Henrieta Moravcíková Slovakia // Bratislava Number of proposals: 5
NOMINATIONS
Nomination 1
Nomination 2
Revitalisation of the Public Space of the Centrum Shopping Centre zerozero eristavi@zerozero.sk Reasons: The Prešov housing estate Sídlisko III ranks among the most successfully planned urban conceptions of mass housing realised in the later 20th century in Slovakia. To the north of the estate is a complex of public facilities, the Centrum shopping centre, constructed at the end of the 1970s. This grouping of seven independent, primarily single-storey volumes for individual retail functions, a service block and a public library is grouped around a central open space, essentially a square. All the buildings are linked by a covered walkway, surrounding the square on the west and south sides. Until recently, the urban character of the environment was shaped by a fountain with a small lake, and a sculpted composition of mother and child. The area, however, had long suffered insufficient maintenance and chronic breakdowns of its sole aesthetic focus, the fountain. As a result, the town of Prešov held an architectural competition for addressing this problem. Its winner was the atelier zerozero. Realisation of the public space of Centrum took place only over a decade later and is still somehow under construction. The new square is is a revolutionary revaluation of the space as it was: a new evaluation of the sense of the spatial content hidden beneath the idea of public space. The result is an exacting and radical design, which brings to the space not only freedom of movement, but more importantly freedom of program. The new square could be conveyed through three concepts: topography, geometry and materiality. The original sloping terrain was covered with a new layer of uniform concrete surface, which overcame the irregularities in level through triangulation and tessellation. The new topography of this concrete “carpet” is particularly inspiring for the younger generation, who can find it an ideal site for skateboarding. Additionally, the white concrete fills the space with light and visual modernity, something that the estate paradoxically had always lacked. Another new characteristic trait of the space became the regular grid of planted
The New Synagogue Plural info@plural.sk Reasons: In the liberal atmosphere in the first decades of the 20th century, a great many synagogues were built in present-day Slovakia. The pro-Nazi regime of the Slovak puppet state tried to eliminate these buildings from public consciousness and the urban landscape, and their efforts were often completed under Communist rule in the later part of the century. Fortunately, the synagogue in Žilina had a different fate. Thanks to its exceptional architecture, the work of leading German architect Peter Behrens, it was declared a national cultural monument. Still, even this status did not prevent a series of conversion procedures from the 1950s onward. At the end of the millennium, this impressive synagogue was again returned to the local Jewish community, who then sought a new use for it. By this time, a civic organisation was already operating in Žilina, Truc spherique, which successfully managed the socialcultural centre Stanica-Záriečie. It was here, in this setting of independent culture inside a former rail station, that the initiative emerged to transform the synagogue into an art hall. The project’s main proponents, Marek Adamov, Fedor Blaščák and Martin Jančok, from the outset faced the urgent question of how to create a space for contemporary art within this formally and functionally unique architectonic work. The philosophy of restoration, in which the initiative task was played by Truc spherique, was formulated in parallel with architectural and restoration investigations, which gradually revealed the form of Behrens’s original architecture. No less noteworthy was the ongoing discussion between the architect, the heritage authorities, the building’s owner and other participants, including experts from the international organisation DOCOMOMO, which supervised the entire restoration process. Unquestionably, the most impressive single moment in the gradual uncovering of the building was the opening of the cupola, which revealed to its full extent the imposing quality of the synagogue’s main space. Yet even this was only