Henrieta Moravčíková: Lecture on Contemporary Slovak Architecture

Henrieta Moravčíková

Architecture of Slovakia after 1993: Fleeting impulses and enduring tradition

Antique Bookstore and Club Fiducia, April 28, 2009 at 18:00

When in 2002 a new family house in the shape of a tube was completed in a small town near Bratislava, the architectural community rejoiced with enthusiasm and awarded the house the most significant domestic architecture prize. Looking at the tube resting in the garden of a standard residential neighborhood, it might have seemed like a hot fashion novelty, a direct response to the current architectural discussion in the western world. However, it was not quite so. The tube-house was designed by 70-year-old architect Ivan Matušík, one of the most prominent representatives of local late modernism. With this work, he actually brought to realization his ideas from the 1960s. The surprising relevance of this 40-year-old concept well illustrates the specific character of the Slovak architectural scene, which defines multifacetedness, coexisting multiple, often conflicting concepts, the persistence of certain traditions, openness to external stimuli, and an overall ambiguous line of development. This will all be discussed in relation to Slovak architecture after the establishment of the Slovak Republic.

Henrieta Moravčíková - studied architecture at the Faculty of Architecture of the Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava. She serves as the head of the Architecture Department at the Institute of Construction and Architecture of the Slovak Academy of Sciences. She is dedicated to the theory, history, and criticism of architecture. She is the editor-in-chief of the monthly magazine Arch about architecture and other cultures and the editor of the journal Architecture and Urbanism. Since 2000, she has been serving as the chairwoman of the Slovak working group of DOCOMOMO. She is a co-author (with M. Dull) of the monograph Architecture of Slovakia in the 20th Century (Slovart 2002) and the compiler of the book Architecture in Slovakia: A Brief History (Slovart 2005). She collaborated on a documentary film about modern architecture in Slovakia produced by STV in 2008. She is a recipient of the Literary Fund Award and the Martin Kuseh Award for theoretical work in the field of architecture.