Hotel Slovan was intended to serve as the dominant feature of a planned square in Rimavská Sobota, on the edge of the town’s historic center, adjacent to the house of culture. However, architect Lumír Lýsek had a budget at his disposal that would not have covered the construction of a hotel taller than the surrounding standardized high-rise buildings. To ensure the hotel would become a true spatial landmark, he chose to create a distinctive silhouette. The accommodation block was designed in the form of a truncated prism with spacious loggias on the southern side. This massing principle was later repeated in the design of the Minerál spa house in Dudince.
The spatial organization of the hotel is also unusual: the ground floor serves small retail units, while the hotel’s social spaces, including a restaurant with a terrace, are located one level above. A prefabricated structural frame was used for the construction of this horizontal base, originally highlighted in a bright red color. The vertical seven-story accommodation block was realized using more affordable prefabricated elements commonly employed in residential construction.
The planned square in Rimavská Sobota was ultimately never built; a department store now stands on the intended site. Public space was compressed into a pedestrian promenade with a fountain. The interior of Hotel Slovan (now Zlatý býk) has not been preserved; however, unlike the spa house in Dudince, the building has retained its original architectural form to this day.
author of the description: Monika Bočková
Bibliography:
LÝSEK, Lumír: Musí architektúre prekážať typizácia? Projekt 1984, roč. 26, č. 2, s. 29 – 32.
TOKÁR, Jozef a Rimavská Sobota (Slovensko). Plán sociálneho rozvoja okresu Rimavská Sobota na obdobie rokov 1981-1990. V Rimavskej Sobote: Okresný národný výbor, 1982, p. 48.
https://www.rimava.sk/spravy-z-regionu/foto-hotel-zlaty-byk-a-jeho-historia-viete-kedy-bol-postaveny-a-kto-stoji-za-jeho-vizualom/
