East Slovak Gallery

The intention is to expand the exhibition and multifunctional spaces in the courtyard with the possibility of all-year-round use, while ensuring technical solutions that do not disrupt the aesthetic, architectural and monumental value of the existing building and the impact of the solution on the technical and operational context of the building.

In the design, we are considering covering the courtyard with a plane of a new roof structure, whose diagonal, two-way coupled geometry of supporting elements will ensure unsupported spanning of the entire width of the courtyard and at the same time, its architecture tries to distinguish it from the historical part by not following any of the orthogonal planes. At the same time, its color does not dominate, on the contrary, it creates a certain regular, in some ways even historicizing pattern, referring to the historical paving. The structure built on slender, tall, white steel supporting profiles allows the courtyard to be illuminated with pleasant diffuse sunlight that is scattered on the white beams.

The beams are sensitively set under the crown of the roof gutters so as not to disturb the original urban, historical parcelling, and at the same time to avoid destruction at the roof gutter level. By roofing the yard, we created the desired multifunctional interior space. What we lost in the form of an external yard on the ground floor level, we created in a new form at the attic level. By creating a new roof plane, we created a new walkable plane, a new exterior, experience space above the roof with a dominant view of the St. Elizabeth's Cathedral. Above the glass plane of the roof envelope, another micro plane is added in the form of an overlaid porous grid in white – this ensures, in addition to walkability, a more significant diffusion of daylight into the interior of the space – that is, we shade it. From the point of view of preserving the original parcellation, it can be concluded that the new roof plane does not degrade the original parcellation, but fully respects the current architectural intervention. In the 1st floor design, we are considering moving the main reception to the courtyard area so that it is more in the center of the entire building and does not create a „narrow communication bottleneck“ from the main entrance. With this solution, the main entrance corridor could be given its original expression and the bricked-up openings could be reopened, the historical corridor could be brightened and the entire corridor could be revived – businesses such as a bookshop, café, bookshop, souvenirs, etc. could return/expand to the side wings. After the renovation, the passage from the main entrance to the courtyard is barrier-free across the entire width of the courtyard, and we are also considering removing the modern glazing and naturally connecting the entire interior space without additional glazing. The courtyard space is thus integrally connected to the entire building.
In the 2nd floor design, we are considering expanding the width of the internal galleries and circling them around the entire inner perimeter of the courtyard, so that a safe and attractive passage through the entire courtyard is possible while ensuring new entry options to the exhibition spaces not only from one place, but from the entire courtyard space. The extension of the galleries is considered with the recognition of the original stone supporting elements in the lower part of the gallery. The use of a glass railing is an attempt to minimally interfere with the historical visual of the original building.

We proposed the problem of the absence of further vertical connection of the floors by building a cube into the courtyard. This element will enable further connection of 1PP to all other exhibition floors (ensuring natural „wandering“ of visitors), will allow access to a new roof plane with the development of exterior exhibitions and events, and will create a new vertical surface with the mass of the cube for the development of an area for presentations, exhibitions, and other activities. The tube contains a staircase, elevator, and storage space for the courtyard furniture.