particular attention and increase of investigation activities of this organization as it follows the program topics of international DOCOMOMO conferences.

The list of works of architecture in focus documented by the Slovak DOCOMOMO working group grows in phases. The primary register of interwar monuments of Modern Movement, the so-called Top register, was formed as yearly as 1994 and it included 29 key interwar architecture masterpieces of Modern Movement in Slovakia. Subsequently, it followed the general focus of the DOCOMOMO International that encompassed the modern heritage of the entire 20th century.

The further entries to the register were realized on the basis of thematic homeworks specified by the international commission for registers. Under these guidelines the modern architecture for sport and leisure (2003), works of late modernism (2004), family houses and villas (2005), modern works of unique regional or national importance (2006), buildings for education (2007) works of architecture representing certain relation to machine and industry (2008), works of architecture reflecting connection of modernism and power (2009) or modern architecture of medical buildings (2010). In 2015, another 30 buildings were added to the international register. The International Registry is accessible on the MOMOVE virtual platform. In parallel with the creation of the international register, the national docomomo register is being built. All works that are part of it are presented on the page of the register of modern architecture.