The construction of the Hviezda Cinema in Trnava's historic centre was part of the city's modernisation plan, which involved transforming Paulínska Street into a modern urban boulevard with civic amenities, including separate buildings for administration, commerce, services and culture. The first building constructed in line with this plan was the Karpaty Hotel (designed by Dušan Dóka in 1968), followed by the Hviezda Cinema, which opened in November 1971.
The single-storey pavilion building is a prime example of the International Style. It opens right onto the street with a covered porch with a colonnade lined with glass mosaic and a wall relief of the same material. The exterior seamlessly transitions into a spacious foyer with a buffet. At the heart of the layout is a spacious hall with seating for 400 people. The building also includes a caretaker's apartment with an entrance at the rear. The main cinema hall's simple interior was defined by a suspended ceiling structured in the form of a rectangular grid of beams with integrated flat lighting, and shallow vertical reliefs on the walls.
Contemporary press reports referred to the Hviezda cinema as 'perhaps the most modern and tasteful panoramic cinema in the SSR'. In 2011, the cinema was fitted with digital projection technology.
Bibliography:
KOBETIČ, Adrián; KORCSMÁROS, Adam; KRAJČOVIČ, Patrik; MIKLÁNKOVÁ, Zuzana. Panoramatické kino Hviezda. Trnava: Publikum.sk, 2019.
LÍM, Pavol. Festival technických filmov Trnava ’75. Technické noviny. Bratislava: Práca, 1975, roč. 23, č. 17, s. 15.
