Václav Havel (5 October 1936, Prague – 18 December 2011, Hrádeček, Czech Republic) was a prominent Czechoslovak writer, playwright, spokesperson for Charter 77, and dissident persecuted and imprisoned by the totalitarian regime. In November 1989, he became the leader of political change. On 29 December 1989, members of the then Federal Assembly of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic elected Havel as President of Czechoslovakia. In 1990, at the first free elections, he was re-elected. Following division of the joint state, the Chamber of Deputies elected him President of the Czech Republic (ČR), a role in which he served two terms of office from 1993 to 2003.
Václav Havel Bench in Bratislava forms part of the international network of informal memorial sites named Havel's Place that commemorate the legacy of Václav Havel. It comprises two garden chairs connected by a round table, through the centre of which grows a tree. The work symbolises democratic openness, and a willingness to sit together at a round table and engage in dialogue. The idea of memorial sites under the collective name Havel's Place was originated by the Czech politician Petr Gandalovič, who served as the Czech Republic's ambassador to the United States from 2011 to 2017.
Gandalovič approached B. Šípek, a world-renowned architect and designer, with the task of creating a work inspired by the personage and democratic ideals of the late V. Havel. Professor Šípek proposed the simple but compelling concept of a round table discussion with the working title "Democracy Speaks". Ultimately, though, the name Václav Havel Bench caught on in both the Czech Republic and Slovakia. The first Havel's Place memorial site with a bench was established in 2013 on the campus of Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. in the United States. The first bench in Europe was installed on Human Rights Day, 10 December 2013, in St Patrick's Park in Dublin, Ireland.
The Bratislava bench bears the sequential number 36. It was installed in the park on Vajanský Embankment on 5 July 2020 to mark the 30th anniversary of V. Havel's election as Czechoslovak president. It was the second memorial site to be established in Slovakia, the first having been created in 2018 in the historic centre of Košice. By the end of 2023, there were 52 commemorative Havel's Places with their typical benches in various cities around the world.
The basic form of the work is the same everywhere: two chairs with spiral metal armrests and with backrests decorated with small glass objects in the shape of hearts and spirals (shells) are connected to a round table, around the circumference of which is a metal hoop engraved with a quotation. The heart and spiral motif reference Havel's characteristic signature in green pen, to which he added a drawn heart. Following his death, this became a motif for works of art (e.g., Glowing Heart by Jiří David, 2002), but, above all, it became a pop culture symbol.
In each location, the memorial site Havel's Place has its own specific design and has a selected type of tree growing through the centre of the table. In Bratislava, it is maple, while in Košice and most other cities it is various varieties of linden.
The designer of the bench, Prof. B. Šípek (1949–2016), was best known as a creator of furniture and of glass objects that were artistic as well as practical. Between 1992 and 2002, he served as chief architect of the Prague Castle Authority. He often returned to Bratislava as an exhibiting artist, patron, and guest of architecture and design festivals. In addition to the memorial bench, one of Šípka's works can be found on the façade of a renovated apartment building in Bratislava’s Old Town.
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Research status as of 29. 3. 2024.
