This apartment building with 450 residential units, known colloquially as the Pentagon, is part of the Medzi jarkami housing estate built on the southeastern outskirts of Bratislava. It is the only atypical apartment building in the complex. The structure consists of five sections arranged in a semi-open ring. Its load-bearing structure consists of a prefabricated reinforced concrete skeleton, which allowed for a dynamic division of the mass. The building’s architectural expression is based on the alternation of projecting and recessed floors, accentuated by a system of loggias, terraces, and vertical circulation cores.
The building was originally designed as a boarding house for employees of the Slovnaft and Hydrostav companies, or as an apartment building with two-room apartments for young couples. In its function, however, it concentrated the programme of a communal house. The two lower floors housed common areas and amenities, connected by exterior staircases and covered galleries. These spaces included a central entrance with a reception area, administrative offices, a barber shop and hair salon, laundry rooms, drying rooms, a newsstand, maintenance workshops, a stroller storage room, and a separate retail store.
The varied layout of the residential floors creates the illusion of diverse floor plans. In reality, the small-sized apartments are designed in two basic types—with a loggia and without a loggia. The impression of diversity is further enhanced by the system of windows reaching down to the floor, which replace balcony doors in the loggia section. A characteristic feature of the building are the four separately articulated circulation towers constructed using sliding formwork technology. Their massive vertical form, combined with the expressive modeling of the mass, gives the building a character reminiscent of Brutalist architecture. The recessed terraces on the top floors are also a significant compositional element.
The apartment building represents a remarkable example of experimentation with the form and typology of collective housing within the context of Czechoslovak housing estate construction of the 1970s and ranks among the most distinctive residential buildings of its era in Slovakia.
author of the description: Monika Bočková
Bibliography:
EHRENBERGER, Imrich: Monumentálna kompozícia bytovej zóny. Projekt 1976, roč 18, č.8 – 9, s. 10-12.
SKALA, Jozef: 450 - BYTOVÝ DOM na sídlisku Medzi jarkami. Projekt 1976, roč 18, č.8 – 9, s. 13-14.
DULLA, Matúš – MORAVČÍKOVÁ, Henrieta: Architektúra Slovenska v 20. storočí. Bratislava, Slovart 2002, 512 s.
MORAVČÍKOVÁ, Henrieta a kol.: Bratislava Atlas sídlisk. Bratislava, Slovart 2011, s. 335.
ZALČÍK, Tibor - DULLA, Matúš: Slovenská architektúra 1976 - 1980. Bratislava: Veda Vydavateľstvo Slovenskej akadémie vied, 1982, s. 192.
VARGA, Martin: Pentagon. KONCEPT – iné formy bývania 2023, roč. 1, č. 1, str. 71.
