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 th esculptor 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.  

Square stone reliefs form part of the façade's parterre, their light sandstone contrasting with the façade's red stone cladding. The slabs blend with the façade, only a prismatic cornice protruding below forms a pedestal for figures whose mission was to proclaim a happy new future for Slovakia’s youth. The individual scenes combine to form a unified artistic and compositional rendering. 

The group figural scene at the southern end of the façade depicts two pairs of boys working with a radio transmitter that stands on the ground between them. To the right, a kneeling boy in headphones operates a transmitter, his head bent towards it. He holds a microphone in his left hand and tunes the radio with his right hand. Beside him, on the right of the scene, a boy in shorts and a beret is shown from behind standing and looking down at the broadcast. To the left of the transmitter, a boy in shorts and a T-shirt is shown in profile squatting and holding headphones to his head. On the far left, a boy wearing shorts and a shirt is shown in profile bent slightly towards the transmitter, a young tree behind him in the background.

ZZ

Research status as of 15 November 2023.