Along the radial route from the centre of Bratislava towards the incorporated suburb of Rača (named at the time after the ‘Victorious February’ of the 1948 Communist coup), one of the first large housing estates began to be built at the end of the 1950s. This complex of apartment blocks, in the initial stages placed in rows along the main street, was accompanied by small pavilions for shops and services. Behind the row of these blocks, which also create a barrier against road noise, are quiet courtyards. Transverse pedestrian routes are led through wide pedestrian underpasses. A wide range of typologies was used for the apartment blocks – horizontal rows, slabs and single multi-story point-houses. The residential structures have cast-concrete framing structures (with walls of 15 cm thickness) and prefabricated ceiling slabs of the then widespread type T16; the technology of poured concrete behind broad wooden moulds (though here created using traditional carpentry, not mass-produced) was used later for construction of housing estates in many other towns, as well as the use of the prefabricated panel system BA. In its harmonious planning of height levels, restrained human scale, careful architectural design and elegant appearance, along with the structural innovations (transverse load-bearing systems, poured concrete, framed panel construction, use of a utilities core) made this estate one of the best of its era. Later repetitions never matched its quality, and the later additions confirm (as much as damaging) its high architectural standard.
Bibliography:
SVETKO, Štefan: Progresívny systém tradičnej výstavby v sídlisku „Februárka“ v Bratislave. Projekt, 1957, 5, s. 3 – 5.
Architektura ČSR 17, 1958, s. 333.
KUSÝ, Martin: Architektúra na Slovensku 1945 – 1975. Bratislava, Pallas 1976. 288 s.
DULLA, Matúš – MORAVČÍKOVÁ, Henrieta: Architektúra Slovenska v 20. storočí. Bratislava, Slovart 2002. 512 s.
