Talking about the evangelical architecture in Bratislava, we cannot avoid going back to history of it, the history which has been affecting not only the social life of human communities but above all was either allowing or restricting architectural production.
On the occassion of the 400th anniversary of foundation of the first evangelical congregation in Bratislava we want to present not only the sacral architecture, i.e. 7 churches, but also the other buildings like Evangelical schools, a hospital and some rental houses by which the Evangelics contributed to the well-designed appearance of the city then.
There were several historical events which resulted into the change of thinking at the end of the Middle Ages and at the beginning of the Modern Age (around the year 1500): the Gutenberg´s invention of book printing in 1455 and out of it resulting tremendous development of knowledge and the discovery of America in 1492. Another important historical act was the decision of the Pope Julius II to have the 1000 year old St.Peter´s Church, built by the Emperor Constantinus in Rome, pulled down and his intention to build a new St.Peter´s Church in 1502. With this task to create the church of all churches anew he entrusted the best architects and artists of those times and of course it was done already in a new style: the Renaissance. This required amounts of money.
Another matter: the man of those times was Dr.Martin Luther who saw the then Christendom critically.
As for the external circumstances, Europe was being approached via Balkan by the Turks who with their victory in the Mohács Battle in 1526 ensured their presence in Central Europe for 160 years after seizing two thirds of the (Ungrian) Hungarian Kingdom. On one hand the Catholic Church accepted without any discussion to pull down the 1000 year old monument - the Central Church - the work of Constantinus and the symbol of the West Christendom before starting to collect money for it violently and on the other hand the criticism of the church and voices calling to reform it brought up such hostility that the Inquisition were destroying not only books but also the people of different beliefs. This was the evidence of the church ambitions to gain power.
In Central Europe the Reformation was spreading almost immediately after the Luther´s publication of his theses on the Church gate in Wittenberg. The German minorities in the regions of nowadays Slovakia (the descendents of the Germans, mostly craftsmen having been invited here by previous kings after the Tartar plunderings) played an important role in it.
Another effective channel to spread the Reformation ideas were the young noblemen from here studying at German universities. Because the whole congregations with their church buildings were joining the Reformation movement, there was no need to build a great number of temples. As a consequence of the Turkish raids, Pressburg (Bratislava) became the capital of the unseized part of the Habsburgs´Monarchy and the coronation city in the 16th Century and as such had a different history concerning the Reformation from the one existing in the rest of the area of contemporary Slovakia.
The Reformation in these regions of Central Europe at its beginning gained the forms of the so called face-saving Catholicism. It was possible in that way thanks to the moderate King Maximillian II, Habsburg (1564 - 1576) and the first King to be coronated in then Pressburg (nowadays Bratislava) in 1563 who in the Catholic sourroundings of this area declared himself to be "neither a Pappist nor Evangelical, but the Christ´s."
During the 16th Century it was the Kamper´s House near the city walls where the Evangelical believers used to gather for worshipping.
Since the Trident´s Council (1545-63), however, the pressure of the Catholics against the heretics had been continuing and the Jesuites, invited into the monarchy, only intensified this pressure systematically. Rudolf II, the Maximillian´s son, educated in Spain, wasn´t so tolerant to the Evangelics as his predecessor, so during his reign towards the end of the 16th Century the fight against the non-Catholics started fully. The 17th Century with Rudolf II was the period of confessional uprisings and wars. In 1604 the Protestant Cathedral in Košice (Eastern Slovakia) was confiscated to the Evangelics as well as property of the protestant Palatine Stefan Illeshazy what resulted into the religious Uprising of the nobleman Stefan Bocskay in 1604.
Thus the Evangelical congregation in then Pressburg (Bratislava) could only be established after the Vienna Peace signed on 23 June 1608 by signing of which the religious freedom was garanteed in the city although in the rest of the nowadays Slovakia the reformation had already been taken for granted.

Foundation of the Church

So on the 8 October 1608 the first German priest Andreas Reuss was allowed to preach in this city. The believers then were gathering in the Armpruster´s House (Hlavné námestie Square) near the Town Hall. The place at the very beginning was not big enough for the protestant majority of all city inhabitants.
The door of the recatholisation was fully open when Siegmund Forgac was elected Palatine who re-converted back to Catholicism. Other three uprisings of the estates of the Realm burst out being led by a noblemen Gabriel Bethlen supported by the whole Ungrian (Hungarian) Empire and the Slovaks in it as well. (As many as 80 % of the Slovaks were protestants then). His arrival to Pressburg (Bratislava) resulted into giving back the Catholic St. Martin´s Church to the protestant majority in 1619. This, however, lasted only until 1621, the year of the capital punishment of 21 Czech noblemen in Prague and the beginning of the 30-year War.

First Churches

The Evangelics desired to have their own church and the Armpruster´s House was only a makeshift for the Evangelics from the very beginning. In 1634 the Evangelical majority of the city submitted a request for building a new church on the ground of the Vienna Treaty in 1606 about the equal rights for both the Protestants and Catholics. There had been many adversities and complications before the royal permission of 31 March 1636 granted the Lutherans to have their own church. Thus on 19 May 1636 the foundation-stone was laid. Collecting money was organized among the rich families as the documents show. Shortly after the beginning of building the church the Palatine Pálfy stopped it. Petitions, requests, persuasions and protests followed anew.
The new king Ferdinand III realized (Church Council in 1637) that he would need protestants so he gave the permission to continue. Still, the Palatine retained the right not to allow to build the tower, not to have the windows and entrances with arches so that they would not remind a church. There were endless restrictions and difficulties, nevertheless, the church has been the first sacral works of the Rennaisance Era in the region of our country. More light in the interiors and the inner church galleries were typical characteristics of evangelical churches. A simple rectangular layout placed in the same height and covered with cross arches sustained by a row of columns which bear three-sided choirs, initially designed to gain more places for worshippers at the Service. No more a gothic superelevation or meditative twilight of the interiors, but a large hall space, properly lighted through four big windows in the front facade and through two floors each with five windows on the side facade. This motiv appears here for the first time and discloses the inner choirs later so typical for evangelical churches. The knowledge of the Bible, the translations of it into national languages and the desire to understand the Gospel also by selfstudy - this was the program of the Reformation - therefore more light.
On 18 December 1638 the Pressburg senior priest Jozua Wegelin pronouced thanks for the completed work. Two days later the sanctification of the church took place and it was given the name of the Holy Trinity Church.
At that time the number of the Church members reached as many as 15 000 people. 300 marriages a year were contracted. Enthusiasm and joy of the people were typical for those times. Rich individuals as well as wealthy guilds competed in donating necessary movables.
Church music thanks to the composers such as Samuel Capricornus or Johann Kusser got famous.
As on this lot was no more place for a Hungarian Reformed Congregation as well who had their prayer house in nowadays Obchodná ul.Street, it was mostly the Pressburg Mayor Andreas Segner who substantially contributed to sort out this problem and to support them in this respect. It was in 1648 when one of the most beautiful Renaisance sightseeings in this city - his own (Segner´s) Manor House in Michalská ul. Street was also built.
As a fairly-minded Mayor he saw a neccessity of building another Evangelical church in the city. Because the Linz Peace Treaty garanteed equal rights for both confessions, even to establish schools and use bells, Andreas Segner made best of the situation. There was no lack of money and Segner, a leading personality of the Pressburg Evangelics, completed a Renaissance Slovak-Hungarian Church in the autumn 1658. People of that time were enthusiastic and thus generous as an unknown burgher who had three bells cast on his own expenses throwing a handful of silver coins into the melt bell mass so that the bells would have a silver sound. At Christmas of the same year the evangelical bells gave their first sounds in spite of all the hostile surroundings of those times coming from authorities. Immediately after the Vienna Peace Treaty, on 2 August 1606, a school founding council was created, a petition to grant the school was sent to the King and a permission to establish an articular school was later received. They wanted to have a gymnasium (a grammar school) and along with the German one also the Hungarian one were opened on 2 December of the same year.

Gymnasium (Lyceum)

The school was built on the rear part of the Armpruster´s lot behind the church due to the Andreas Segner´s personal zealousness and selfsacrifice. The building was designed carefully and in a forward-looking way. Except for the classes there was also a big hall with a podium for the theatre. The school had study-rooms for teachers as well as the flats for them. The Gymnasium Building was consecrated on 30 November 1656. On this occasion the Mayor Segner had commemorative coins with a Troyan horse on the obverse minted. This day was still pageantly remembered by the Lyceum juveniles even at the beginning of the 20th Century. This year is the 350th anniversary of consecration of the first Evangelical Gymnasium in Bratislava.
The school had its own library.After confiscating and closing down it violently by the Jesuites in 1672 the precious copies were taken away by them. Nowadays it is still the Jesuite Aloisianum. The building surprises by its unusually tall saddleback roof.
Even if Treaties between the Habsburgs and the Protestant noblemen were signed and the same rights for them as those for the Catholics were garanteed, the everyday reality was different. Gradual changover of noble families from Lutheranism back to Catholicism was evident.
The 14-year-old King Leopold from the very beginning in 1658 , a young boy educated in Spain, who wanted to have a Regnum Marianum and a country to be dead rather than heretical, was a passionate persecutor of the Protestants. He nearly managed to reach his goal. The archbishops Juraj Pázman and later Juraj Selepczényi were his effective helpers. The anti-reformation pressure was so intensive that important noble protestant families (Nadasdys, Palfys, Forgacs, Keglevics) were reverting back to Catholicism. With the noblemen went also their subjects. The Protestants became a minority in the kingdom.
In the war with the Turks again in 1663, however, the Protestants were fighting on the side of the young King who concluded a humiliating Peace Treaty with the Turks leaving them vast areas as well as money, although they were defeated. This resulted into the new conspiracies and uprisings on the side of the betrayed noblemen. (Mikuláš Zrínyi, František Nádasdy, Štefan Tokoly, František I Rákoczy, etc.) After the war times the period of the most cruel persecutions, confiscations and executions of the Protestants in the country followed. Most of the Protestant noble families in this situation gave up the fight with the Habsburgs (the Nyarys, Bathányis, Zrínyis, Illeshazys etc.)
The man to help the King Leopold with recatolization was the mentioned Archbishop Juraj Szelepczeniy - Slepčiansky who iniciated most of the complications and put most of the obstacles while building the second Protestant Church in the city. Immediately, at the beginning of 1672 he struggled to get the keys of both church buildings and schools and put much effort into expelling the Protestant priests out of the country.

Confiscation of Churches and Lyceum

In spring 1672 the Archbishop Szelepczényi asked to hand in the keys of both churches and the school. The fearless Mayor Andreas Segner was not among the living any more. So the burghers personally defended their two churches which were ordered to be taken away from them by the castle sentries. Jesuit youths attacked the Lyceum, but unsuccessfully, although the school was defended by women. Szelepczenyi was looking at the scene from the windows of the Town Hall on the opposite side of the square.
At first the Archbishop´s anger and hate did not have any effect. So he decided to get the churches and the schools in a violent way. The soldiers were called to do the work. Even so he was not successful and the keys were not given to him villingly. This situation lasted some months. Finally on 18 July the soldiers were ordered to break the doors and occupy the inner rooms. The priests were imprisoned and threatened with executions. The city people required to release them and let them emigrate. On 4 August early in the morning without any words of farewell, without any personal property and escorted by the soldiers they had to leave Ungrian (Hungarian) Kingdom. Soldiers were everywhere in the city. The silver altar and the silver baptismal font - a present of the earl Nadasdy - dissappeared. One of the churches was given to Jesuits and the other to the Catholic Order of Ursulines.
The period of the darkness started. In 1673 Szelepczenyi organized Pressburg Law Courts where he summoned protestant priests and teachers of the whole Ungrian (Hungarian) Kingdom. They were judged and sent to galleys.

Sopron Council

summoned by the King to Sopron (today Hungary) was given an important task to fullfil: to make the protestant noble classes join the King´s fight against the Turks. Thus, after the cruel persecution of them, confiscation of their churches and expelling their priests anything else was left to the King, but to enact certain concessions for them. However, they represented only insignificant reliefs far from the equality of confessions having been garranteed before by the Treaty of Vienna. The cruel reality was the following: instead of 888 confiscated churches only 2 (two) were allowed to be built in every county and every royal city what made about 50 churches altogether. Far more, congregations lost their property, the rich noble families - the former donators - were afraid of losing everything anew, so they were converting back to the catholicism and therefore to build a new church in this situation was really a complicated matter. Further more, the priests, the iniciators and building advisors were also expelled abroad. The poor believers managed to build some 38 churches, most of them to be renovated at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries. At the same time when the Italian architects were invited to build new churches for Jesuites and other orders in the rich Baroque, the native people had to work everything out themselves.
Far more, according to the Articles from Sopron the churches had to be built on the lot zoned before by the authorities and within one year and made of wood only. And it was the wood which was not only humiliating material for such purpose, but was also easier to get deteriorated and was inflammable. Only the village houses and barns had been built of wood, not the churches being erected of stones from the very beginning of the Christian mission times of the Great Moravian Empire (the 10th Century) as the excavated Roman or Gothic churches prove it.
So if today we still have here in Slovakia as many as 5 articular churches built in the past in limited periods of time by the carpenters without any formal architectural education, embellished with paintings and cuttings by gifted amateurs who did not yield to the powerful oppression of recatholization, we have to consider it to be a miracle caused by the Holy Spirit.

After the Sopron Council

In spite of numerous petitions and memoranda quoting the past privileges and deputations of the Evangelics submitted to the King Leopold I, he and the Jesuites were obdurate in their attitude. Shortly after the Sopron Council there was still some minor hope that the conficated churches would be ever returned back to the Evangelics.
Therefore in May 1682 the members of the congregation in Bratislava at their first meeting set themselves the aims: firstly, to re-open the school what already happened on the 7th July 1682 in a residential house. Secondly, to re-invite the priests who were all expelled. Despite the difficult situation one of the priests - Bibelius - came back by the end of July, because to build new churches was the most important of all. According to the Articles 25 and 26 a building lot was allocated by the Royal Committee outside the city walls. As then it had been still not clear whether or not the Evanglics could live inside the city, one of the townsmen - Kaspar Koegl - offered his own house in Laurinská ul. Street (inside the city) for the services to take place. Other members of the church donated with enthusiasm the whole interior facilities - everyone what they could. After the years of persecutions on the 27 July the first God´s Service finally took place. But as soon as on 29 July all evangelical activities were forbidden literally " in order not to call forth any clashes due to any church buildings which since 1670 had belonged to other church, the Pressburger Evangelics are allowed to build a new church outside the city walls denoted by His Royal Majesty and on the expenses of the builders."

Articular Churches

It was only then that the Evangelics grasped that their churches would not be returned to them any more. Far more, they could not even have any services within the city walls, but their priests were forbidden to visit the ill or serve the Lord´s Supper to the dying, neither were they allowed to christen the new born nor to bury the dead. So on Sunday 27 September the last God´s Service took place in Koegl´s house. On Monday the morning prayers took place in the open in the Evangelical St.Michael Cemetery behind the St.Michael´s Gate where today Holy Trinity Church stands. In the cemetery the Holy Services were served daily in every weather. The necessity to have a new church was more and more urgent as the automn and the bad weather were approaching.
On a set lot a new church was started to be built which, partly on the grounds of the lack of money as well as the lack of time, it was being built in such a way as the people were able to: three street sides had the brick-setting walls and the fourth one being a brick-nogged timber wall. The wooden vault was supported by strong wooden columns; there were three choir lofts with a small organ from the Koegel´s house and a fourplex roof because the height of it was not allowed to elevate the surrounding development. The church was three times as big as the contemporary Little Church with the capacity of 1200 people. But because the congregation had at least 3000 members to whom one had to add the people from suburbs, the church was too small from the very beginning of its existence.

On the first Advent´s Sunday and at the first Service there was already the pultpit ready to be used. The church was a building purely to serve to its purpose without having its architectural values, however, such an oustanding evangelical priest and scholar of those times as Matej Bell (1684-1749 was preaching there and had his funeral there.
Similarly in the neighbourhood of the German church the Slovak-Hungarian congregation built their own prayer hall which has became a part of the clergyman´s house in the basement of the house in 28 Panenská ul. Street.

School

After the confiscation of the Gymnasium the congregation was missing the school to a great extent, because it was the education of the young generation that mattered. Therefore already on 7 July 1682, after the Sopron Council a new school was opened in Hummelova ul. Street in a tenement house - but in a short time the commission led by Mikuláš Draškovič banned not only the school but also the services within the city walls. In Panenská and Konventná ul. Streets, outside the walls there were already the houses where the Evangelics were either living or gathering as hostilities and injustice expelled them there. One of the houses on the lot of the contemporary Old Lyceum, where the school was supposed to be opened, was donated by Countess K.S.Eibeswald-Starhemberg already on 1 December 1682. Later the congregation bought the other surrounding buildings for the school.
In 1713 the plague burst out which in the whole monarchy mowed down an enormous number of people so the Lyceum in Pressburg (Bratislava) was closed. But in 1714 the school could be re-opened again and the famous scientist of the then Ungrian (Hungarian) monarchy Matej Bell (a Slovak) was invited there as the Headmaster of it. From the very beginning the school had also an alumneum (students´hostel) for poor students. Bell provided for 20 poor students, later for 60 - 80 students.

Churches before the Tolerance Letters Patent

The third pair of churches were built by the Evangelics after Queen Maria Teresia under the enlightened influence of his son Joseph II met the requirements of them. After 100 years the articular German wooden church got technically deteriorated with no possibility to be enlarged, but above all it became also too small for ever growing community of believers of 5000 members.

The permission arrived on 24 May 1714 with a note saying that the church wasn´t allowed to have a magnificent appearance. The congregation asked a builder - Martin Walch - to build a church for 2000 people of the German congregation in the garden behind the clergyman Ribíny´s house, later pulled down. Walch was also asked to submit a design reminding the in 1672 confiscated St. Salvator Church next to the Town Hall. If we compare them, we see that both of them have four-axis facades and five side axes.
The first design with one choir and cross vaults submitted by M. Walch wasn´t approved of by the Convent so he had to rework it. M. Walch therefore redesigned a central space with the pulpit altar and 2 floors of choir. The height of the monumental vaults above the central nave elevates towards the centre and lowers again towards the opposite side creating thus the space of outstanding accoustic qualities. We can understand properly the measures of the roof and the courage of the master while standing in the loft under this biggest roof in Bratislava.
The organ in the church was built by Gebrüder Rieger-Jägerdorf Company from Moravian town Krnov (nowadays the Czech Republic) in 1923 after it had been designed by the then organist G.Rhodes. The architectural design was the work of the architect Christian Ludwig. The foundation stone was laid as soon as on 26 June 1774.

M. Walch was working quickly. The garden hidden behind the houses inspired him to locate the main entrances in the middle of the longer sides of the layout providing them with wooden door spaces. Two comfortable staircases next to the entrances were located on both longer sides too.Walch built the church meeting at the same time the requirements of Hofburg (the seat of the Emperor in Vienna then) - nearly without any embellishment in the rational classicist style with features of the fading away Baroque. The symmetry, grandiosity and simplicity of shapes set laconic form of the building with a high roof closing the space of extraordinary quality in severe white, light ochre and grey - typical colours reflecting the evangelical soberness and rationality.

Also the prayer hall of the Slovak-Hungarian congregation became too small for them. Encouraged by the German example this community submitted the petition to the Empress as well and she gave them her consent to build the contemporary Little Church (Malý kostol) on condition that the German one would be pulled down. On the place of a wooden church two years later the Slovak-Hungarian congregation built their Little Church in according to the design of Martin Walch and under the guidance of František Roemisch.
The Evangelics - the Germans, the Hungarians and the Slovaks - who remained faithful to the Reformation even after the trials in which Szelepcenyi, Kollonitch or Barkóczy were involved, demonstrated in such a way a great deal of moral strength.

The First Lyceum, Konventná ul. Street No. 15 (today the Old Lyceum)

After 100 years of the existence of the Lyceum in a donated residential house and building of both, before the Tolerance Letters Patent, churches a necessity to build another one rose anew. Shortly after issuing the Patent by Joseph II, on 2 June 1783 the congregation was given a permission to do so. Collecting money started immediately. They had their house in 15 Konventná ul. Street pulled down and a new one, according to the design of Martin Walch they started building. Walch made use of the Rennaisance foundations, maintained the cellars and on the cranked layout he created a symmetrical building of a school with spacious classrooms. The two-wing house has had the classrooms with large windows oriented southwards. On the axis of the symmetry above the Mäzhaus entrance and the passage to the church he situated a hall for the professors of the lyceum. The school was completed in the period of less than 5 months, on 22 October 1783, what was the proof of Walch´s abilities and of the great responsibility of the building supervision committee. In the building the evangelical intelligentsia of the whole Ungrian Kingdom was being educated for 70 years - here the important Slovak poet Ján Kollár (1793 - 1852) attended the school as well as the generation of Ľudovít Štúr, the codificator of the modern Slovak language (1815 - 1856) and most of the poets and novelists writing in this new standard language in that time, but also Lajos Kossuth (1802 - 1894), the leader of the Hungarian 1848-49 Revolution.

The Second Lyceum, Konventná ul. Street, No. 13 (today the Institute of Slovak Literature of the Slovak Academy of Sciences)

In the half of the 19th century in the atmosphere of tolerance the old building did not correspond to the needs of the new times any more so the congregation came to a decision to build a newer building of the Lyceum. The building lot was partly bought and partly added on the corner of Konventná and Lýcejná ul. Streets where in the past an old cemetery had been existing. As quickly as Walch had built today´s Old Lyceum, the new one was built from August 1854 till September 1855 according to the design of Gottfried Bendl, the builder, who designed a moderated Neo-Renaissance house with a distinct moulding. Collecting money within the congregation did not cover all expenditure so the then priest Stromský applied to the Gustav-Adolf Association who helped them and obliged themselves to support them in the future too.

The Third Lyceum - Gymnasium in Palisády Street

The importance and educational success of Lyceum in Bratislava grew as from the very beginning the gifted Evangelical young people of all nationalities of Ungrian (Hungarian) Kingdom (including Slovakia) were studying there. The ambition to admit as many students as possible resulted in the effort to enlarge the building and as a suitable occasion served the 1000 year anniversary - the Millenium - of the Ungrian Kingdom - in the year 1896. But because the congregation owned also a building lot in Palisády Street, it was agreed that if they could manage to build the new school in the year of Millenium, the state would support them financially. So on 9 March 1895 the congregation committed the architect Ignác Alpár to submit a design of the building. He was also the one who managed to complete the school in the year of Millenium - on 20 September 1896.
The 3rd Lyceum was built by Ignac Alpar in Palisády Street meeting the newest requirements of quality education, because except for 10 classrooms he also designed workrooms for natural sciences, a numismatic collection, a library, a place for gatherings, a gym and rooms for teachers and the headmaster as well as flats for two schoolkeepers. The building is characterized by a dignified symmetrical concept with a representative staircase creating an impression of a palace rather than that of a school. An impressive facade inspired above all by the Renaissance architectural vocabulary with a dominating entrance on the quoin and a high gable symbolically characterize the function of the building and the relief of Matej Bell betrays the confessional affiliation. The architect with his designs of school buildings shifted ahead the attitudes of his contemporaries towards the education to a great deal and the Evangelics were given an excellent building for their school.

Other Schools

The congregation from the very beginning built also an alumneum (a boarding school) where common lunches were served to students. Later on in 1750 - the Councellor Jesenák had a convict built (a boarding house for non-Bratislava´s students.) The new Lyceum could admit far more students so more places were necessary for accommodation as well. Therefore already on 7 May 1900 a new four-floor hall of residence started to be built in Tolstoj ul. Street. It was intended for 120 students, was close to the Lyceum and was planned to be completed by September of the following year. Similarly as the appearance of the Lyceum also the Hall shows the Neo-Renaissance style elements combined in an eclectical way highlighting the quoin.

Addition of another floor to the building after the World War II unfortunately destroyed the monumental moulding termination with tympans and a parapet. The building lost thus its distinctive architectural values.
Except for the Lyceum of a high educational level also an elementary school was established there.
Here are also some other buildings - the former evangelical schools - in Bratislava:
on Františkánske nám. Square, in Panenská ul. Street, Sloyd´s House in the same street which was also a school for girls in Panenská ul. Street, the Blumenthal School in Fazuľová ul. Street (built in 1863, pulled down before erecting the new building of the Slovak Radio.) But the most representative of all was probably the school for boys built in 1882 in Konventná No.11 next to the 2nd Lyceum where now the parish house is seated. It is a beautiful example of rational works of the builder Kittler. He embellished the house with the reliefs of Luther and Melanchton.

In the same rationalistic style Ferdinand Kittler made also a residential block of the Evangelical Convent in 1882 - the building linking two streets in Bratislava for the first time at the old market house by means of a pasage-way of a round layout. Somewhere in those places near the Laurinská brána Gate used to be initially the Koegl´s house where the Services were taking place after the confiscation of both Renaissance churches in the city and donated by him to the church. Bratislava was given a noteworthy building having elegancy of plastic Neo-Renaissance.

The Home of Diakonisses - Evangelical Hospital

The Church have always paid attention to children. They were always caring about orphans as many a collection of money and last wills of important church members have proved it. Already in 1695 a foundation to support the orphaned was established; Matej Bell appeared to be more dynamic in this respect; in 1783 Mrs. Jelenffy donated a house for orphans opposite Franciscan Church and since 1794 orphans were living in the Jesenák´s house on the quoin of Panenská and Lýcejná ul. Streets. In the 19th century a new building for orphans was iniciated by the last will of a businessman Ondrej Samuel Rojko. Thereby another fund was established and this time it was both for orphans as well as for Home of Diakonisses.
Before 1672 the city hospital was almost unaccessible for the Evangelics although most of the doctors were evangelical!!! The priests were forbidden to visit the patients. New anti-reformation orders like Merciful Brothers or the Order of St.Elisabeth built hospitals, but they were so strict about the confession of their patients even after issueing the Tolerance Letters Patent that it was necessary to think about one´s own hospital.
In 1807 it was decided to establish a hospital in the rear wing of the Convent House in Panenská ul. Street and it was implemented in the years 1810-1811. This residental house, however, was soon not big enough so from 1827a new hospital was opened in a house on the quoin of Panenská and Palisády Streets. To have one´s own hospital became more real when Samuel Andrej Rojko established a fund for hospital in 1840. Here in 1891 the Diakonisses started their service for the old and orphans and here young girls were applying for to be Diakonisses. Since the beginning of the 20th century discussions about the building expenditure were going on and it was settled that in the year of the next anniversary in 1906 a headstone would be laid. Already in 1905 were 44 nurses - diakonisses in the home who were servicing 184 ill people, 157 children and 87 people in households were serviced at nights and there was also the service of visiting the poor. It was enormous task and the ciphres confirm the necessity of a new hospital building. In 1912-14 it was completed according to the design of a Viennese architect Julius Schmidt.
He designed a modern and spacy building of a U-shape with separate functions - a Diakonisses Home with a Chapel facing Bradlanská ul. Street; the hospital itself was situated in the main body of the building and the Home for Orphans have lead to Partizánska ul. Street. The modern appearance of the hospital was gained not only by monumentality of shapes derived from the Roman style but also by the cylinder of the staircase, by the elevational bricks combined with stone details. The quality of the hospital in every respect became famous so in 1939 one floor was added by the Bratislava´s architect Christian Ludwig, the author of the concept of the great organ in the Big Church (Veľký kostol).

Evangelical Cemetery

The Evangelical Cemetery at Kozia brána (Goats´Gate) is the third evangelical cemetery in the Old City District. The first one was that of the Cemetery of St. Michael - nowadays the Catholic Trinity Church stands there. The second one was located on the lot between Konventná and Lýcejná ul. Streets where Matej Bell, once also the Headmaster of the Evangelical Lyceum and other important Evangelics were burried. At present there are the school buildings and residential houses.
Another cemetery which ceased to exist was the one called the Blumenthal Cemetery on Račianske Mýto crossroads. It had an Evangelical and a Catholic sections separated by a chestnuts alley existing up today and running along Račianska ul. Street at its beginning.
The cemetery at Kozia brána (Goats´Gate) was opened in 1783 in the middle of gardens and vineyards being planted by high verdure and new lots were being bought and added to the cemetery. In 1868 a funeral chapel was built there by Ignác Feigler Jr. His sacral works corresponded to the Romanticism of the 19th century therefore the chapel has a neo-gothic appearance. Today it is owned by the Baptist.
In the cemetery at Kozia brána many important people of the Evangelical history are burried - like well-known priests, generous supporters of the church (Earl Jesenák´s family), Slovak writers like Dr.Janko Jesenský (1874 - 1945) and many others. Most of the grave stones are precious works of the Slovak funeral architecture of the 19th century.

Luther´s House

In Palisády Street Nos.46-48, on the former place of the old evangelical hospital a Bratislava´s architect Christian Ludwig in cooperation with Augustín Danielis in 1931 built a five-floor building - the so called Luther´s house - today the seat of the General Bishop´s Office - a multipurpose house for the church offices and flats. Ch. Ludwig divided the building by two pairs of staircases making them dominant by embellishing them with the reliefs of such important Lutheran historical personalities as Martin Luther himself, Philip Melanchton or Bratislava´s officials as Matej Bell (1684 - 1749), J. Ribíny and others. The severe functionalistic architecture gave the building dignity. Taking in account the development in the vicinity he pushed the last fifth floor to the rear winning thereby a terrace.

New Church - Legionárska ul. Street

In the 30s the Little Church became too small for growing number of Slovak believers. The foundation of a separate German congregation was another reason why also the Slovaks decided to build a new, bigger church. A suitable and an extensive ground in Legionárska ul. Street was giving a good possibility to make a whole church area there. The New Church from 1933 is a works by the architect Michal Milan Harminc who during his professional career created most of the pieces of sacral architecture for both confessions in Slovakia.
Harminc was successful in a tender for the design and building the church itself. On the lot between two streets he designed a church with a monumental façade of great functionalistic forms with a belfry located asymmetrically on the layout. In the front side a huge, pushed in the rear window dominates. Harminc probably wanted to make use of a stained glass window behind the altar in he same way as he did in another of his functionalistic churches in Žilina (northern Slovakia). He located the church entrance on the side of an extent area what was giving an idea of the architectural design of the whole complex of buildings around with the sounds of the belfry from the only one evangelical church there. The opposite orientation - that is the entrance from Legionárska ul. Street - as we know it nowadays - came into being later when most of the church lots around were sold - among them one where the Stein´s Brewery stands today. In such a way the main entrance was destroyed and the architectural intent damaged.
The church area was completed then by Juraj Tvarožek who built a residential block with flats for priests and a boarding house for students.

Evangelical Theological Faculty at Machnáč Hill

The last building built (in 1996) by the Evangelics in Bratislava was this faculty. The primary intention of situating it in the area of the Evangelical centre in the city (Konventná and Panenská ul. Streets) had not been implemented after the General Bishop´s Office bought a skelet of an unfinished building in Machnáč. The architect Ján Bahna created an area of the faculty containing also a students´cantine, a boarding house and a university hall which has served as a church. The task of the architect to create a building wasn´t the easy one as if it had been if he would have had a cleared lot in the centre of the city, but he managed successfully.

Architecture has always been one of the best witnesses of the times when the pieces of its works appeared in history. It has reflected social and political situations as well as it has been disclosing the economic situation of their investors.
As we could see, the evangelical architecture in this city has been a result of unfavourable conditions. Evangelical churches were being built with difficulties and restrictions. The Evangelics were allowed to build their churches with long periods of interruptions: first Renaissance churches, then after the Sopron Council in 1681 the Articular churches and at the end, 230 years ago, also Classicist churches from the period before issuing the Tolerance Letters Patent. Even if this architecture was supposed to be modest and not advertising, the gist of the Reformation was that of the clean and clear architecture in any case.
Architectura of the 20th century was living in a situation without restrictions and continued in the severity and rationality of the previous authors. The logical thinking of functionalistic architects went on in the same expression.

Translation: Mgr. Ľubica Križanová

Prof. Ing. arch. Janka Krivošová, PhD.