C087

BROUK AND BABKA DEPARTMENT STORE 1934

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The company set up in 1908 by two business academy schoolmates, Jaroslav Brouk and Josef Babka, operated until being nationalized in 1948. The business enjoyed its heyday in the interwar period, when Brouk and Babka department stores were built throughout Czechoslovakia (e.g. the White Swan in Prague), primarily in the functionalist style. The stores' technical equipment was also progressive and included pneumatic mail, elevators as well as customer service offering a self-service shop, mail order service and credit sales. The stores frequently featured children's playrooms and relaxation areas for the staff.
Brno's B+B department store built in 1934 was designed by Miloslav Kopřiva. This five-level building in Česká Street in the centre of the city features, like most of the company's department stores, a partially open ground floor on pillars with display windows situated perpendicular to the axis of the street. The individual floors are lit through large ribbon windows; the topmost level is retracted and forms a terrace. The department store is used today by Bata, which was originally based in a building in Kobližná Street (today the Centrum department store).