Panellasman expert: They are more durable than new buildings, bad image is also due to communists
Nobody regulates the new facades, criticizes.
There are approximately every third Slovak. Panels began to be built in the 1950s, the last one in Michalovce is waiting for completion. They are accompanied by many myths, not all are the same.
Marian Lipták He talks about fascination prefabs, considering the examination of individual types as a lifelong detective. According to him, the world of prefabs is much more interesting when you know their direct predecessors, blind developmental paths and interesting atypes.
The interest in his lecture in Košice cinema Smile entitled Development of Panel Houses in Czechoslovakia was greater than the capacity of the hall. Panel -panel enthusiast from the Czech Republic publishes details of the research of half -century construction on the web Panelaky.info. Instead of gray, he sees urban quality and beauty.
In an interview for Corsair, he criticizes the uncontrolled color, which arises after the insulation. « Today’s architecture of housing estates is a folk architecture that is created in the coaching rooms at the meeting of the owners who agree what color they like, and the results are meaningless kitsch. »
If we live in a block of flats, do we live worse than other people in the city?
Not. The prefabs first took part as something worse because they were built on a green meadow, without equipment, there were no sidewalks. Kindergartens and schools stood up mostly later than apartments, so it might seem that it was something worse. But today the housing estates have complete equipment, there is greenery and the whole infrastructure. There is twenty meters in the center of the city, in the housing estate it is 40 – 50.
When did they start building?
Since the 50s due to the population explosion and the Great Housing Crisis after World War II, when a large part of the housing stock was destroyed or damaged and people needed to live somewhere. Therefore, not only prefabs were invented, at that time it was experimented and invented various procedures to speed up the construction and cheaper it. These were the main requirements: fast and cheap. Thanks to the block of flats, the construction accelerated, but it was not cheaper.
In the interview you read:
- Why started building prefabs and what the prototype looked like,
- What were the benefits of folding panels,
- what have changed in the approach to housing,
- What ailments are associated with prefabs,
- where they were built,
- which made their look in Košice.
Today we look at them as a cheap version of housing, while at the time of its establishment their construction was surprisingly expensive. Why?
Yes, it was expensive because it had to face a panel plant with machinery before building prefabs. There the panels produced, dried and stored and took the trucks ideally for the construction. But there were also an intermediate part, for example, somewhere in the housing estate, because logistics could not be managed completely and all panel transport was very expensive. From 20 kilometers from the panel, it was expensive and it was often carried hundreds of kilometers. For example, when it was not prosecuted in Prague, they drove from Ostrava. Košice prefabs are again in Uzhhorod.
Fabrics that produced panels were created all over the country?
They were called Prefa and were in every region. Even within one region, however, the panels were long and logistics increased the whole process. The purpose of the panel was that the panels were to be produced under the roof under any climatic conditions, which actually limited the seasonality of classical construction, where it could not be built in winter. It did not matter more or less with prefabs. Everything came as a puzzle.
They built fast, but it was not cheap. (source: respondent archive)Was the prefabs a revolution in housing when they suddenly offered people a whole new concept they hadn’t known before?
Panels were a huge jump in the quality of living.
For the better?
Of course. In the 1950s it was still not the standard that people had their own bathroom, hot water, toilet in the apartment. The old Polish houses had all this on the gallery, a shared bathroom or just cold water. The prefabs brought that each apartment has its own home core, today cursed, then a revolutionary thing. By inventing the folded home cores above each other, they could do every bathroom with warm water. Today’s complete foundation, but then it was a revolution. And it was a new standard in every apartment, from studio to four -room.
What is the future of prefabs in Slovakia? Will survive the year 2100 Read
At the lecture you said that there was floor heating in the first prefabs. After all, it is a modern technology that is used in houses today. Why did it retreat?
It was at the first G40 block of flats, it was actually the very first serial block of flats, which was built in our country. It was an experimental building, a new way was sought, and someone thought it could combine pleasant with useful. This means the reinforcement that is needed on the ceiling panels has been solved by heating pipes. This fulfilled the function of the reinforcement, but at the same time it could also fulfill the heating function, which did not have to fit radiators and vertical wiring. And underfloor heating needs less energy to heat the apartment to the same temperature.
Then, however, a disadvantage showed in practice. Being part of the load -bearing structure, adjustments were not possible. In the pipe error, the ceiling had to be destroyed, so the accident heating was canceled and replaced by standard. It was an experimental blind branch.
Today we often look at prefabs with respect. How do you explain them not the best image?
People like to repeat after each other, and I have heard in my childhood that the prefabs are all the same, they last thirty years, they should slowly start to fall. It is still repeated that they are small apartments, we can see the neighbor’s window. But this is not true. Many people do not have a comparison with another type of construction.
The apartment building layout of the apartments is more successful than in today’s development buildings, because there they try not to look like a block of flats by having different shaped facades, rooms are not always rectangular, unusable rooms are created.
Panels are not bad at all. On the contrary, top architects thought about the layout and invented what was the best in the then possibilities.
They have a bad reputation because they are associated with communism. That they are a communist experience. That the Communists demolished the old houses and built housing estates instead. However, this is not a justified remorse. When we compare the noise in a block of flats with new building And the family house is similar. It depends on the neighbors, in the house again can be hindered by dogs, cock, mower, circular.
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