The fully automated mill with a silo in Trnava is considered to be the most remarkable industrial building of Emil Belluš, which he was tasked to construct by Nákupné ústredie potravinárskych družstiev (Trade Central of Food Cooperatives) – NUPOD. The mill consists of aptly divided and oppositely shaped basic volumes – eight cylindrical silos, its own mill with rows of screened windows and an extension bridging the gap between them, connected to the water reservoir and the highest point of the building – the hopper. The combination of the materials is significantly complemented by the two oblique surfaces – one by the hopper, which has its own filling funnel, and the other covers the staircase. Both surfaces are a projection of their internal function. The free-standing flour warehouse has a free ground plan and strip windows running continuously around the entire perimeter. Thanks to the mill’s perfect composition, it was often published in various selections of modern architecture buildings. “The aesthetic function did not come from the outside, it exists in the very essence of the mill,” Ladislav Foltyn wrote about Belluš’s building.
The mill was designed to process 7–10 wagons of grain a day. First, the grain was cleaned and then carried up by a pocket elevator to the highest point of the mill, where it was separated into individual silos. The transport of intermediate products was solved with slopes, and the finished product was transported by spiral chutes, the so-called ‘šneky’ (snails). The two-part water reservoir with the volume of 35 m3, where the first part supplies the mill with water, and the second part is intended for fire protection, is connected directly to the fire extinguishing equipment. The reservoir itself is supplied by an underground tank with the volume of 300 m3. The finished product was ready to be handed to the customer whenever necessary, even during grinding. In addition, the mill worked dust-free, as it was equipped with many vacuuming devices.
The mill’s construction is made of reinforced concrete with brick filling. The ceilings are made of wood, apart from those which are exposed to extraordinary loads, which are made of reinforced concrete. Even though the mill’s equipment was being constantly modernised, it didn’t affect the architecture. Moreover, the mill is still in operation today, and its capacity is several times higher than in 1938, when it was completed.
Bibliography:
BELLUŠ, Emil: Príspevok k budovaniu slovenského mlynárskeho priemyslu. Technický obzor slovenský 2, 1938, 3, s. 79 – 85.
TEIGE, Karel: L´architecture moderne en Tchécoslovaquie. Prague, Ministére de l´information 1947 (nestr.).
SFAELLOS, Charalambos Ath.: Le Funktionalisme dans l´architecture contemporaine. Paris, Editions Vincent Fréal er comp 1952.
FOLTYN, Ladislav: Slovenská architektúra a česká avantgarda 1918 – 1939. Bratislava, SAS 1993, s. 178.
HUSÁK, Vladimír: Architektúra ako život. Dynamika metamorfózy tvaru na trnavskom mlyne. Projekt 41, 1999, 4, s. 46 – 51.
DULLA, Matúš – MORAVČÍKOVÁ, Henrieta: Architektúra Slovenska v 20. storočí. Bratislava, Slovart 2002. s. 391.
DULLA, Matúš: Architekt Emil Belluš. Bratislava, Slovart 2010. s. 104 – 110.
