Spanning the Street

200203 / Staromestská, Bratislava / Competitions

The design of spanning the Staromestská street between the St Martin's Cathedral and the former seat of the Slovak radio followed by construction of buildings in the newly established area is a difficult though challenging task. Insensitive location of the ”New bridge” and a 4-lane highway in the past intersected the compact old heart of the city dividing it till present days into Podhradie (area round the Castle) and the Old Town. The aim of the competition was the town-planning and architectural design of several multifunctional buildings located on the ”bridge” between the St Martin's cathedral and Svoradova street as well as creation of a fluent link with the Old Town. The existing skyline of the area allowed us to connect the Židovská street with the part of town wall open to pedestrian traffic and to sink the 4-lane highway creating thus under the new plateau enough room for underground parking, technical infra-structure and sank street. The design proposed to embed the street all the way from the foot of the New bridge to the underpass at the Hodža Square. This solution would (at least partially) reduce the negative influence of heavy traffic on the Old Town area allowing pedestrians to get to the area from the city centre safely. Our design is based on the idea of developing both sides of the Židovská street the way they used to be in the past. We delicately linked new buildings with the original town wall creating new areas, squares and pedestrian paths and adding functions that were missing or deficient in this part of town. Close to the Cathedral a new square was designed accessible by a comfortable and re-presentative staircase or by two lifts for the disabled. Among other functions the square will be used as open recreation area with the magnificent view of the St Martin's Cathedral. The upper part of the square is full of green with open-air cafes. In the middle of the composition another square was designed with green, benches and a historical fountain. Two more smaller places separate the second and third blocks from the communication. The majority of buildings on the newly created lot are three-floor (four on the northern part) houses with pent roof two floors high. Between the buildings on the axis of the composition there is a glass gallery (in fact a closed pedestrian zone). From this zone individual objects are accessible and it is an area full of shops and services available anytime and in all weathers. The supporting structure of the underground part forms a double wing with peripheral supporting walls and longitudinal interior frame with columns. On the columns longitudinal pairs of beams will be laid. The supporting structure of the buildings above ground is a frame with precast columns, monolithic reinforced concrete flooring 7,2 x 6,0 m with the thickness of the slab 240 mm.
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name: Vallis Pontem Iunctio (Valley spanned by a Bridge)
task: Spanning the Staromestska street in Bratislava, public anonymous architectural competition
place: Staromestska street in Bratislava
authors: SPDe, Matej Grébert, Rudolf Lesňák
competition: 02/2002
award: project was awarded