Matúš Vallo is an architect, urban expert and the Mayor of Bratislava. He fell in love with architecture while studying in Rome as a teenager and is a graduate of the Faculty of Architecture at the Slovak Technical University, as well as other study programs around the world. Matúš is one of the founders of the City Interventions initiative, focused on creating small and creative concepts that have generated more than 900 projects to improve public spaces in twenty Slovak and Czech cities. Matúš began his term as the Mayor of Bratislava in December 2018.
Since 2016, Mayor Vallo had the privilege of working with a team of 70 devoted professionals from various fields, ranging from architecture, urban planning, culture, education, city management, citizen engagement to innovation, academia and entrepreneurship. They dedicated their energy and skills to create 12 topical working groups that united under one vision – to change Bratislava into a world-class city by building a great team of highly motivated experts eager to work for the public domain and share their expertise for the benefit of all the citizens. The book they have co-written is called Plan Bratislava and serves as a masterplan to develop the city.
Bratislava aims to provide transparent and open access to data generated in the city or by the city. Mayor Vallo and his team have put together a data policy and include a data clause in public procurement and other cooperation agreements. Bratislava has signed the Declaration of Digital Rights, to be able to learn and improve practices with digital access and services provided to citizens.
As an architect, Mayor Vallo recognizes the value of public spaces and the need to design them in a way that makes them safe, inviting and usable for all citizens. In 2019 a call for architectural proposals will be announced, marking the first of a series of design competitions aimed at transforming some of the neglected squares and neighbourhoods in the wider city centre into lively hubs of social interchange, accessible for all citizens. This call will be the culmination of a three-year long grassroots project that studied the design, dynamics and utilisation of the neighbourhood in question and proposed guidelines for its inclusive transformation. The project is under the umbrella of the newly established Metropolitan Institute that studies the urban space and development.