The building is a free-standing object with a floor-plan outline of U-shape, formed by two parallel wings (the west wing originally intended for the offices of the insurance agency and the east wing for the doctors’ surgeries) with a connecting entrance tract. The west wing has three storey’s, accentuated by the protruding glass staircase tower, itself one floor higher and forming the central visual element of the building’s overall composition. The east wing has two floors, and stands slightly set back from the line of the street. Forming the greater part of the street front is the one-storey entrance tract, with its airy main entrance positioned at the central axis of the building. One interesting feature of the former health insurance office is the glass communications corridor between the two wings, running along the roof of the entrance pavilion. The facade surface is formed through a combination of light-colored stucco and ceramic tiles, these being fired and unglazed ceramic imitating exposed brick. The ceramic tiling surrounds the ground level of the facade for the building’s entire length.
The building of the former Regional Health Insurance offices numbers among the very first Functionalist structures completed in Trnava. A characteristic instance of the Functionalism popular in interwar Czechoslovakia, it reveals likewise how rapidly this style spread from major cities to regional centers. It was the work of the Czech architect and furniture designer Evžen Linhart, a leading member of the avant-garde group Devětsil, and a recent graduate of the School of Applied Arts in Prague, the Slovak architect František Faulhammer. In good measure, it was the insurance offices in Trnava that launched Faulhammer on his career as one of the leading figures in inter-war and post-war architecture in Slovakia.
Bibliography:
ŠLACHTA, Štefan: Moderná architektúra na Slovensku. Bratislava, SAS 1991, nestránkované, tu s. 26.
DULLA, Matúš – MORAVČÍKOVÁ, Henrieta: Architektúra Slovenska v 20. storočí. Bratislava, Slovart 2002. 512 s., tu s. 364.
