An apartment building and department store designed by Oskar Poříska was erected in 1937 at the site where Česká and Veselá streets meet. The six-level structure, which also features the shortest arcade in Brno, stands at the site of a former city gate and is a prominent modern landmark at the entrance to the historic center. The building boasts a number of sophisticated functionalistic details such as the light ceramic cladding on the facade with its rounded corners, glazed ground floor and ribbon windows on the first floor with revealed ferro-concrete pillars and the display windows on the individual levels of the corner facade. Typical functionalistic features include the nautical terrace railing on the retracted top floor.
The building was named Convalaria after the perfumery located on the ground floor until the end of the 20th century. Until the 1970s the first floor housed the Alois Dorotík Café, a place favoured by Brno students and intellectuals alike. The entire building was reconstructed in 2008 according to designs by the architects krabal and Grym from the P.A.W. Studio. They succeeded in renewing a number of original details and preserving the authentic expression of the building while modifying the interiors to suit the needs of the editorial staff of dailies published by the Mafra media group, the current building tenant.
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