Ekoiuventa, formerly known as the Youth House, Technical Station Mičurin, and Young Naturalists' Station, was Slovakia’s first comprehensive centre of natural science clubs for socialist pioneer youth – the country’s first enclosed facility catering to the needs of extracurricular youth education. In addition to the main building, facilities were progressively constructed for a wide range of activities – young technicians' building, young tourists' building, classroom and accommodation facility, amphitheatre, swimming pool, and greenhouses. Other important areas of the complex were the playground, experimental fields, apiaries, and poultry breeding and ornithological facilities.    

The hub of the complex was the Youth House with its façade overlooking Machnáč Hill and Búdková Street. Designed by the architect M. Chorvát, it is one of the most highly regarded, typical, and representative buildings of socialist realism architecture of the 1950s in Slovakia.  

Its façade is aestheticised by four stone reliefs created by the sculptor J. Kulich, set in pairs beside the entrance. The building’s principal artistic accent is Slovak Youth Builds by the sculptor Fraňo Gibala, a work mounted on the roof to welcome arriving visitors.  

This statue is a culmination of the conceptual (and ideological) artistic essence of the complex's message. It captures the contemporary pathos and embodies Gibala’s celebratory work from the fifties.    

The work stands on a prismatic base in the axis of the main entrance to the building. The figures of a young man and a young woman, both en face, are rendered in an idealised form. To the left, the young man stands with his arms against his body, dressed only in shorts and work boots. In his left hand, he holds a stone slab, while his right hand touches a tree trunk that forms the background of the sculpture. His posture, with leg thrust forward, head gazing into the distance, and chest raised, evokes the fighting spirit. To the right, standing in a girded dress that falls below her knees, the young woman stretches outwards and upwards, her right arm draped in a flag, as her raised head faces resolutely ahead.

ZZ

Research status as of 15 November 2023.