simple street pattern. Furthermore, the complex contained a medical clinic with pharmacy, a kindergarten, public library, and even a small museum displaying natural, artistic and historic objects from Schulpe’s personal collections.23 With its functional articulation and coherent operations, Schulpe’s colony could be termed a prefiguring in miniature of later publicly financed housing construction in the city. By 1913, the first residential buildings for impoverished families financed from the city budget were completed: two blocks with outdoor staircase galleries in Mestská ulica, to house families rendered homeless by the devastating fire in Bratislava’s Podhradie.24
to the Ringstrasse. And this area became the construction site for large-scale public buildings, symbolising the urban ambitions of fin-de-siecle Prešporok. Its form was strongly marked by the works of the city’s leading architects and builders: the Feigler family, the firm of Kittler & Gratzl or architect Viktor Rumpelmayer, all of whom created an entire series of apartment blocks and public buildings within the newly regulated streets.18 Still, the most grandiose architectonic endeavour of this era is unquestionably the construction of the new city theatre, to replace the far-outgrown building near the ‘Fishermen’s Gate’ (Rybárska brána). The theatre’s design was commissioned by the city council in 1881 from the most prominent theatre architects in the monarchy, Ferdinand Fellner and Hermann Helmer, with the completed building opened in September 1886.19 The urban frontage of this new cultural and social focal point was connected to a freshly planted alley of trees, which in conjunction soon won recognition as one of the key public spaces in the city, known as the ‘Promenade’ (Promenáda).20
Despite the significant growth in the number of housing units in the city during the later 19th century and the first decades of the 20th, the housing stock from this period does not form the basis of the city or even a significant part of its urban structure, as in many other European centres. Bratislava’s greatest urban growth was still to come, with its culmination arriving only in the 1930s.
As we have already noted, the development of industrialisation had a decisive influence in the later 19th century on the built fabric of the city and its growing population. In 1900, Bratislava’s 51 factories employed up to 37.5 % of the city’s residents21, with the factory workers primarily attracted from Slovakia’s rural population. Consequently, the growth of industry led to an equally surging demand for housing in the city. Several factory owners, in response, addressed the lack of housing with the construction of workers’ colonies at the edge of the manufacturing areas. Such residential projects as the Dynamit Nobel, Danubius, Klinger, Matador, Roth or Stollwerck workers’ colonies formed a significant part of the new city22. Towards the end of the 19th century, Bratislava also saw its first attempts at social housing. A coherent program was first set out by lawyer Juraj Schulpe (1867 – 1936), who in 1894 initiated and financed the realisation of the workers’ housing complex in Šancová ulica. Schulpe’s colony was formed by five separately standing two-storey blocks with a total of 35 small flats, arranged in a 18 Lukáčová, Elena – Pohaničová, Jana: Rozmanité 19. storočie. Bratislava, Perfekt, 2008. Pohaničová, Jana – Buday, Peter: Storočie Feiglerovcov. Bratislava, Trio Publishing, 2016. 19 Moravčíková, Henrieta – Dlháňová, Viera: Divadelná architektúra na Slovensku. Bratislava, Divadelný ústav, 2011, p. 72 – 83. 20
Lachmannová, M., 2014, p. 56 – 81.
21 Among the most important manufacturing enterprises were the tobacco factory founded in 1853; the Georg Roth & Co. munitions factory, 1870; the Dynamit Nobel explosives plant, 1873; the Stein brewery, 1875; the Klinger textile mill, 1888; the Kablo cable and rubber works, 1894 and the Apollo oil refinery, 1895. Lehotská, Darina – Pleva, Ján (eds.). Dejiny Bratislavy. Bratislava, Obzor, 1966, p. 227 – 238.
23 Dudeková, Gabriela. Juraj Schulpe, vedec a humanista. Bratislava: YMCA, 1994.
22 More about specific workers colonies by Obuchová, Viera. Priemyselná Bratislava. Bratislava : Albert Marenčin Vydavateľstvo PT, 2009.
24 Obuchová, Viera: Bývanie v druhej polovici 19. storočia a na začiatku 20. storočia. Ročenka Bratislavy, 1998, no. 10, p. 49 – 59. 13