Koppel Villa, located on the boundary between the historical and modern parts of town, represents an imaginary boundary between historical and modern architectures. When Trnava started to expand beyond its fortification walls at the end of the 18th century, new residential and representative burgher residences started to be built up in gardens and in areas of filled-in water ditches. Included amongst these was a plot with a Classicistic house and a garden, recorded in the town plan by canonist, Štefan Nemečkaj, from 1865.The Koppel Villa has been connected with the family of Ignác Koppel since the beginning of the 20th century. He was a great landowner and a member of the Town Council, who had the original house rebuilt to its present neo-classicist form in 1910-1911. The business-oriented Koppel family came to Trnava in the second half of the 19th century. In 1862, Samuel Koppel bought the town brewery with an adjacent agricultural area, nowadays known as Káčerov majer. In the interwar years, Ignác Koppel became one of the biggest arable land owners and a significant producer of agricultural crops for the food industry in Trnava. With the forthcoming outbreak of World War II, the family emigrated abroad with the exception of Ignác, who remained in Trnava and became a holocaust victim as the only family member. The villa was used for various administrative purposes after World War II, and it was used as a nursery and kindergarten after 1962. After 1990 it became the permanent address of the Ján Koniarek Gallery, with its first exhibition ceremonially opened in 1992. Ten years later, a permanent exhibition opened in a new villa extension on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Ján Konieark´s death. It was dedicated to the work of this sculptor, who was born near Voderady, who lived and created in Trnava for almost thirty years and founded modern Slovak sculpture.

 

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