Category: Scientific Study

Whilst Scotland’s postwar urban planning and mass housing are well documented, the historiography of mid-20th century architecture consists otherwise of relatively few monographs on renowned architects. The history of architect-designed houses is insufficiently researched, despite the existence several outstanding buildings scattered across the country. This paper discusses three such Modernist houses, erected between 1959 – […]

The Problem of the House in 1960s Belgrade: Mediating the Individual and the Collective

Focusing on the architecture and ambience of the low-rise high-density single-family housing estate Petlovo Brdo in Belgrade, Serbia (1967 – 1969), the article relates the everyday social production of space in socialism as a modernist-vernacular fusion of the notions of the folkloric and the peripheral. The socio-spatial balance between the individual and the communal, as […]

Red or Blue? The Start of Modern Planning in Bratislava

This study presents the history of modern urban planning in Bratislava (then Pozsony/Pressburg) at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. It identifies the first three plans for regulation and enlargement of the city: the plan by the City Technical Division from 1898 through 1906, the plan of the retired construction commissioner of Hungarian […]

Changes of Town Centres in the Era of State Socialism – Processes and Paradigms in Urban Design

Approaches towards town centres in various eras are highly revealing of the contemporary way of thinking and the pervasive ideas about the past and the future. During the state socialist era, the standpoint was highly unstable, constantly changing according to major shifts in economic and social politics throughout the 45-year life of the regime. These […]

Where is French Urban Design Headed? The Involvement of Private Investors in the Plannning and Implementation of Large-scale Urban Development Projects

The article focuses on the transformation of organization of French large scale projects under the progresive liberalization of urban development policies. The transformation of approaches to real estate investment and the reposition of hierarchy of its main actors evolves towards new methods of large scale project management. This influences the urban form, whose new model […]

Imre Steindl’s Neo-Gothic Approach in the Hungarian Design Competitions of the 1870st

Introduction The Plan Collection and Archives of the Department of History of Architecture and Monuments at the Budapest Technical University possesses many valuable drawings and photographs, including several documents related to Imre Steindl. The most signi€cant pieces of Steindl’s are the fourteen sheets of the Reichstag proposal plan of 1872, and a folder of original […]

Depiction of the “Industrial World” in the Architecture of Interwar Prague

The prominent German conservationist Axel Föhl, whose work focuses on industrial heritage, organized a section at the XIV Congress TICCIH in Freiberg in 2009 which, for the first time in the history of these congresses, dealt with the issue of how the arts (painting, sculpture, graphics, photography, film, literature) responded to the phenomenon of the […]

Late Modernism in the Slovak Spa Localities

Though small in size, Slovakia is rich in its springs of natural healing water. These springs are an important precondition for the development of the spa as a social institution, yet natural resources alone cannot provide all the services of a spa. For the providing of therapy, what is necessary is a complex of balneology […]

Deformations of the Vacationscape. The Mechanism of Changing Effects on the Balaton landscape after 1968

BBalaton’s waves brought consolidation in even wider circles” – this quote from the famous lyrics of a song entitled “The Sixties” confirms that the development of the largest lake in CentralEurope had a pivotal role in the social policies intended to reestablish the socialist system in Hungary after the 1956 revolution. In parallel with the […]

The vision of the socialist city on the example of Nová Ostrava

Nová Ostrava, later called Ostrava-Poruba, is the most notable example of a new industrial city founded and constructed in the period of early socialism in Czechoslovakia after World War II. The particular mode of architectural forms, which is strongly evident in the plans of the new city and significantly affected its initial part constructed between […]

Stratigraphy of the Smart City Concept

The paradigm of the city is now undergoing substantial change against a background of economic, technological and social transformations caused by globalization. The traditional postindustrial city is to be replaced by the city characterized by such attributes as green, sustainable, open, rational, ecological, ideal, creative, global, and generic… – and the notion of Smart City […]

The Conference ‘On the Scientific Problems of Architecture’ in 1958 and Its Possible Recapitulating, Generating and Modelling Lines

The study addresses the importance of the third scholarly conference organised in the 1950s by ÚSTARCH SAV under the title On the Scientific Problems of Architecture. The initiator of the conference was academician Emil Belluš, who invited important Czech and Slovak architects as well as art historians. The conference was divided into two thematic blocks […]

Architectural Meanings and Their Mode of Reference – Analysis Through Publications

The aim of this paper was to undertake an analysis of the modes of reference of architectural meanings. For the purpose of the analysis, categories of meanings are defined relying on the work of Nelson Goodman and Erwin Panofsky. The proposed method was tested on the example of two buildings: the Yugoslav pavilion at EXPO […]

Osmosis or Propaganda? Western Urbanism in Czechoslovak Architectural Press (1945 – 1960)

The article investigates the representation of Western (West-European and Amer¬ican) urban planning in the professional architectural press in Czechoslovakia during the turbulent period of the early years of the communist regime in 1945 – 1960. Focusing on media discourse, the study discusses the transfer of architectural and urban design concepts within postwar Europe and ques¬tions […]

Theory and Reality of Czech and Slovak Urban and Spatial Planning since 1945

Architektúra & urbanizmus, as a journal published quarterly by a scholarly institution and declaratively focused on the theory of architecture, urban design and human environments, has represented from its very outset a well-anchored space for the discussion of contemporary architecture. In contrast to the monthly publications like the Slovak journal Projekt or its Czech counterpart […]

Small Histories, Available Theories and Unsystematic Critique Contemporary Architecture in the Journal Architektúra & Urbanizmus

The study outlines the form, contents and course of discussions on contemporary architecture in the journal throughout its half-century of publication. Using a basic art-historical categorisation of texts as historiographic, theoretical and critical, the study situates the main themes of each period’s architectonic discussion. It shows that an interest in summary historical texts, which were […]

Theory and Science in Architectural and Urban Design: Fifty Years of the Journal A&U

What were the subjects of the contributions published by the journal Architektúra & urbanizmus during its half-century of existence? The present study discusses the importance of the founding personalities (Emanuel Hruška, Tibor Zalčík and Richard Kittler), notes the conception of its program, and specifically treats the most striking shift in the journal’s history, in the […]

Experimenting with Temporality and Cinematic Techniques as an Alternative Position in Architecture

INTRODUCTIONThe Greek term kinema signifies motion or movement, while contemporary contextualization of the notion cinema denotes the architectural space in which we become part of the visual system that allows us to perceive a sense of movement and which moves us. As the notion cinematic space presupposes an integrated temporality, and since temporality is traditionally […]

Interpretations of the Architectural and Cultural Values of Heritage in the Revitalization Process

The starting point for the cultural interpretation of an architectural work with respect to its potential revitalization can assume a decisive role in terms of determination of the guidelines for evaluation, protection and/or revitalization of architectural heritage. Starting in the 19th century, when the fundaments of a theory of architectural heritage were laid down, two […]

Towards a New Monumentality: The Creation of an Urban Cultural Landscape

The Lisbon headquarters and park of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (FCG), located in the Parque de Santa Gertrudes, created the public image of the Gulbenkian Foundation: an expression of culture that became synonymous in Portugal with social progress and thus a sign of a new monumentality. This aspiration was defined at the outset by its […]

Planning the Unplanned City: Modern Urban Conceptions in a Traditional Urban Structure

In our thinking about the city and about city regulations, land-use and/or spatial planning, several independent lines of argument have emerged. One of them is the artistic-compositional stance, derived from the traditional central principle of architectonic creation, focusing on the production of an aesthetically pleasing functional-structural whole. This result has the character of an inclusive […]

The Boulevard as a Type of Urban Linear Space

FORMULATION OF THE PROBLEMLinear landscaping structures occupy a special position among the range of urban green areas. Running through particular parts of the city, they form relatively narrow but elongated strips of urban greenery. This scheme of planning provides the residents of the neighborhoods with a brief daily recreation, gathering them in the local areas, […]

The Lifespan of Large Prefabricated Housing Estates in Post-communist Cities: an International Comparison

he future of large prefabricated housing estates is one of the key problems of sustainable urban development in post-Communist countries. In Western Europe, there are only 1.8 million such flats; in the countries, however, which lie between the former East Germany and the Russian Far East, there are more than 53 million panel flats, inhabited […]

Thansformation of an Inner City in the Postsocialist Period, Case Study Holešovice, Prague

The text addresses the issue of the spatial arrangement of new office and residential complexes built in the inner part of Prague during the post-socialist time. After 1990, the transformation of the Eastern bloc state of Czechoslovakia into the present Czech Republic led to the implementation of major economic and social changes, as reflected in […]

Visions, Planning and Strategic Urban Development: the Example of Prague