The commemorative plaque in honour of the politician Vladimír Clementis is yet another example of the problematic monuments in public spaces that commemorate controversial figures from Slovak history. On the one hand, a broad-minded left-wing intellectual of the interwar period who contributed to publication of the magazine DAV. After the war, on the other hand, a high-ranking Communist official (State Secretary and later Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic), as noted in the inscription on the plaque: Dr. Vladimír Clementis, a prominent cultural figure, co-founder of the political and cultural journal DAV, a distinguished official of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, and a statesman of the People’s Democratic Republic of Czechoslovakia, resided in this house from 1930 to 1938._ _

He was arrested in 1951, and a year later he was sentenced to death and executed as part of a show trial against Rudolf Slánský. 

The sculptor V. Vavro depicted Clementis accordingly as a stern official with a tightly knotted tie. Although the 1960s saw a political thaw and a degree of cultural relaxation during which more progressive forms of art came to be accepted, a commemorative plaque honouring a high-ranking Communist Party official had to be created within the confines of the official art of Socialist Realism. This was reflected in a preference for realistic sculptural expression, conservative composition, and reliance on the rigid form of the en face portrait. The face, in raised relief against a white stone slab, is complemented beneath by a larger marble plaque that bears an inscription in gilded text. The small and unobtrusive commemorative plaque is positioned unusually high on a functionalist apartment building, set between windows above the passageway to a courtyard that leads towards Obchodná Street. It marks house No. 3, where Clementis lived during the 1930s, and was installed in 1965, three years after he was rehabilitated. Beneath it are fragments of a large complex of dining facilities with outdoor seating designed by the ŠPTÚ team (Ladislav Kušnír, Cyril Rovňák, Ivan Slameň, Branislav Somora, 1976–1978), to which only the partially preserved terrace and façade clad in clinker stone now bear witness.

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Research status as of 28. 02. 2024.