EAST SIDE ARCHITECTURE - volume 1

At the turn of the year we strike a balance of a minority genre which is in the shadow of mediocrity of this world – architecture, contemporary architecture in eastern Slovakia and EU, architecture in the interface of various civilization and cultural influences. In this fermenting area which gave a birth also to some exceptional personalities of European and world culture we found the identical conditions and a creation comparable to those in other regions of Europe. Architecture here, as well as in other parts of Europe, struggles against the absence of conventional social values. With its plurality it does not create a large conglomerate, and as a Finnish theorist of architecture, Juhani Pallasmaa, states “the coherent architectural culture has disintegrated, the world of architecture is fragmented into individual mutually isolated works, into a kind of architectural archipelago. However the patron saint of this archipelago is hope”.

What message should the recent architecture materialize was exactly described by Czech theorist of architecture Dalibor Veselý: architectural work of art is a manifestation and embodiment of human experience of world”.
What is the experience like today, what topics does it open? There are a lot of them, but undoubtedly relation between private and public sphere, relation of architecture to limited resources of energy and raw materials, relation of present to past and future, relation of architecture and urban area and the moulding technique, and a detail and authenticity of an idea can be included.

What kind of world do we really build in the east? Do the chosen construction works meet aforesaid parameters? Judge on your own! The best way to arrive in decision would definitely be a personal experience with the works now, or even 20 years later.

The works we introduce are the reflection of the state of architecture in Slovakia and it does not yaw from it in any way. Nineteen constructions which are either public or private buildings were chosen – 2 libraries, 1 school of arts, 1 museum, 3 churches, 1 hospice, 1 mourning house, 1 memorial place, 2 apartment houses, 4 family houses and 3 recreational cottages.

Spatio-temporal delimitation of the chosen works is since year 2000 until present and all the works are situated in eastern Slovakia. Choice of work is a result of 6-month-long study of information available about their state and makes no ambitions to be objective. It is an attempt to tell a story whose coauthor is, except for architects and investors, photographer Jaris who depicted the part of our sometimes even a dream world in an original and valuable way.

Team EastSide

Maybe we have embarked a courageous idea. Mapping of contemporary architecture in eastern Slovakia is a spontaneous project which is only in its beginnings. And every beginning is hard. At the outset there was a question if there is anybody devoted to this subject in a professional way. The answer was “no”, it does not interest curators, neither architects nor theorists of art. This was one of the reasons why we decided to open the topic and we dealt with it peculiarly. One idea at the beginning, one photographer, one small working team and one half-year for its realization.

When we tried to address the curators here, they either did not have a time, or any idea whether something interesting takes place in the east of Slovakia. Therefore we were really surprised by a spontaneous reaction from abroad, namely from the Czech Republic, where they were enthusiastic for the idea. Czech journal Architekt offered us a professional supervision and preparations for the exhibition could start. We definitely did not mapped all what has been realized in the east for the last decade, it even was not our intention. Perhaps, we opened a way by which we would like to draw everybody´s attention to the fact that the east lives, despite of its perifery many courageous constructions which are worth attention not only by professionals but also by general public arise here.

We dare to claim that besides the quality the realizations have their peculiar authenticity correspondent to the east where there is less money and therefore enormous financial, material and aesthetic compromises often take place. However there are open-minded investors who should be thanked first and foremost for that they want high-quality architecture, and there are open-minded architects who despite of all the compromises are the advocates of good architecture. The mapping of the east architecture just begins. We are open to discussions, further ideas and mainly to those with appetite to do something for the eastern region.
The best of the contemporary “east” architecture can be seen not only virtually but also directly in the exterior of eastern metropolis!

The administrator of the project Uzemneplany.sk invites you from 15. 01. 2012 to an excursion into the centre of Košice where you can see the selection of the most successful architectural realizations in form of large-scale artistic reproductions placed on advertising boards – citylights. It is already certain that the exposition will take place in other cities as well. In 2012 Vol. 1 will be one of the main things in the program of the festival of architecture in Košice – Design and Architecture Days.

Acknowledgement:
We would like to express our gratitude to all owners and holders of the constructions for their confidence and that they provided us with opportunity to become familiar with the constructions and document them;
The architects that they designed the constructions in a way they did;
Július Macháček from journal Architekt for his curator supervision over the project;
Jaro Vaľko alias Jaris for beautiful photographs and diligent documentation;
Tomáš Eisner for the excellent whole-project graphic work;
Ján Gašpar for his programming work;
Andrea Bočková, Janka, Zuzka, David and Rišo for the continuous help with everything when necessary;
and naturally EHMK 2013 for the project support; and all other partners;
English translation: S. Stupár, V. Sokolová, Z. Raševová, M. Mirossay