Public Space and Lighting Objects in the Early Work of Jozef Vachálek

I was motivated to explore the work of Jozef Vachálek (1944 – 2014) by the publication Václav Cigler a absolventi oddelenia Sklo v architektúre na Vysokej škole výtvarných umení v Bratislave 1965 – 1979 by the compiler Katarína Bajcurová, which  states that Jozef Vachálek was the first graduate of this department. Moreover, in March last year, in the Design Museum, we commemorated the 80th anniversary of Jozef Vachálek’s birth in an overview of jubilant authors, and in December, the 10th anniversary of his death. Jozef Vachálek’s most famous work is the fountain Závojová fontána in the Ružinov district of Bratislava, which resulted from a collaboration with the architect Ferdinand Milučký. In addition, in his most productive period, he also artistically enriched several projects of the trio of architects Ferdinand Konček, Iľja Skoček and Ľubomír Titl, designed wedding hall furnishings, created monumental works for public buildings and spaces as well as small chamber objects, lamps. Later, he was also an organizer and participant in international glass symposiums; with his
wife Eva Vachálková, they ran the Glass Art Gallery Simone and carried out many other projects abroad.

At the beginning of my research into Jozef Vachálek’s work, I was dominated by uncertainty and hesitation about the scope of the author’s  work. My concerns were mainly caused by the fact that I often encountered, or, conversely, did not encounter, a clear assignment of  authorship to individual works. The reason is difficult to define, but in both contemporary and contemporary sources and sources the completeness of data on the designers and implementers of specific works fluctuates. Therefore, it was often difficult to verify author
ship. However, as it turned out, the scope of Vachálek’s work is truly wide, and not all assumptions about authorship have yet been confirmed
or refuted, so there is room for further research. In this article, I decided to focus mainly on such works that emerged from collaborations with prominent architects in the late sixties and seventies of the 20th century. One of the architects who worked on the above newly emerging projects was Ferdinand Milučký.

In 1966, a law that stipulated detailed conditions for cooperation between architects and artists came into force. It meant that all newly constructed buildings and architectural ensembles had to be artistically completed. Therefore, even during the design process, art in public spaces had to be considered, for which a certain part of the budget had to be reserved. It was precisely when complex housing construction, new city districts, housing estates and new public buildings were created. These extremely demanding and complex construction solutions  required the cooperation of architects and artists.

Milučký had been designing the grove of the first crematorium in Slovakia since 1962. During the implementation process, he approached Jozef Vachálek for its artistic completion while he was still a student. “He asked me if I would make him a model of a fountain for the scale model of the Crematorium in Bratislava.” The entire crematorium and urn grove are set in a natural environment, and here, Milučký already applied the significant principles of longitudinal walls and intersecting spaces to his creation. Jozef Vachálek is the author of the fountain  Poézia (1966 – 1969), which is located in the outdoor areas of the rear terrace and can be accessed from the mourning gathering area or the side staircase.