First published: 12/03/20.

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Kosice

Kosice (On tentative list)

Kosice by Els Slots

This is very poor TWHS on the Slovak list. It is quite clear that the trick with the lenticular shape of the historical Košice is just a substitute to the fromer unsuccessful proposal of St. Elizabeth Cathedral as the eastermost gothic cathedral in Europe. Well, similar tricks worked somehow in the case of Augsburg, and also Bologna is promising candidate for that. But I cannot imagine that it would work for Košice...

The city of Košice is very nice as already described by others, but the claim that it is outstanding and unique because of its lenticular shape is not very convincing. Even in the eastern part of Slovakia, I visited many histrorical towns of diverse sizes with very similar shape to Košice such as Prešov, Sabinov, Hniezdne, Podolínec, Kežmarok (merge of two perpendicular lentils), Spišská Sobota, Poprad, Spišská Nová Ves, etc... From this list, I liked the most historical core of Prešov, which is more relaxed than busy Košice. To name at least some historical towns with this shape that are already on the list: Speyer has very prolonged shape, and also Litomyšl and Telč, where we can see interesting bifurcation on one end, are examples of this concept. Besides that, there is a plethora of ancient towns and villages with just one street in their center in Italy, France, and western countries, shape of which was not certainly derived from Košice probably the opposite is true.

Thus, it is not true that towns of the lenticular shape are speciality only of eastern Slovakia.

Furthermore, the lenticular and prolonged shapes are typical for smaller towns and villages founded in older romanesque period. In contrast, the chessboard-like shape of towns is typical feature of progress in the town-planning that emerged in 12-13t centuries in the central Europe, that eventually beaten the old concept of a lentil. Thus, I cannot see any OUV in using the old seized concept of lenticular shape for the gothic foundation of the city of Košice.

 

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