(Un)planned Bratislava
Exhibition in Pálffy Palace
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Bratislava is a city of contrasts. Within its boundaries, organically formed historic districts, fragments of modern architectural and urban plans, and urban wildernesses where seemingly nothing exists all meet within a radius of several hundred metres. As in Colin Rowe's collage city, different visions of the shape of the city have settled side by side. Their proximity is in some places friendly, in others reticent or even antagonistic. At first glance, therefore, Bratislava looks fragmented and unplanned. Its current form, however, is the result of efforts of dozens of planners who for more than 120 years have been trying to organise the city spatially.
The exhibition introduces Bratislava’s planning and construction processes through several interacting tools. The first is a timeline that positions these processes in the context of important historical events of the city. Another is a sample of key spatial planning documents that range from the first regulatory plan of 1904 to spatial plans from the 1960s, all of which have decisively influenced the shape of Bratislava today. The third tool is a graphical analysis of selected characteristic urban locations. The planned and organic transformations of the city’s natural radial layout, castle hill and its surroundings, the ring, and the factory district, reveal the complexity and openness of the urban planning process, and demonstrate how experts' views of city planning have changed during the past century.
The exhibition is based on research findings published by the curatorial team in the book Bratislava (un)planned city. The book is showcased in the exhibition, both as illustrative material and copies of selected pages that are available to the visitor as hand-held texts. References to pages of the book also function as texts for the exhibited material.
Through oversized sheets of paper and the tubes in which they were originally stored, architectural design of the exhibition evokes the atmosphere of the design institutes in which the city plans were created. This impression is reinforced by the motif of a rectangular grid that conveys the scale of the individual illustrations, and also the rationality of the planning.