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1952
Vladimír Dedeček designed the freestanding Exhibition
Pavilion of the Slovak National Gallery for the present-day
Kamenné square (formerly Steinplatz, Kyjevské square)
in Bratislava, as his thesis project under Professor Emil
Belluš. At that time Professor Belluš also approved the area
of the former park for the extension of the SNG where the
Prior Shopping Mall 1 (Tesco since 1989) and Kyjev Hotel 2
by Ivan Matušík, a younger graduate of Belluš’s, are still
standing today.
In his thesis Dedeček designed a gallery pavilion in
the city park as a two-floor hall space (a gallery for sculpture
on the first floor and one for paintings on the second floor).
The project has not been preserved but according to the
author it featured a functionalist plan, variable exhibition spaces
and a classical column portico along the pavilion’s perimeter
designed in the spirit of the first, Stalinist phase of the Socialist
Realism, that was the centre of attention for Professor Belluš
and his students on the Faculty of Architecture, Slovak
University of Technology (SUT) in Bratislava which had been
undergoing political purges in the 1950s. 3
1957
Professor Emil Belluš published an article on the
problems with the extension of the Slovak National Gallery
in the magazine Výtvarný život. 4
1 Dating: Competition project for Kamenné square, 1960. The
Shopping mall Prior project in Bratislava 1961–1963, construction:
1964–1968. In: ZERVAN, Marián. Ivan Matušík. Architektonické dielo
(exhibition catalogue). Bratislava: SAS, 1995, pp. 14, 32.
2 Dating: The Kyjev Hotel project in Bratislava: 1960–1968,
construction: 1968–1973. In: Ibidem, pp. 15, 32.
3 BELLUŠ, Emil. Teória architektonickej tvorby II. Stavby sociálne,
kultúrne, zdravotnícke, telovýchovné a športové (text book).
Bratislava: Štátne nakladatel’stvo v Bratislave, 1951.
4 BELLUŠ, Emil. Dobudovat’ Slovenskú národnú galériu. Výtvarný
život, 2, 1957, No. 3, pp. 91–94.
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