Aspects of “the thaw” in the Slovak mountains: cableways and their station buildings in the 1960s
Aspects of “the thaw” in the Slovak mountains: cableways and their station buildings in the 1960s

Summary/Abstract: By the early 1970s, a process set in motion between 1963 and 1967 had reached its culmination: the creation of the first integrated series of chairlifts and gondola lifts in the Slovak mountains. The resulting network of cableways stands as a tangible expression of what we now call the “thaw” – an era whose ambitions took shape even amid the rigours of the mountain environment. A defining feature of these cableways was their ground-based station buildings. Over time, a series of distinctive structures emerged – rare in the mountains until then – each advancing on the last through original design. Most were conceived in a late modern architectural style that complemented the contemporary technological component of the cableways. That technology was developed on the drawing boards of the country’s sole manufacturer of cableways and ski tows, Transporta, a company from the Czech town of Chrudim. The series of cableways conceived in the 1960s was never surpassed in scale during the socialist era in Slovakia. The accompanying development of station buildings likewise had no precedent in earlier decades and was not repeated later. The 1960s were therefore, overall, an exceptionally productive period for Slovak cableways. Yet closer study of contemporary sources reveals that this progress unfolded under difÏcult conditions. The paradox of an era that, after a long hiatus, set out to promote tourism and, with it, cable transport, lay in the gradual decline of cableway production at Transporta. Within a relatively short time, a chapter was both written and closed – one that, through cableways and their distinctive station buildings, laid the foundations for the future development of ski and mountain resorts. The next stage was marked by different technology and the absence of station buildings, which in Slovakia remain linked primarily with the years immediately before and after the Prague Spring.

• Details
• Contents