5 invisible spots in Košice by Vladimír 518
Text: Nikolas Bernáth
Shortly before his show in Košice we asked him some serious questions on his work, his views on architecture and the phenomenon of the cities. The following day, after having stayed at The Invisible Hotel, the tour around the Košice post-modernist architecture which Vladimír specializes into, continued. Have a look on 5 invisible places in Košice according to a well-known rapper, artist and popularizer of architecture Vladimir 518.
1. Technical University of Košice
The building is located on the place of a former Košice liqueur factory. In 1938, one of the largest exhibitions in the Central European Region “The Exhibition of the East” took place right in this area. Some of its pavilions are part of the university even today. The main building of TUKE was built in 1972 and even today, it is one of the largest ones in the Eastern Slovakia.
2. Louis Pasteur University Hospital
New hospital, nor a single local would call it otherwise. The nineteen-floor mono-block was built in 1966 and was completed in 1984. At the time of the construction, the hospital belonged to the highest buildings in Slovakia and is still the tallest building in the city.
3. The city council of Košice
The construction began in 1983 as a building of the Communist Party of Slovakia. This unique Czechoslovak project, now the Košice City Council, became a model for other party sites in the country. A white sheet metal paneling gave the building the familiar name “white house”. Below the monumental staircase there are various escape routes, garages and the commercial yard. And this very staircase was until very recently a cradle of the local skating culture. Once this legendary site had to be abandoned, the skaters reinvented their new hot spot in Kasárne/Kulturpark.
4. Dargov department store
In the place where the monumental Dargov department store stands today, there stood an ironwork and other municipal houses. In one of them, the prominent inter-architecture architect Ľudovít Oelschläger was born. The original buildings were demolished in the 1970s and the largest largest department store in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic was built in 1980. It was opened under the name Domino in 1987 and almost immediately, for ideological reasons, it was renamed as Dargov. Today it hides numerous business operations and services, which by their specific atmosphere and nature exclude the spirit of current shopping centers.
5. Košice — Šaca Hospital
The hospital is situated on the outskirts of the city. The twelve-floor building was built in 1962 according to the projects of Prague controversial architect Karel Prager who is also an author of brutalist New Scene in Prague. The facility was mainly used for the needs of employees of East Slovak Ironworks, the company which was main investor of the hospital’s construction.
Vladimir 518 is a well-known artist, raper, publisher and popularizer of architecture. Everything started in his teenage when he published a zine about metal music. Later he discovered the hiphop, devoted himself to graffiti and then rap. He is co-founder of today’s legendary Czech group called PSH. He released 3 solo albums, the latest album called ULTRA! ULTRA! came out in 2017.
He is also a boss of BiggBoss publishing and the author of the super successful trilogy of KMENY books. Vladimir has also produced a series of documentary films under the same name for Czech Television and in the Moravian Gallery, he curated the exhibition KMENY 90.
Explore the invisible spots of Košice observed by Vladimír 518 when staying in The Invisible Hotel.
