Slovak National Gallery
Slovakia's national art collection, in a Baroque barracks joined to a bold modernist bridge wing.
The Slovak National Gallery was established by law in 1948 as the country's central art institution and opened to the public on the Danube embankment in Bratislava. Its home combines the eighteenth-century Water Barracks, an arcaded Baroque quadrangle, with the neighbouring Esterházy Palace. The collections span Gothic panel painting and sculpture, Central European Baroque, nineteenth-century and modern Slovak art, photography, architecture and design, together with a large holding of prints and drawings.
Between 1969 and 1977 the architect Vladimír Dedeček replaced the barracks' riverside wing with a suspended concrete bridge structure known as the Premostenie, one of the most debated works of Slovak late modernism. The complex closed for a long reconstruction and reopened in 2022 after work led by the practice BKPŠ, which restored the Baroque courtyard, added a new administrative building and reordered the entrance, galleries, library and study rooms.
Highlights
- Gothic altarpieces and sculpture from medieval Upper Hungary
- Dedeček's Premostenie, a suspended concrete bridge gallery
- Baroque Water Barracks courtyard beside the Danube
- Collections of Slovak modern art, design and photography
