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Paper short abstract

The narratives of the residents of a particular functionalist apartment house in Bratislava reveal how urban nature—trees, scents, light, and courtyards—coexists with concrete, nurturing sensory attachments, a sense of belonging, and the collective identity of its inhabitants across generations.

Paper long abstract

The Avion apartment house, built in 1931 in Bratislava’s Blumenthal (Flower valley) district, represents more than a functionalist icon of interwar modernism. It embodies an interweaving of urban nature, memory, and a sense of belonging across generations of its residents. Their narratives and stories reveal how sensory encounters with the surrounding natural environment have shaped their everyday lives in the house. Trees in courtyards, seasonal scents drifting through open windows, the play of sunlight across façades, or the presence of small, cultivated gardens on rooftops and park spaces nearby create affective anchors of home. Even in times when these natural elements were diminished—through wartime devastation, socialist urban planning, or the noise of a nearby bus station—residents’ narratives return to memories of greenery, seasonal rhythms, and sensory connections with the environment.

Nature thus emerges as a constitutive element of belonging: memories of children playing in courtyards, “cvrkot” – buzzing of nature observed from windows, or blossoms in adjacent streets are inseparable from narratives of urban life in the house. These recollections show how natural presences coexist with the concrete, glass, and steel of the functionalist project of Avion, producing layered attachments to place. They also reveal tensions, as noise and pollution disrupt sensory ties, yet reinforce desires for restoration and continuity.

By situating the research within broader debates on urban ethnology and memory, this paper argues that nature in the city is an active participant in shaping emotional geographies, collective memory, and enduring senses of home in urban environments.