The prominently situated mosaic is located on the façade of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering at STU (formerly SVŠT), built between 1958 and 1963 to a design by the architects Professor Martin Kusý Sr, Jozef Fabiánek, Štefan Štempák, Ferdinand Milučký, and Štefan Ďurkovič. The faculty building was designed to connect at a right angle to the older building of the Faculty of Chemical and Food Technology, built between 1950 and 1955 by Vladimír Karfík. The first-floor level of the façade of the longitudinal block of the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering facing Freedom Square is punctuated by a series of projecting lecture halls. A design competition was held in 1958 to determine their artistic appearance. Over the years, the winning design team produced several alternatives and variations, moving from figurative designs to their final geometrically stylised abstract composition. The mosaics were created by the team of artists themselves, who directly embedded the mosaic pieces (stone tesserae) into concrete bases on the wall.
Although the imagery of the four mosaics is a product of its time – a celebration of technical and scientific achievements of socialist bloc countries – the form varies. There is a progression from the descriptive, realistic depiction characteristic of 1950s socialist realism (also evident in the reliefs of the nearby Pavilion of Theoretical Institutes at the Faculty of Architecture) towards the use of interpretive forms of modernist artistic expression typical of the more liberal 1960s. The four mosaics are united by the uniform rectangular surface of the façade, and by shared, cohesive composition, use of abstraction, and iconography focused on technology and science.
Each mosaic contains a specific set of attributes that relate to a particular theme. The hydropower theme is represented by motifs of a Kaplan turbine and a dam, which symbolise the achievements of modern technology.
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Research status as of 20. 06. 2024.