The inverted pyramid wich houses Slovak Radio has been proposed as a National Cultural Monument. (source: Jana Liptáková)
RESEARCHERS have developed a Registry of Modern Architecture in Slovakia in which the most valuable buildings of the 20th century have been recorded. Five of these buildings have been proposed for immediate registration as national cultural monuments.
The registry has been published on www.ustarch.sav.sk by the Institute of Construction and Architecture of the Slovak Academy of Sciences (SAV). So far, it includes 205 works by 137 architects created between 1920 and 1989.
“After it is completed the registry will include more than 500 works,” Katarína Andrášiová of SAV told the Pravda daily.
More than half of the registered structures are located in Bratislava while eastern Slovakia is the least represented. Most works in the registry come from 1920 – 1939 as 125 of them were built in this period. During the post-WWII period, the 1960s are the most heavily represented with 22 works, Pravda wrote.
The most numerous category are residential buildings, with 52 entries in the registry. Several successful prefabricated housing estates from the end of the 1950s also made it to the list, such as the Februárka – the Street of February 29 in Bratislava, designed by architect Štefan Svetko.
On the other hand, various symbols of the communist regime are missing from the list. Nor did the new building of the Slovak parliament in Bratislava make it to the list.
“It is quite a controversial construction, often negatively evaluated,” Andrášiová said. Scientists of the SAV propose to designate five architectural works of the 20th century as National Cultural Monuments: the New Bridge, the Kyjev Hotel and Prior department store, the building of Slovak Radio and the campus of the Slovak University of Agriculture in Nitra.
