Architecture Day: Brno - Slovak Department Stores

From symbols of modernization to cultural heritage - about Slovak post-war department stores Prior, Jednota, Dargov and Ružinov with art historian Karolína Králiková.

From the 1960s onwards, department stores emerged across Czechoslovakia as part of a planned retail network and became new landmarks in city centers and housing estates. They symbolized progress, introduced a new way of shopping, and shaped the everyday life of several generations. Today they provoke mixed reactions, yet remain an unmissable part of Czech and Slovak towns. What value do these buildings hold today?

Karolína Králiková will present a typology of post-war department stores using selected Slovak examples - from Bratislava through Prešov to smaller regional centers. She will explore their architecture, the circumstances of their creation, and how this building type transformed within Slovak cities. She will also focus on their present state: renovations, demolitions, heritage protection, and the changing public attitude toward construction from the second half of the 20th century. The lecture will also address whether these former "temples of consumption" can remain an important part of our cities' identity.

Speaker: Karolína Králiková, doctoral student at the Department of Architecture, Institute of History of the Slovak Academy of Sciences in Bratislava. Organized by Brno Architectural Manual, bam.brno.cz