Zprávy památkové péče 2013, 73(6):525-527

Czech personages in the context of the beginnings of heritage preservation in Slovakia after 1918

Katarína Haberlandová

The establishment of the Czechoslovak Republic in 1918 was not only a political and economic milestone for Slovakia, but cultural as well.
By a regulation declared by Vavro Šrobár, Minister plenipotentiary for administration of Slovakia, on 20 October 1919, the governmental committee for the protection of monuments in Slovakia was formed. Architect Dušan Jurkovič was named as the head of the committee, and the Czech art historian Jan Hofman soon became his closest collaborator.
As far as the protection of monuments went, and the committee's interdependence with the enforcement of architectural modernism, the situation was not calm. Hungarian institutions of monument protection disappeared, and the agenda associated with their existence remained in Budapest, including the inventory of monuments in Slovakia. Jurkovič established priorities in advance, beginning with a new inventory of monuments and a regulation plan for Bratislava. The inherent contradiction between Jurkovič the official and Jurkovič the architect gradually began to gain prominence in his work, which finally resulted in his departure from the committee in 1922. His decision to leave marked the beginning of conflicts with Hofman and others who pursued conservative methods of monument renovation.
Given the critical shortage of trained historians and conservationists, the first post-revolutionary years of monument protection in Bratislava and Slovakia were very intensively tied in with the work of creative architects, in particular Alois Balán, Jiří Grossmann, Josef Marek, Klement Šilinger, Vojtěch Šebor, and František Krupka. These architects emerged from Prague's academic study environment as the pupils of Jan Kotěra and Jože Plečnik. During their student years, a relatively sharp struggle had culminated in Bohemia on architectural modernism as supported by the brisk theoretical arguments of architects Jan Kotěra, Pavel Janák, Josef Gočár, Otakar Novotný, theorist Zdeněk Wirth, and others. The implementation of the ideas of modern architecture went hand in hand with addressing important decisions on monuments.
With the passing of the first decade, Vojtěch Krch stated on the occasion of the exhibition of Bratislava SIA architects that even before the war, the Slovak background had prepared the way for a considerably disciplined expression of Bratislava architects. Bratislava, a city without a specific architectural tradition, intensely absorbed new ideas through the prism of Czech architects. As stated by Henrieta Moravčíková, Bratislava began programmatically supporting modern architecture as one of the major symbols of the new democratic republic.

Keywords: Czech architects in Slovakia; interwar period; heritage preservation; history of heritage preservation; Czechoslovak Republic

Published: December 1, 2013  Show citation