The Community House in Dunajská Streda, now the Benedek Csaplár Municipal Cultural Centre, is a strongly impressive building in the centre of the town. Its expression is determined by the structuralistic division of the floor plan into several sections, which corresponds to the division of the mass. The voluminous solitaire is complemented by a foreground in the form of a park with an axially placed fountain. For the design of the Community House the architects received the Award of the Slovak Association of Architects. A characteristic element of the Social House in Dunajská Streda is a total of 11 spatially extended loggias on the third floor. The façade composition is dominated by the verticals of the side walls, which are complemented by the horizontal alternation of solid and glazed surfaces. The walls were originally clad in white fluted concrete panels. The relief flowed seamlessly into a monumental figural work by the artist Jozef Jankovič on the north-eastern façade.
Functionally, the building consisted mainly of a stage hall for 480 spectators and a cinema hall for 320 spectators in the core of the layout. Around the perimeter were located additional spaces with natural daylight such as a restaurant, clubhouse, library, administrative areas, exhibition spaces and technical facilities. Structurally, the building is built as a reinforced concrete monolith. The prefabricated wall panelling has been transformed into the interior as well. In the entrance foyer with a height of two storeys there are still original works of art, such as a wooden sculpture by sculptor Štefan Kubík or a stone mosaic by Ladislav Berger.
The building belongs to the late modern movement with elements of brutalism. The successful project was also used repeatedly in the town of Vranov nad Topľou, where a local cultural and social centre was built according to it as part of Action Z between 1977 and 1987. This building today documents the original intention of the architects, which was seriously disturbed in Dunajská Streda by the thermal-insulation treatment of the cladding. Both the fluted concrete cladding and the exceptional relief by Jozef Jankovič were lost
Bibliography:
DULLA, Matúš – MORAVČÍKOVÁ, Henrieta: Architektúra Slovenska v 20. storočí. Bratislava: Slovart, 2002, s. 442
ŠLACHTA, Štefan: Spoločenský dom v Dunajskej Strede., ČS Architekt č. 17, r.1979, s. 3
ŠLACHTA, Štefan: Spoločenský dom v Dunajskej Strede, hodno vidieť., Projekt č. 7, r.1978, s. 43 — 45
ZALČÍK, Tibor — DULLA, Matúš: Slovenská architektúra 1976 — 1980, vydavateľstvo VEDA, Bratislava 1982, s. 63 — 64
MORAVČÍKOVÁ, Henrieta - SZALAY, Peter. Domy kultúry na Slovensku: Vzostup a pád jedného typologického druhu. In Osvěta, kultura, zábava: kultúrní domy v Československu,Michaela Janečková, Irena Lehkoživoá (eds.) 2024, VI PER: Praha, 601 s.
