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History of the building
Medieval Bratislava had no structures erected in this part of the town. Vineyards owned by town-dwellers and Church institutions covered the area from today´s Námestie slobody up to the Carpathian hillsides. The only break in the otherwise uninterrupted belt of vineyards was represented by the merchant road toward Moravia and Prague, leaving the city in the extended axis of Štefánikova ulica. However, when in the 16th century Bratislava became the capital of the kingdom in the course of military encounters along front line with the Turks, several institutions and offices were moved into the city. The king gave his consent to ownership of property in and around the city, starting an expansion of building activities by the aristocracy early in the 17th century and in the following decades. Noblemen purchased the vineyards along the town perimeter, and converted them into decorative gardens in contemporary Italian and French fashion. Soon a sprinkling of suburban mansions started to appear in the gardens; the wealthiest magnates built substantial garden palaces, complete with economic hinterlands.
The area delimited by the streets Štefánikova, Leškova, Spojná and with the square of Námestie slobody was purchased early in the 17th century by Francis Forgách, Archbishop of Esztergom, who converted it into a decorative garden with an orchard. Around 1614 the Archbishop established a summer site, probably in the form of a two-level rectangular house with its outer wall parallel to the garden boundary with the open field of Námestie slobody.
George Lippay, Archbishop of Esztergom between 1642 and 1666 ordered a magnificent reconstruction of both the garden and the summer site. The resulting palace can still be seen, in sufficient likeness, in an early 18th century engraving. The three-block, two-levelled building had C-shaped floor plan, with the central part extended toward the sides. The space between the side blocks, oriented to the square, created the so-called court d´honneur, a yard designed to greet distinguished guests arriving to the palace. At that time, courts d´honneur were usually decoratively landscaped in French fashion and separated from the street by massive metal grills. A grilled gate, opening into a centrally situated underpass in the longer axis of the building represented the main entrance to the property. The original engraving shows the central underpass with buttresses, axially continuing with the main pathway in the garden of the Lippay palace. It also shows a turreted chapel of the complex at its southern end. To the north from the central buttress, columns supporting semicircular archivaults created a single-storied arcade on the ground floor. The first floor above the arcade had simple rectangular windows with wooden shutters. According to traditional design of the spatial layout, the ground floor was reserved for utility purposes and housing of senior domestic personnel. The representative rooms were concentrated in the main wing of the first floor, with the bedrooms of the Archbishop and of his guests situated in the side wings. By prevailing custom, the complete first floor in a block of similar structures used to be reserved for the owner enabling him to work and relax in private, and to retire for the night; in this case these functions were probably fulfilled by the southern wing due to vicinity of the chapel. The first floor of the northern block was obviously designed to accommodate guests. The mansard was neither habitable nor used for storage. All economic functions, including the housing premises of domestics and laborers were located in buildings outside of the palace.
The next major reconstruction of the palace took place under Archbishop Barkóczy, between 1761 and 1765. With the exterior of the palace still retaining its dynamic baroque style, the interior components were converted to the modern spirit of the rococo. The basic Lippay spatial arrangement remained in place, but it was supplemented with another floor and with a massive pavilion centrally in the main block; the silhouette of its mansard considerably extended above the adjoining levels. However, the side blocks remained unaffected by the Barkóczy reconstruction, except for the addition of the second-floor superstructure; they also retained the original 17th century windows with outside lining, as well as the gateway. The architect emphasized the central wing by adding the pavilion and accentuating it with high pilasters, tympanum and arched portico supporting an upper terrace. The portico addition also changed the organization of entry; while equipages accessed the palace through the gateway in the old design, visitors of the new palace disembarked under the portico, continuing into the vestibule and ascended on the wide single-flight stairway toward the first-floor salons and private chambers. The changed lifestyle of the baroque aristocracy toward renaissance custom is best visible in the architectonic shaping of facades, both at the courtyard and street sides of the structures. While the old Lippay palace placed emphasis on the inner, garden-oriented facade (arcades, balcony), the monumental baroque palace of Barkóczy faced the public square, demonstrating the wealth and power of the owner. For the same reason the courtyard arcades were walled in, and the arcade in the main wing opened into the square; the pattern of blind arcades continued in the first and second floor walls. The dynamic baroque influence remained on display in the moldings above the windows and in the corrugated fence line of the court d´honneur. The architect supplemented the central pavilion at the garden side with a monumental terrace, entered through two curving stairways and supported with archivaults assisted by powerful atlantes. Tapestry and wooden panels in line with the rococo spirit covered the interior walls, including all windows and doors. The original 17th century mural paintings in the chapel were retained, but the altar architecture created by Donner school artists represented a new element in the dynamic baroque style.
After the Barkóczy reconstruction the palace remained more than a century without virtually any constructional or functional change. Toward the end of the 19th century the Archbishopric of Esztergom sold the site to the military, which converted it into a military hospital. This helped to preserve the exterior as well as interior architecture, since the army never had enough money for a reconstruction, except for minor changes in the spatial arrangement. Dismantling the garden stairway with the atlantes, which were moved to the nearby Kittsee manor in Austria represented the only substantial change. Thereafter, military functions of the palace prevailed until the beginning of the 20th century forties, when the state of Slovakia decided to convert the site into the Ministry of Foreign Affairs residence. Obviously, this decision evolved from its close vicinity to the Grassalkovich palace, established as the presidential site at the promulgation of the new state.
Architect Belluš designed the conversion in 1940 - 1941. Demolition drawings are still available in the archives, showing the structures denoted for elimination including all ancillary buildings to the south and north from the main entrance. The side blocks of the palace were pulled down, leaving only standing the original baroque main wing with the pavilion. Both the northern and the southern wings were replaced with new ones, the first designed mainly for housing purposes including a ground floor flat for the site administrator, and service apartments on the first and second floors. The new southern wing was established to serve administrative functions in correspondence with its three-block spatial arrangement, featuring a centrally located corridor with offices at both sides.
The original ashlar pavement in the corridors and entry hall was replaced with travertine tiles. The same material, combined with dark gray marble was used for the lining of the staircase. The main staircase in the entry hall, considered inadequate to serve its new representative purposes was replaced with two flights of stairs, with travertine banisters and a balustrade. Practically nothing remained of the original interior outfitting and decorations, except for the chapel and a few fragments of the mirror hall. Since Belluš found that the original elements were devastated by prolonged use, he decided to replace them mostly with replicas of the original rococo artifacts in the entry and representative areas, proceeding sensitively out of deference to the remnants of the interior design. He applied this approach not only to the furnishings and plinth facing, but also to the plastering of walls and rural paintings. On the other hand, the rooms used for office work were furnished much more austerely - plain white doors, wooden strip flooring - and lacked any historicizing elements. Due to these replacements, the historical building of the palace presently contains no elements originating before 1942, except for a few artifacts.
Any changes made after World War 2 represented only minor modifications (mainly of furnishings and paintings), or repair of any damaged Belluš inventory, mostly of carpets, chandeliers and office furniture, which were continuously replaced as necessary. Somewhat more substantial modifications resulted from conversion of the old boiler room and storerooms into a duplicating office in the basement of the southern wing, and from refitting the Prime Minister´s first-floor chambers in the northern wing, facing the courtyard.
