A well-known building for the people of Košice, the Kosmalt dormitory, was built for the workers of the nearby Košice ironworks. Its goal was to accommodate up to a thousand people in the shortest possible time, but it became a dominant feature of the city due to its massive form. It functioned for years without renewal, it became an ignored remnant of purposeful socialist construction. Instead of being torn down, however, it is a dwelling that has taken the best from the unpopular architecture of the 60s – materials and simplicity.
The building of the dormitory was a sign of the growing industrial development of Košice, which corresponds to its name after the type of enameled steel typical of the Košice steelworks. Although it was created primarily for the workers of Východoslovenské železirání, now USSteel Košice, it also housed employees of other factories and students. For decades it served unchanged as an accommodation facility, people lived in it without much attention to its wear and tear. That changed with the buyout of the investor Intrade, who, according to the proposal of the local studio Atrium Architekti, came up with a plan to transform it into modern housing.
The building as such is downright practical, it has the usual long corridors and from them the entrances to the units – it resembles the projects of most boarding schools. Tall for its time, the 13th floor building provided 507 rooms for 1,200 people of the region’s largest employer, and this floor plan managed to achieve that. It was designed by architects Ladislav Grečo and Róberta Kandrík.
Photo: Matej Hakár
kosmalt matej hakar The dormitory for the Košice steel mills is now rented housing.
The architecture of the hostel was appreciated years later
However, what is interesting about Kosmalt are the loggias. Basically, they created a distinctive building facade by accident. The strictly geometric grid was created by placing prefabricated concrete panels and became a characteristic of the Terasy district, while also fitting into contemporary architecture.
“Basically, we did not add anything new to it, on the contrary. The existing railings were replaced with new ones with respect for the original design and at the same time adapted to current requirements. We conceived the entire principle of reconstruction almost as a restoration of a cultural monument, which is a relatively unusual approach, given the fact that it is a panel building,” explained the architects.
Not only because of its timeless appearance, but also because of the quality materials used during the previous regime, the architects decided to preserve the building as much as possible. It’s about the block of flats knownthat the reconstruction extends their lifespan for more than a century. One of the steps that the new owners of apartment buildings took to protect the buildings after the revolution was insulation.
But this brought prefab houses of wild colors and patterns without regulation. Atrium Architekti wanted to avoid this and returned to the original, clean facade during the design without adapting to the surrounding apartment buildings.
“The reconstruction of the Kosmalt building sensitively emphasized and preserved the original architectural elements, thereby rediscovering the beauty of materials such as marble, terrazzo, travertine, concrete and steel. The years were hidden under the layers of time,” the authors of the reconstruction said, adding that the building as such has experienced layers of modifications during its existence.
In terms of materials and colors, the authors of the renovation deliberately returned to the 60s of the last century, to the original state of the dormitory. “We uncovered concrete walls to an extent that is quite exceptional today – in the interior of residential units, corridors, common areas. Everything was plastered and we scraped it onto the concrete,” explained Atrium Architekti, who are behind, for example, the project of rental apartments in Košice or the proposal for the unrealized extension of the government office.
However, they had to change the layout so that apartments could be created in it, but even here the architects stuck to the original floor plan, only making it more practical for contemporary living. Each room has the same size, 21 square meters.
The contrast between concrete walls and steel structures remained the basis of the interior spaces – they are painted in pastel colors, which helps to better navigate the building. At the same time, it was possible to save the characteristic steel mezzanine with a new use – it serves as a reading room and social space for residents. Its exterior and interior were designed by the architect Jana Varchola Buráková.
The hostel thus retained its original function. The transformation of buildings that were already residential in the past is more than necessary in Slovakia. It is even one of the options that experts recommend as part of increasing the number of affordable real estate, but also rental housing, as Kosmalt has become.
Renovating an existing building is cheaper than building a completely new one, so lower costs translate into cheaper apartments. Košice is a district town where apartment prices already reach those of Bratislava real estate.
At the same time, the view of socialist buildings is changing, since they make up the majority of the country’s housing stock, but their renovation or conversion into apartments is postponed and the potential is usually overlooked. Today, the rescue of the socialist brothel with strictly separated male and female sections offers a dignified form of cheaper housing.
“The first step is to replace the elevators and facades of the block of flats, to add functions to them with superstructures and spaces such as loggias and the like, so that they can be used more. It is also important to hold architectural competitions for this, so that several solutions can be compared and done as high-quality as possible and not only beautifully,” concluded Martin Zaiček, an architect dedicated to the restoration of 20th-century buildings. In his opinion, we have a number of buildings, the restoration of which would bring cheaper housing.
