City
In our context, extraordinarily active historical structure of Sládkovičovo tells us about three main stages of its development.
First stage, as a center of one of the estates of The Order of Saint Clare (late 14th to late 18th century), is represented by the first manor house and a church. The first stage is also related to torso of a former public house and water mill which is still standing today.
In the late 17th century, the spiritual life and secular administration of the town and nearby region was focused in the area located in the northeast part of the town. It was bounded by the provincial road leading to town of Šintava in the north, by the Sugar factory street in the south and by the river Dudváh in the east.
The importance in the historical development is reflected by the fact that the earlier situation still remains legible.
Manor house is located on the north border of the area and it connects town industrial complex. It obtained its current appearance after reconstruction works carried out in 1885 and 1919–1921. First reconstruction was directed by Viennese architect Franz von Neumann, who turned it from neo-baroque mansion with neo-renaissance basics to a beautiful eclectic residence.
In the west of the manor, following the edge of the land there is the subject of former stables. East of the main manor building there is a house for servants. The English Park, which is spread around a manor house, was founded in 1885, in the area of the former farm and utility gardens. Today, the utility function of the area is pointed out only by the two-level granary. In the southeastern extension of the park, there was built neoclassical family mausoleum designed by one of the doyens of Slovak architecture, Michal Milan Harminc. One of the original buildings in the park is the bowling alley.
Southwest of the castle there is an area that occurred in the first half of the 17th century around early-baroque single-nave church with a massive western tower. This is the only part of the earlier building that maintained after construction of a new temple in the second stage of the history of the village. Administration of estates after the abolition of The Order of Saint Clare in 1782 was taken by Catholic Church. The funds of the Catholic Church were used for construction of the present Church of the Assumption of Virgin Mary. Possibly at this period „old“ parsonage could have been built. In front of the parsonage there is the sculpture of the Holy Trinity.
Perhaps the most substantial impulse for the growth of the town was when the sugar factory was placed in town. The presence of industrial complex and its co-owner and director in one person were also significant to the architecture of the area. In the complex of the sugar factory, as well as the historical center of the village, there were new buildings built and brought new quality in the environment. In the 1950s the image of the town was not only enriched by the eclectic baronial residence but also by new building of kindergarten (1906) and Catholic elementary school (1909) in the historical expression. Its surrounding environment of elementary school was completed with additional monumental memorial to the fallen in the First World War, in 1938.
Development of the local Jewish Community was directly linked to the beginnings of sugar factory. Synagogue in the former German Diószegh served to religious rite communities. There was also the Israelite School. Piety place of Jewish people from the wider surroundings, not only from town, was situated in north of the city, outside the occupied territories.
In years between the world wars buildings of the municipal office, local consumer cooperative, post office, police station, fire station, the so-called Jubilee school or medical center „Green Cross“, were added in the center. Although added objects brought „urban element“ to the center, they still respected the original, historical concept of the town. At the present sugar factory and buildings related to it helped to create a specific character of the town Sládkovičovo.
Peter Buday
