A set of six reliefs adorns the façade of an apartment building on the corner of Krížna and Karadžičova streets. The reliefs, three per floor, extend the width of the window sills on the fifth and sixth floors and are sited on the second to fourth window axes from the north.   

Their motifs are the professions of workers and farmers, with ideological reference to their centrality within the new state. The use of relief decorations with the theme of work as part of the artistic design of buildings constructed in the 1950s and 1960s was a strong feature of socialist realism. For example, there are twenty reliefs on the façade of the Pavilion of Theoretical Institutes of the Slovak University of Technology (today FAD STU) on Freedom Square in Bratislava. Both groups of works share common formal and compositional elements.   

The artistic design and depiction of themes and figures reflect the period's demand for realism, comprehensibility, and clarity, as the ideological message of these scenes was the celebration of working people. 

The relief below the window sill of the fifth floor in the second window axis from the north depicts the motif of work at a blast furnace, a symbol of metallurgy.  

Three standing workers depicted in three-quarter length are holding metallurgical tools. The worker on the left, shown in profile wearing a beret, uses tongs to hold a piece of red-hot iron beside an anvil. Of the two others, the smelter on the right, depicted from behind wearing a helmet, holds a piercing rod in his right hand and stretches his left hand in front of the other worker. The smelter in the centre, his body shown from the front with head in right profile, is wearing a cap and holding iron strips in his slightly raised hands. 

ZZ

Research status as of 15. 11. 2023.