In the very centre of the town, on Masaryk Square, lies the building of the former Bat'a department store. This giant shoe company was one of the first to bring the typical features of modern functionalist architecture to Hranice – skeleton construction, smooth façades, large windows, and neon signs. In an area with traditional historical buildings, it still creates a distinctly contrasting impression, as is the case in other towns of comparable size (Přerov, Kroměříž). The ambition to become more worldly through architecture was shared with Baťa by more than one municipality. Modern investment was usually welcomed positively by the wider public.
In the 1920s and 1930s, the Baťa company celebrated worldwide success, building a network of department stores not only in Czechoslovakia but even on a supranational scale. They were designed both by leading Czech architects and by designers working directly in the Baťa design department. A common feature of all the buildings is a reinforced concrete structure offering an open and variable commercial and service space and a more or less modern, functionalist exterior – a glazed ground floor and austerely composed upper floors.
The sales premises in Hranice were built in 1932, against the background of the controlled development of the town, in which Tomáš Baťa wanted to have a share. His ambitious plans were intended to contribute to the modernisation of the town and the development of local industry. He pushed for his plan to be linked with the planned reconstruction of the Beseda, the local centre of cultural and social activities. With his pragmatic approach, and without the slightest sentiment for the history of the place, he contributed to the demolition of a valuable late Gothic house. A four-storey white cube with large glass shopfronts on the ground floor and a strip window on the first floor appeared in the terraced development on the northern face of the square. The upper floor is divided by windows which are still in use today, and is topped by a flat roof – the first time one had ever been used in Hranice!
Because of a lack of funds and failure in the selection of an architect, the design and construction took place in stages; the part facing the square was designed by the “Baťa” architect Blahoslav Pazdírek, while the inner wing was taken over by the builder Václav Hudec in the spring of 1933. The front part of the ground floor was occupied by a shoe shop, and the first floor housed the Beseda café and restaurant with an adjoining theatre hall and other public rooms.
After World War II, the building was nationalised, but continued to be used mainly for sales and cultural purposes. Similarly, after the revolution, the building also housed a café and a shoe shop. It enjoys partial protection thanks to its location in the Hranice urban conservation area. Also thanks to this, it underwent a rather sensitive renovation in 1993. It still partially serves its original purpose today.
NK + MM (translation by SG)
Selected literature
Tomáš Pospěch, Hranice, Teplice nad Bečvou a okolí. Architektura 1815–2018, Hranice 2018.
Tereza Kovaříková, Obchodní domy firmy Baťa (diploma thesis), Katedra dějin umění FF UP, Olomouc 2013.
Tomáš Pospěch, Hranická architektura 1815–1948, Hranice 2000.
Sources
Tereza Kovaříková, Obchodní domy firmy Baťa (diploma thesis), katedra dějin umění FF UP, Olomouc 2013.
