The family house of the sculptor Ján Mathé and his wife, doctor Eva, is a unique example of the builder's intensive involvement in the process of creating an architectural work. The sculptor's artistic talent and his wife's inclination towards architecture were reflected in a consistent statement on the theme of living and working space of an artist. The spatial framework of the Mathé family house is a simple cuboid given by a rectangular system of load-bearing walls. Within this essentially trivial structural scheme, a generous spatial concept of two separate worlds emerged, an open world of everyday life, directed towards the southern garden, and an enclosed world of art, facing north. The two worlds are united by the same spirit of sobriety, the same materiality and color (light oak and beech, ivory ceramics and textiles and white plaster). The formal sobriety, even austerity, of the family house of Eva and Ján Mathé contrasts with the surrounding picturesque buildings. Its uniqueness is also underlined by horizontal windows, large glazing on the ground floor or an unusually simple garden and fencing made of raw concrete. The Mathé family house was built at a time that we could call “the renaissance of the family house of an artist” in the Slovak environment. At the beginning of the eighties of the 20th century, several remarkable family houses of artists or architects were built, in which our late modernist thinking about housing culminated. It is precisely these sovereign author's statements that the House in Košice is a worthy partner for.
Today, the Mathé family house is the largest informal museum of sculptor Ján Mathé. It houses his complete heritage with hundreds of sketches and sculptures, including several monumental works.
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