Dušan Jurkovič

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Dušan Jurkovič (1868-1947) was a Slovak architect, ethnographer and artist. One of the best-known promoters of Slovak art in 20th century Czechoslovakia, he is remembered mostly due to his projects of numerous World War I cemeteries in Galicia.

Jurkovič was born August 23, 1886 in Turá Lúka, to two local folk artists. He graduated from a local school in Sopron and moved to Vienna, where between 1884 and 1889 he studied at the National School of Industry under Camillo Sitte. He briefly worked in Martin, where he became fascinated with folk carpenters and their works in wood. Then he moved to Vsetín, where he continued his studies at the atelier of Michal Urbanek. Together with his bureau he co-authored the buildings of the 1895 Slavic Fair in Prague. He also authored numerous other buildings in Bohemia.

In 1899 he moved to Brno, where he designed his own house and a new lodging house for the local school. During his stay in Brno he became friends with Jiří Mahen, Mrštík brothers and Josef Merhaut. Among his best-known designs realized in Brno was a villa in Žabovřeski, combining local folk art with the state-of-the-art modernist trends of Vienna. He also authored the design of the Society of Friends of Arts building, a distant cousin to Viennese Wiener Werkstätte and the geometric school. He also prepared a project of reconstruction of the castle in Nové Město nad Metují.

Mobilized by the Austro-Hungarian Army during the World War I, he became one of the most notable members of the War Graves Unit. He authored approximately 35 war cemeteries near Żmigród in Galicia, most of them heavily influenced by local Lemko folk art and carpentry. After the war he returned to newly-founded Czechoslovakia and settled in Bratislava. Among the best known of his later works is the tombs of Jozef Miloslav Hurban and Milan Rastislav Štefánik, monument to Slovak National Uprising, and the cable car station at Lomnický štít. He died December 21, 1947.