On the development of classic school of urban design in Slovakia

Peter Kardoš

SUMMARY

The brief description of a period in development of modern school of urban design presents the contribution of a unique group of creative university teachers: Prof. Tibor Alexy, Prof. Jan Kavan and Prof. Filip Trnkus. They created conditions for raising the followers of the development in the field of urban planning, for independent urban design, reconstruction and composition of city forming spatial structures and for successful competitions and lectures at various study levels. The primary impulse of course came from the distinguished European professor Emanuel Hruška, who founded at the faculty the specialisation of architecture and urban planning and his ideas still correspond to the contemporary approach of complexity and sustainability of urban way of life and human environment.

The author of this paper presents the reasons and forms of implementing these ideas by the tools of modern technologies, which can support the imagination and aesthetical approach both in education and professional practice when creating the atmosphere of urban environment. The individual chapters explain the urban design principles as ‘cities constructions’, which is most suitably explained on model fabrications. Further, it compares the analogue and digital design tools and suggests the way of their interactive interconnection in analogue-digital verification methods and in evaluating the space atmosphere in the form of visual dynamic spatial continuum. He introduces also examples of applications in pedagogical process with the characteristics of analogue and digital methods. In conclusion, the significance of spatial modelling in creative processes and of completing urban structures within the revitalization or reconstruction of well-preserved urban structures has been presented.

Keywords: development, traditional school, analog, digital, Slovakia, urban design