Category: Scientific Study

Industrial buildings in Zagreb after WWII were constructed in the Modernist manner as product of the industrialization of the Federative People’s Republic of Yugoslavia. Their designers were renowned architects of the Croatian Modern Movement from the pre-WWII period, continuing to practice modern architecture in the challenging collectivist times thereafter. Production halls, administrative buildings, chimneys, social […]

What Will You Be Like, Prague of the Year 2000? The Prague – Central Bohemian Agglomeration Plan in the Contextof Political Changes at the Turn of the 1960s and the 1970s

A new spatial plan for Prague was adopted in 1964. During the approval process, the government took into account the recommendations of experts in urbanism, and, in the interest of the areas’ economic revival, took the first administrative steps towards a planned interconnection of the city’s economy with that of the neighbouring Central Bohemian Region. […]

The Discourse on the Integration of Art and Architecture in the Mid-20th Century and its Contemporary Reflections

This paper draws attention to continuities and transformations within the discourse on the integration of art and architecture. The first part examines the modern synthesis of the arts through the works of Sigfried Giedion, Nikolaus Pevsner, Le Corbusier, Paul Damaz, André Bloc, Fernand Léger, and Asger Jorn. The second part investigates the links between this […]

The Multifunctional Cinema and Public Library Complex in Uzhhorod

Designed by the Košice architect Ľudovít Oelschläger, the building of the Uzhhorod city cinema and public library (1932) has become a marker of modernity for the city — in the design approach, the multifunctional character of the building, the respectful attitude to the historic space of the city center in the construction process and the […]

The Method of Contrast and Its Decline after 1968

In the 1960s, Czech architects and preservationists promoted the view that new buildings in historic settings should be “contemporary” and should be designed in a contrasting manner. This belief implied that their authors had to find new methods of engagement with their context, avoid the approaches of neutral “preservationist architecture” and employ the formal methods […]

Modern Landscape Concepts in the Early Protection Perspectives: The Professional Positions of the Architect Tibor Farkas and the Landscape Architect Mihály Mőcsényi

The question of the landscape aspect has become more important in heritage protection generally, while yet this possibility has not yet been developed expanded to include in modern heritage protectionas well. The aim of the study is to examine the history of ideas in the landscape interpretation of modern architecture. The analysis compares the perspectives […]

The Trade Union House / Istropolis: The Birth and Liquidation of an Innovative Generator of Social Life, Culture, and Education

Bratislava’s former Trade Union House [Dom odborov], renamed after 1989 Istropolis, is the largest cultural and social complex in Slovakia. During the past two years, it has been at the centre of unexpected public attention. The reason for this interest lay in the circumstances surrounding its change in ownership, reduction of use, followed by the […]

Research, Protection, and Re-Use Possibilities for Post-War Industrial Heritage in the Czech Republic – Current Research and Efforts towards Protection

Industrial architecture built by the second half of the 20th century has already acquired its place in the professional debate on research and protection of industrial heritage. However, industrial buildings from 1950s – 1980s, often architecturally, typologically and technologically very interesting, representing the development of technology industrial efforts of that era, are still only on […]

Conservation Issues of Post-War Modernist Architecture in Poland

The following article addresses a broad spectrum of subjects relating to the protection and conservation of postwar modernist heritage in Poland. It is divided into three sections, each comprising several related aspects of the issue. The first section briefly explores the legal and organisational structure in place for monuments protection. The second section focuses on […]

An Inquiry into Intentional Values: The Arenawijk in Antwerp – Renaat Braem’s Modernist Social Housing Ensemble as a Case Study

Renaat Braem’s Arenawijk in Antwerp is a key example of Belgian post-war modernism, representing the development of social housing as a state-building enterprise. Considering the building’s continuous use and current redevelopment, this paper explores the expansion of Belgium’s current legal heritage protection, which is based on heritage values. Additional ‘intentional values’ would focus on the […]

The Mythology of the Concept of Design Synopsis

The text is a reaction to the excessively broad conception of the topic encapsulated in the slogan “everything is design and design is everything” in the degree program 2.2.6 Design at the Faculty of Architecture of the Slovak University of Technology. At the present moment, the idea of “dizajn” has come rushing down through our […]

What is Specific in the Research of Architecture?

Very few of the results of academic architectural research are actually used in practice. Architecture research is therefore a regular topic discussed at architecture schools in generational waves. In connection with the contemporary change from the consumer society to a knowledge-based and sustainable society the very basic questions about the aim of of research in […]

The Path of Experiment. Experimental Apartment Construction During the 1960s and SIAL

Massive apartment construction in the form of prefabricated tower blocks was never a major part of the interests of architects in the studio SIAL (Sdružení inženýrů a architektů Liberce – Alliance of Engineers and Architects in Liberec). Indeed, quite the opposite: under the leadership of Karel Hubáček, these architects founded their independent atelier in the […]

Protection of Post-War Architectural Heritage in the Czech Republic

The first modernist buildings in the Czech Republic received landmark status as early as the 1960s. Theoretical arguments in favour of protection of such relatively recent structures were first formulated in the volume Ochrana památek moderní architektury [Protection of Landmarks of Modern Architecture] published in 1970 by the Brno art historians Václav Richter and Zdeněk […]

Interwar Rental Garages in the Czech Lands

The automobile changed the world. A banal statement, but one essentially indisputable. It changed how we understand time, space, personal liberty; accelerated globalisation and the industrial revolution – and it deeply influenced the conception of modern architecture. Not only was it a question of revising the building process the structure of urban settlement, or even […]

Conservation of the North Facade of the Upper Castle in Český Krumlov

In parallel with the completion of work on the main southern facade of the Krumlov castle, it became necessary in 2004 to focus attention on the preparation of the highly demanding general conservation of the reverse side of the Upper Castle (Horní hrad), its northern facades. Contrasting to the southern, more firmly massed southern side […]

Contributions to the Architectural Heritage of Slovak Lutherans in Historic Hungary – the Tradition of Baroque Centrality

Slovaks and Hungarians have lived together for over a thousand years in Central Europe. Because of the shared course of their history, the two nations were assimilated to each other in several interrelations, as be recognized in aspects of the language, the lifestyle and even of the architectural heritage. At the same time this study […]

Architectural Development of the Climatic Spa in Ľubochňa

Close study of historic plans have helped us to identify the authors of the architecture in Ľubochňa, a key factor in creating the specific atmosphere of this mountain spa up today. Under Hapsburg rule, wealthy Hungarian, Austrian and Jewish officer or commercial families entrusted architects of high professional standing and frequently from Budapest with designing […]

Architecture: The Decades of the 1990s and the 2000s

The goal of the present study is the depiction, description and critical evaluation of developmental tendencies in the evolution of architecture in the previous two decades. Taking as its starting point the characterisation of the era as one of exceptionally late modernity, it stresses primarily the increased speed in technical development and the reflection of […]

Liberec Lower Town Centre by SIAL

Three Approaches to Designing Town Centres Conceptualisation and planning of town centres was and still is a very challenging discipline. The theme achieved particular urgency after the Second World War caused severe damage or even total destruction of many towns and cities. During this era two approaches to town cores appeared which more or less […]

Budapest Urban Blocks and their Sustainability

INTRODUCTION One of the most significant current discussions in urban design is the redesigning and restructuring of urban places to achieve sustainability. There is a large volume of published studies describing specific criteria – that a sustainable city should be compact, dense, diverse and highly integrated (The Sustainable, 2004). In addition, design concepts of sustainable […]

Rivacy and Depth Configurations. Proximity

Permeability and Territorial Boundaries in Urban Projects The need for privacy drives territorial mechanisms in space: multiple agents operate at different scales to provide a variety of models of depth in contemporary landscapes: distinctions between public and private spaces are far more complex than individual physical barriers in urban space. This paper pronounces a theoretical […]

Public Space as an Architectural and Social Problem

Design Argument

The present text is a continual reaction to the increasingly free understanding of the idea of “design” and its justification. Design and its reflections are faced with a wide range of methodological problems, ensuing from the essential character of the subject of discussion, which is not helped in the least by linguistic codification. The English […]

The Celebration and Protection of Scotland’s Twentieth Century Heritage

In 1707, the year in which the Act of Union between the Scottish and English crowns formally constituted the kingdom of Great Britain, the population of Scotland stood at around one million, a sixth of the whole. By then, driven initially by the post-Reformation Calvinist church, Scotland’s renowned education system was already established. Allied to […]

Notes on Certain Personalities of Bratislava Architecture Around 1900, Franz Wimmer, Jenő Schiller, Gyula Schmidt, Jenő Soós

Bratislava, like other regional centres of the former Hungarian Kingdom, experienced extensive construction development at the end of the 19th century. As a result of its historical traditions, the town had a special status within the country. While the question remains open for future cultural and historical research as to whether efforts to build the […]

Brno’s Villa Tugendhat: Eight Decades

In March of 2012, after two years of restoration, the renowned Villa Tugendhat was opened once again to visitors. After over eight decades, it is now possible to see the house in the condition that it enjoyed shortly after its construction in 1930. Thanks to recent research findings regarding the wider context of its urban […]

Modern Tradition and Liturgy