Gumon, founded on 13 July 1911, was a subsidiary of the thriving Kablo factory. The factory was located near the Kablo factory, on Košická Street (at that time Ludwigova Street). Gumonka, as the factory was usually called, housed the production of plastics - gumon, gumoid and futurit. The production licence was purchased by Egon Bondy - director of Kablo and founder of Gumon - from the company Gumonwerke A. G. München. The plant's production was rapidly expanded to include new products - even hardened paper and canvas were produced here. Kabla used mainly bakelite mouldings, which were further processed into final products.
The premises of Gumonka initially consisted of one longitudinal hall of the moulding plant built along Košická Street. Gradually, mainly in the interwar period, the factory was expanded to a four-wing enclosed complex with an inner courtyard according to the requirements of the expanding production and its technology. The construction of the factory was carried out by Pittel+Brausewetter. From the companies that gradually supplied the factory with machines, we know a few – the Bratislava company Feitzelmayer, Sobotín and Stěpán ironmongers, Storek Brno, and the Bratislava company of František Černý.
The street facade was divided into three parts. In the middle, slightly shorter part, there were nine large, slightly arched plate-glass windows on two floors. The facade of the third floor was divided by nine triplets of smaller plate-glass windows. The lateral, higher parts of the building had facades divided on three floors by three triplets of narrow plate-glass windows. The side parts of the factory building had a tympanum on the attic. The facades were smooth, plastered, vertically articulated only by faint avant-corps. Thus, the element of lattice masonry, characteristic of the buildings of the Kablovka complex, did not appear here.
In the second half of the 20th century, Gumonka was extended by the premises of the nearby Herkules factory, whose original buildings were demolished and new ones, including an administrative building, were built in several stages between 1950 and 1970. New buildings were also constructed on the original Gumonka site in the 1960s and 1970s, but these no longer influenced the overall architectural expression of the factory. Like Kablovka, Gumon was also demolished in 2008, despite the fact that it was in the process of being declared a cultural monument. The land remained undeveloped. Formally, the factory was one of the most impressive industrial buildings in Bratislava, moreover, it was well perceived due to its location directly on the busy Košická Street. The otherwise modern hall building was sensitively complemented only by the fine historical morphology of the facades and crown cornices.
Bibliography:
OBUCHOVÁ, Viera: Priemyselná Bratislava. Bratislava, Marenčin PT 2009, s. 272 – 279.
