History of the house and the association

The house at Kapitulská 1 (national cultural monument no. 11423/0) – originally a canon's house – stands in the city's monument reserve, in the oldest part of Bratislava's historic core, in its north-western section. It lies between the eastern slope of the castle hill and a 12th-century settlement that arose even before the city walls were built. Kapitulská Street may have been partly the axis of this settlement, as confirmed by finds of monumental stone architecture – the one- and two-storey houses built on Kapitulská Street in this period.

Even at that time most of the local population were clergy – priests, provosts and canons – which is why this part was called Platea presbyterorum, or Pfaffengasse. The house at Kapitulská 1 (then Kapitulská 30) was a canonical benefice. On its eastern side the house borders the former convent of the Poor Clares; on its western side a tall street wall separates it from Kapitulská Street. The house itself faces the garden, following a west–east axis.

Type of building

Today the building is a single-wing, cellared house with two above-ground floors. It is a simple block structure with a projecting bay (risalit) set into the courtyard roughly in the middle of the southern façade. The house grew by the gradual accretion of masses in two directions – eastward towards the convent of the Poor Clares and westward towards Kapitulská Street. It has a shed roof.

Stylistically the building brings together elements of the Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque and Classicist periods. In its present form it represents the sum of its own structural development in an architecturally unified expression, preserving stylistic details from its origins to the present day. The cellars show Gothic elements, the ground-floor interior is predominantly Renaissance–Baroque, and the upper floor is Classicist.

The building has seven vaulted cellars on two height levels; the vertical walls of the cellars are built of mixed masonry, predominantly stone, and the barrel vaults are of brick – except for the oldest space, which has a stone vault. The first above-ground floor consists of seven rooms in a row plus the spaces in the bay. Five of the rooms are set about 1 m below the level of the courtyard (garden), while the remaining two have floors level with the terrain of Kapitulská Street and the garden. The ground-floor rooms are covered with cross and barrel vaults with lunettes. Their windows face south, towards the house's garden. The interior of the second above-ground floor consists of nine rooms. These rooms, which until recently formed two apartment units, also have their windows – with the exception of the westernmost room – facing the garden, that is, southward. The street façade is treated simply, without decorative articulation. The gable wall follows the shape of the shed roof, and towards the south the façade of the house joins directly the wall enclosing the plot. The courtyard façade is likewise simple, articulated only by the south-facing bay in the middle of the wing.

The cellars of the house

Values

From a historical and architectural point of view the building contains a number of valuable stone, wooden, plaster and painted details and features – a Gothic cellar portal from the 14th century, two Gothic window jambs probably from the 15th century, vault ribs from the 16th and 17th centuries, a Baroque cellar portal from the courtyard from the 18th century, a Baroque sill cornice, a courtyard portal from the 19th century, a door from the late 19th century, painted decoration from the late 18th and early 19th centuries, window fittings with shutters from the late 19th century, and others.

Forms of the house

The original medieval, partly sunken house

The oldest part of the building (from the late 13th century) is a medieval, partly sunken pit-house with a projection, placed inside the plot off the street axis (today the cellar space beneath the central bay). It was built of irregular stone masonry. In the 14th century a barrel vault replaced the house's beamed ceiling and a stone portal was added in the southern wall. The newly created high vaulted room probably served as a wine cellar. The 15th–16th-century stage is characterised by an extension to the cellar and a two-storey superstructure. The building acquired the character of a fully cellared, two-storey, three-space block, which absorbed the original sunken house into its mass. The above-ground floors were built of irregular stone material, only slightly combined with brick. In the central section there was probably a smoke kitchen. The ground level was then about 1 m lower than it is today. In the 16th century the bay was added to the building; in the 17th century the building was extended westward to the present street line. The ground floor of the extension was lit by a window onto the courtyard and probably also by two windows onto the street (today walled up). The rooms were vaulted. The boundary wall between the plot and the street was also built. The eastern cellared two-storey extension, which connected the building with the convent building of the Poor Clares, was added in the second half of the 17th century. It also included four cellar spaces. The extension had only one room with a utility function on the ground floor, and its upper floor likewise comprised only one space. The 18th century brought only minor alterations – vaulting of the ground floor in the bay, the insertion of a new portal in the ground-floor room of the eastern Baroque extension, and the building of a brick staircase to the cellars. The Classicist and Historicist period (late 18th century – second half of the 19th century) no longer brought any fundamental structural changes. The ground- and upper-floor spaces were divided by partitions, windows and doors were enlarged, ceiling heights were unified, decorative paintings were added, and the roof truss and roofing were replaced. The ridge of the shed roof was raised by about 60 cm and a staircase to the attic was built along the convent. Wooden shingles were used as roofing. In the 20th century the building underwent utilitarian alterations – replacement of floors, ceilings and window fittings and the creation of technical infrastructure (gas, electricity and heating). Over the past 100 years the building has been re-rendered several times; during these renovations historic plaster was removed over large areas.

Surroundings of the house

The first archival mention of Kapitulská Street, on which the house stands, dates to 1249. According to Ladislav Šáško it may have arisen around the original suburb below the castle as early as the first quarter of the 13th century. After the town was founded at the end of the 13th century, the street came to lie within the area fortified by the city walls. The street originally recorded 14 members of the chapter, a number that gradually decreased. The neighbouring houses (north and south) of the so-called Albrecht House belonged to the town (Domus Civitatis) and to the convent of the Poor Clares (Domus Virginum s. Clarae) respectively. In 1515 and 1590 great fires swept the whole of Kapitulská Street and most of the houses burned down. The canonry at Kapitulská 1 is mentioned in connection with the construction of the Poor Clares' convent in 1634, in relation to the terms and agreements concerning the future neighbourhood of the buildings.

Residents of the house and records on maps

Canonical houses enjoyed the privileges of free curiae and the right of asylum, the right to sell their own wine, and exemption from taxes. For this reason the town's tax registers record them only for evidence purposes, and data about the house's residents are missing. The house is listed as Domus Capitularis, meaning it was owned by the chapter. From the visitation of Péter Pázmány in 1626 we know the names of the chapter dignitaries, but their residences are not assigned to them. Nor do the maps of Bratislava of 1765 (the so-called Marquart plan), 1780, or the architectural plans of architect Tallherr from 1783 for the conversion of the Poor Clares' convent for the law academy provide more information about the building. The outline of the building's footprint appears only on the plan of Bratislava of 1820, the so-called Neyder plan, and later on the plan of 1894.

The Marquart plan of Bratislava

The Neyder plan of Bratislava (detail)

(Based on the architectural-historical survey by Mgr. Eva Sabadošová, 2004)