DIPLOMA PROJECT / MUSEUM OF DEMOCRACY
design: Petra Jablonická
consultant: Ing. arch. Martin Kusý
6. year / 2. semester
2019/2020
The newly proposed building in the northern part closes the block of buildings in which the SAS building is located, and the southern part terminates the entire street block and forms an optical and sound barrier from the junction of the two streets. The pair of museum buildings thus separates Štefánikova and Krížkova streets.
The north building is connected to the block and the upper ledge is flush with the building of the Slovak Academy of Sciences. Since the land is in a significant slope descending towards the south, the southern building is designed as a lower one, suitably incorporated into the terrain.
An important aspect of my design was working with public space even in such a difficult place. Two buildings, between which there is a partially protected area, is the solution to this situation. In order for this intermediate space to become not only a passage, but also a living space, it was necessary to separate it from the busy Štefánikova Street in a certain way. I saw a suitable solution in the incorporation of the terrain in this place, where I descend towards Štefánikova street by 60 cm and thus create an optical delimitation. The pleasant atmosphere is complemented by work with landscaping.
In the early stages of the design, I considered working with the statue in architecture, as we are located on Štefánikova Street, so it was supposed to be a statue of Štefánik.
Later I came to work with architecture as a statue, a monument in honor of this great man.
The design of the museum part is a distinctive element of “teeth”, which are perpendicular to Krížkova Street, which create a dynamic and characteristic character of the museum.
From the south side there is a change in the angle of the facade, this time perpendicular to Štefánikova street and at the same time towards the bottom and not outwards as it was at the museum.
The design of the part of the museum with a permanent exhibition had many spatial determinants, but in the final phase of the search for matter, it went through the process of creation, where I approached it really as a sculpture and therefore I searched for a suitable shape by creating models (statuettes) from clay.
The determinant in solving the facades on the administration building was the fact that the building is located between two streets and at the same time is hidden from the south by the museum, and thus we have a moment when we never see its facades in its entirety. This moment is also reflected in the creation of the eastern and western facades.
From the east side, the facade is located next to the SAS building, where there are 4 floors at the same height, while in our case there is 5 floors in the building. This fact does not allow us to connect to the window grid on the SAS facade and so I chose the principle of so-called. “Facades without scale”. In this principle, the point is to design the windows so that they do not tell about the floors and the spaces behind them. This facade also connects to the solid facade of the museum.
From the west side, the facade is already in the exact grid and thus follows the south facade and reflects the administrative character of the building.
The material solution is also reflected in the concept of the sculpture, so I design a pair of buildings mostly made of exposed concrete.
A significant role in the character of the museum is also formed by the saw roof oriented with skylights to the north, which I chose, due to the suitable diffuse lighting for the museum premises.
