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Petržalka resonated in 1967, one could even say it resonated worldwide. An international competition was launched to design the area. 84 teams participated and among them was my father's team. As a result of the competition, my father's group placed among the top five groups from all over the world. You could say that the whole vision of their solution was built on completely new tendencies that deviated from or improved on the modernist viewpoint. It was a principle based on plant or biological qualities. It was about the city growing naturally, not being a housing estate, but being a natural structure that grows like a tree from a large trunk that forms a central axis and slowly the different layers branch out and the structure essentially grows into the landscape framework. The second interesting phenomenon was the phenomenon of water, which occurs naturally in Petržalka.

There are the rivers, Chorvátske Rameno, Pečenské Rameno, other water features that have been naturally incorporated into this environment and also the original structure of the town or village settlements have been incorporated and blended in with the newly proposed design. The results of the competition produced ground-breaking ideas. However, only some of them have been put into practice. This was due to various economic and political factors. Today, however, Petržalka still has the potential it has always had, and we have a chance to use it.

All his life, my father was concerned with the functioning of the city and especially with the question of what a city actually is. He came to the conclusion that a city behaves and is actually a living organism. A living organism that has its organs, its vascular system, its nervous system, its heart, its brain, and other parts that are essential to life. If we compare it to Petržalka, Petržalka is missing some of these main organs, and one of them is the heart, which should naturally be in the centre. It is the organ in the urban structure that provides its main functions: cultural, social, the function of the centre. This is what Petržalka does not have today, and this is precisely the theme that we are developing in this new Petržalka project. Bring back the centre to Petržalka and bring back its heart. If we combine the heart with greenery and water, we will get a full-fledged centre that will be really attractive for all its residents, as well as visitors. The new Petržalka project will be a centre, it will be a lively place to live in, have fun and relax in contact with nature. It should be the kind of centre that every European metropolis deserves.

Navrátiť alebo priniesť do Petržalky centrum a priniesť jej to srdce. Ak skĺbime srdce so zeleňou a vodou, dostaneme plnohodnotné centrum, ktoré bude naozaj atraktívne pre všetkých obyvateľov a nie len Petržalky ale Bratislavy, aj návštevníkov. Nový Petržalský projekt bude centrom, bude to živé miesto kde sa dobre býva, zabáva ale aj oddychuje v kontakte s prírodou. Malo by to byť také centrum, ktoré si zaslúži každá európska metropola.

We have been working on the project for the new centre of Petržalka for several years. It is a very interesting project for us because this part of Petržalka has huge potential. The potential is created by the natural environment of Chorvátske Rameno, the rich green vegetation that dominates the space and Chorvátske Rameno itself that borders and defines this space.

Our goal as architects is to create a quality public space that will serve not only the residents of a particular apartment building that will be built in this area, but also the whole neighbourhood. For the people who will walk through this space, who will actively use it. This space is therefore also composed with the aim of decreasing car traffic. The whole zone is designed with the aim of allowing as few vehicles into the area as possible. That is to say, it is explicitly based on the fact that there should be natural human movement, whether for tourists, locals, cyclists, or people who are travelling and passing through Petržalka. This area follows the natural curve of Chorvátske Rameno. We are working with bridges and shortcuts.

New Petržalka will be different from the Petržalka you know now, mainly because of its structure and materiality, which you will just want to experience first-hand. And it will be so harmonious that you won't feel that you have to shape it. The apartment buildings are conceived parametrically, from the inside out, with the end user in mind. A parametric approach from the inside out means that we as architects define certain parameters that shape that architecture, and then it manifests itself outwards and is so legible that the observer can perceive it from the outside.

Our ambition is to bring a rich and diverse product so that every client can choose exactly according to their wishes and so that they no longer have to interfere with the product in any way. In effect, this means that we bring different typological types. For example: loft flats or high-rise flats, but also smaller flats for young people so that everyone can naturally choose according to their own needs. I think that this diversity is the key to attracting people with different backgrounds and different life experiences to this environment, which in turn creates the potential for rich and diverse communities.