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with its central square, to a field of checkerboard-like differentiated
environments with a variety of levels and means of moving
around (covered walkways, passages, loggias, stairways, ramps,
raised pedestals/plinths, rooftop terraces, walkable roofs and
so forth). Such urban links at diverse heights made it possible
to perceive the art, the site and the city from varying elevations:
it even afforded views of adjacent riverfront buildings, the river,
the streets of the historical city core, and the growing city space
on the other bank of the Danube.
The purpose of a gallery site area so designed was both
to provide for indoor exhibitions in the gallery’s own buildings,
but to connect them to outdoor exhibitions “in among” buildings,
on them and under them, in open passageways. Thus it
was not just Dedeček’s buildings themselves that enabled and
enclosed the exhibition space, but vice versa too: Dedeček’s
urban exposition environment in public space turned the gallery
into an indoor-outdoor art exhibit along the river. It could be said
that the site stimulated the relationships between the outdoor
modern sculpture exhibits and the plasticity of late modern
architecture; it could also be said that the site as it was designed
with consideration for exhibiting historical and modern
sculpture right in the city, even anticipating exhibition of new
types and genres of art: environments and installations in situ
alongside series and accumulations of artworks. The summer
amphitheatre brought in the cinematic art. So this was a comprehensive
and innovative urbanist/architectural space, intended
even for new audio-visual arts, accessible in a new urbanist/
architectural situation. However, in the 1980s, after Dr. Vaculík
was removed from the gallery’s leadership and the construction
was completed, the spaces were not utilized as variably and
innovatively as the site’s urban/architectural plan envisioned.
Using the gallery area’s system of interior and exterior walkways,
ramps and stairways, the public could walk from and to the riverfront
to Štúrovo or Hviezdoslavovo námestie. A system of buildings
thus designed, and their interstices, is an exquisitely urban
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