Category: 2013

Importance of the Right-Angled Triplet Geometry for the Theory of Proportion in Architecture: The Golden Ratio and its Applications

Issue: 2013, Volume 47, No. 1 - 2

The settled life-style in the first centres of civilisation had to satisfy new needs for safe and functional structures regarding town plans, as well as dwelling organisation within restricted a fortified. The street network logically influenced the rectangular plans of houses and monumental buildings like temples, ziggurats and pyramids. Similarly, the water supply and sewage […]

A Subtle Rendition of Stylistic Variations. Family Mausoleums in the Work of Michal Milan Harminc

Issue: 2013, Volume 47, No. 1 - 2

The Kuffner family mausoleum in Sládkovičovo (1926) and the mausoleum in the village of Pomáz near Budapest (1912) are the only realized sepulchral structures from the exceptionally extensive work of M. M. Harminc. Despite their subtle character, they reflect the diversity of their creator’s typological range and stylistic adaptability, in an interesting manner complementing his […]

Behrens under the Surface. Restoration Survey of the Neolog Synagogue in Žilina

Issue: 2013, Volume 47, No. 1 - 2

In the entire architectural history of Slovakia, itis possible to find only a few works by architects of such international reputation as Peter Behrens. His Neolog Synagogue in Žilina is viewed by historians, preservationists and even the public at large primarily through the prism of the architect’s personal fame. Nonetheless, the present synagogue is not […]

The Jewish Autonomous Region and the Czechoslovakian Jews: Hannes Meyer Writes on Birobidzhan

Issue: 2013, Volume 47, No. 1 - 2

With the partitions of Poland by the end of the 18th century, the Russian Empire acquired a large number of Jewish subjects territorially confined to the limits of the Pale of Settlement, an area comprising mainly the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. From that time on, both the Tsarist and Soviet regimes looked for solutions to the […]

The Biological Universalism of Emanuel Hruška

Issue: 2013, Volume 47, No. 1 - 2

The present article describes the life, work and ideas of the architect, urban planner, university teacher and theorist of urban and regional planning, Emanuel Hruška. The first part deals briefly with his biography and work (pointing out some lesser-known and forgotten works of his), the next part is focused on environmentally friendly concepts and ideas […]

Architectural and Town Planning Competitions in the Sixties. Their Specific Contribution to the History of Czechoslovak Modern Architecture

Issue: 2013, Volume 47, No. 1 - 2

Czechoslovak architecture during the “Golden Sixties” of the 20th century is interpreted by contemporary historians as a very important phase in the history of our modern architecture. In the postwar development of Czechoslovak modern architecture, this decade can even be seen as a time of very radical change – from the political isolation of the […]

Progressive, Forward-Looking and Advanced. Hungarian Architecture and Modernity 1956 – 1962

Issue: 2013, Volume 47, No. 1 - 2

In the immediate post-war years, modern architecture characterized the Hungarian scene: key positions of architectural practice and state construction administration were occupied by advocates of modern architecture of whom several were also active participants of the Modern movement. This trend was soon interrupted with a short but highly forceful period (ca 1950 – 1955) of […]

Problematic Aspects in the Historiography of Romanian Architecture

Issue: 2013, Volume 47, No. 1 - 2

“All [of these countries] seem to be governed by the same principle of the identity crisis, of the conflictive absorption of contradictory cultural waves, of a provincial model, low-keyed, but haunted by failure and lack of perspective. All seem to struggle between the majoritarian indifference and the elite’s schizophrenia, all seem to have something in […]

Reconstruction and Addition of the Slovak National Gallery Complex

Issue: 2013, Volume 47, No. 3 - 4

The complex of the Slovak National Gallery (SNG) is the outcome of complicated developments in the city structure, in which the most valuable urban advantage is its position on the Danube embankment and in the city centre. From námestie Ľudovíta Štúra up to Riečná ulica, the entire block is a conglomeration of widely varying historic […]

From Military Bakery to Kulturpark: The Problematics of the Regeneration of the Former Military Warehouse Complex in Košice

Issue: 2013, Volume 47, No. 3 - 4

South of the historic medieval core of Košice, only a few hundred meters from its edge, along ulica Rastislavova across from the Slovak Television complex that also once belonged to the same military installation, there stood a complex of military warehouses, long, empty and hidden behind a brick wall. Its massive cubic volumes created a […]

The Interior of Ještěd Mountain Hotel and Television Tower

Issue: 2013, Volume 47, No. 3 - 4

This year will mark forty years since Ještěd Mountain Hotel and Television Tower first opened to great fanfare. A national cultural monument, built on the site of an old historical building that had burned down, the tower is a reflection of several currents in society at the time of its construction: the political thaw in […]

The Sleeping Beauty of Functionalism? The Morava Convalescent Home in Tatranská Lomnica and the Tuberculosis Sanatorium in Kvetnica

Issue: 2013, Volume 47, No. 3 - 4

The interwar period was an era of unprecedented building development in the area of the High Tatra mountains, at a time when the regional architecture was prepared to accept the experiments imported from the Czech architectonic scene. These avant-garde and indeed extravagant contemporary efforts have resulted in an architectonically unusual legacy of several valuable and […]

Continuation of a Planning Tradition: The Social Agenda of the ‘Functional City’

Issue: 2013, Volume 47, No. 3 - 4

The Congrès Internationaux d’Architecture Moderne (CIAM) from 1928 to 1959 was an unconventional working group and a complex laboratory of progressive ideas for the design of the city. Over three decades, CIAM united architects, town planners, artists, historians, sociologists and journalists. Its writings on the ‘Functional City’ in particular were considered the core of modern […]

Slovenian Post-War Modernist Architectural Heritage as a Tourist Product

Issue: 2013, Volume 47, No. 3 - 4

INTRODUCTION RESEARCH AIMS AND GOALS The aim of the paper is to illustrate the tourism potentials of modernist architectural heritage dating from the period of the socialist regime in Slovenia. To define the potentials of modern and postmodern architecture – not only from the aspect of its significance for architectural development, but also in terms […]

The Position of the Late Modern Movement in the German Cultural Heritage Act. A Comparison with the Questions in Slovakia

Issue: 2013, Volume 47, No. 3 - 4

At the end of the 1980s, the German art historian and expert on architectural theory Norbert Huse adopted the term “Unbequeme Denkmalpflege”, best translated as “uncomfortable cultural heritage protection”. This phenomenon was a reaction to the highly lax approach of heritage institutions towards specific architectural works of the 20th century, of which a wide range […]

Identity and Difference: Monitoring and Evaluation of the Most Significant Works of Modern Architecture in Slovakia

Issue: 2013, Volume 47, No. 3 - 4

The study presents the results of two investigations that took as their goal the explanation of the contexts and causes of the different receptions granted to modern architectural heritage according to its origins in the first or the second half of the 20th century, also as a result of the similar and different material qualities […]