Our gallery was designed in 1990 by the brothers Tomas and Edmund Hoke, a sculptor and an architect. The philosophy of our gallery connects to the tradition of an era, when each shop was created carefully as a kind of "Gesamtkunstwerk", a piece of art of its own. The gallery can be regarded as a unique work, expressing the creative energy of both the architect and the sculptor. With its flexibility, the gallery presents itself to varied experiences of space and design, leaving room and inspiration for the jewellery objects and exhibitons designed by the artists themselves.

Photo: Gerald Zugmann

Tomas Hoke September 1999 Ten years after having designed the three-dimensional space of Gallery Slavik, the question arises whether the multi-functional concept - which at the time was conceived as a model synthesis of the arts down to the last detail - still constitutes an adequate format for exhibitions. In the meantime, the place has evolved into an exclusive gallery for art jewellery, and the range of options for which the gallery had originally been designed was never fully exploited - for reasons that become obvious in the light of the development of contemporary jewellery art during the past decade: Avant-garde and experimental art are featuring less and less in exhibitions. I am not certain whether this is a symptom of our times or due to the gallery’s specific concept; for my part, I have always perceived jewellery as something relating to the human body, and have never quite understood why it should become a mere objet d’art. Miniature sculptures carried on the body have never been quite to my liking - however, exploring the functional relationship between body and mind and its many expressions is an approach I still consider worth pursuing.		Tomas Hoke Tomas Hoke created together with his brother, the architect Edmund Hoke the interior design of the gallery. You find his curriculum vitae in the chapter "artists".
Photo: Gerald Zugmann This objective had to be accommodated in the conception of the gallery’s premises, as did the trend of international art jewellery back to classical solidity and distinction, which had already become clearly perceptible. Therefore I felt I could not rely on the power and magic of art jewellery alone, but was convinced that the presentation area had to be designed with a more comprehensive perspective in mind. Even though the mobility implied in the design has not been fully exploited, it is just this mobility aspect of the premises which, by lending an additional dimension to things static, has contributed substantially to the image of the gallery. Any new furniture or equipment must be carefully selected to take into account the sensitive balance between fittings and exhibits: The gallery room is a functionally integrated extension of the body, a place to contain and to exhibit - the constructional backdrop shedding light on a physical potential. Hence, the gallery has become a symbiotic system defying the interference of extraneous elements.

Edmund Hoke Concerning the architecture of the Gallery Slavik, Himmelpfortgasse 17, Vienna 1 The objective was to create - in a building under preservation order in Vienna’s first district - a space that could serve equally well for the purposes of a gallery of contemporary art jewellery, design objects and selected antiques, and as an exhibition room for any type of object or picture. While the gallery had to accommodate all these differing requirements, it had to have its own unique character. Originally, the site consisted of three rooms of varying sizes with either cap vaulted or tunnel vaulted ceilings; the rooms were accessible through openings of different sizes.		Edmund Hoke
The rooms were linked by introducing large fixed elements - two long rectangular wall plates in steel frames and a steel bar across the ceiling. These elements, the principal components of the gallery’s mobile structure, have a number of functions. The steel bar, which dominates the ensemble as its longest element, projects through the door into the street and supports a seemingly freely suspended rotating bronze disc at its tip. In the room facing the street, sliding and swivelling glass showcases are suspended from this bar, which also bears freely adjustable lighting installations. Originally, the bar had been designed to support the cup and tunnel vaults of the two backrooms at their intersection, but this concept could not be executed due to the mandate to preserve the building’s original appearance and structures. The bar is slightly curved to reflect the structure of the old building and continues as an imaginary curve in a mirror. Like a backbone of the gallery, it extends from the street all the way to the "wonder room” in the back of the gallery, an area with a small blue tunnel vault, glittering "bronze planets”, a black granite floor, and mirrors that give additional depth to the room. The large wall frames to the left and right "rectify” the irregular old walls and, through re-dimensioned openings in the walls, extend over the entire length of the gallery to its very back. Suspended within these frames are variable sliding glass shelves and showcases. An adaptable lighting system based on tramway-type overhead electrification permits perfect illumination of the exhibits regardless of how they are displayed. If exhibitions are to be staged in the part of the gallery facing the street, the shelves and showcases can temporarily be moved to the back of the gallery along the bar and the wall frames. None of these installations touches the floor, not even the draw-out showtable which, fixed on a steel bracket, connects the gallery’s front room with the room in the back. New, tall and narrow openings, among them the glass door to the patio, form a contrast to the old low passages and the pronounced profiles of the façade openings. Viewed from outside, the two openings in the façade appear as formally closed cubicles (through the effect of mirrors) delimited by inclined glass walls - the depth of the entrance forming a porch area with an illuminated exterior showcase. All mechanical parts made of steel or bronze were developed to fulfil specific functions - their purity and beauty of form convey the pleasure derived from their functionality. Architekt Dipl. Ing. Edmund Hoke 1958 geboren in Klagenfurt 1982-1987 freier Mitarbeiter bei Arch. Hans Hollein, Sepp Frank, Günter Behnisch 1987-1990 Mitglied der Gruppe ARTEC-WIEN 1990-1999 Projekte und Wettbewerbe in Österreich und in der BRD, lebt und arbeitet in Österreich und in der BRD 1990 Projekt Galerie Slavik, Wien 1994 Zusammenarbeit mit der Firma Griffner Haus

• Tomas Hoke: "Werkbericht". Published for the 190. Wechselausstellung der Österreichischen Galerie im Belvedere. Wien 1995 (Hsg. Gerbert Frodl)
• "Wien. Ein Führer zur zeitgenössischen Architektur". Könemann Verlagsgesellschaft mbH. Köln 1996