"Feniks" Cooperative Department Store

At Rynek 31-32 in Wrocław stands one of the most elaborate department stores of former Germany. The building was erected at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries as the seat of the Barasch brothers' shop, changed owners and name several times over the following decades, and today, as the "Feniks" Cooperative Department Store, it is listed in the register of immovable historic monuments.

Art Nouveau façade and interior decor

The building was designed by architect Georg Schneider with the architectural and construction firm Simon & Halfpaap, and the interior decor was created by Julius Koblinsky. The structure was built of stone, iron and concrete, with riveted reinforced-concrete beams. The façade was covered with Silesian sandstone, iron, bronze and copper. Above the entrance there originally stood a glass globe 6.5 metres in diameter, supported by four sphinx sculptures. The steel-truss roof was covered with tiles and copper. The building is 120 metres long, has five commercial storeys (six including the attic), a total height of 37 metres and a usable area of 8,000 square metres. The ground floor was opened up by one-and-a-half-storey shop windows in the form of convex display cases, and the façade was decorated with rusticated pilasters bearing floral ornamentation and women's heads. The entrance portal facing the Market Square was made of bronze, and on the side facing Kurzy Targ street stood four towers with copper domes. The façade was crowned with a golden mosaic frieze. The 1904 interior featured a barrel-vaulted glass roof on a steel structure, oak parquet flooring, mosaics, reliefs, crystal mirrors and wrought Art Nouveau balustrades, and customers were served by four semi-automatic passenger lifts and two freight lifts.

From the Barasch brothers' shop to the Cooperative Department Store

The department store was built on the site of two townhouses facing the Market Square, Rynek 31, known as Pod Złotym Dzbanem (Under the Golden Jug), and Rynek 32, as well as six burgher townhouses standing on today's Kurzy Targ and Szewska Street. The official opening under the name "Warenhaus Gebrüder Barasch" took place in 1904. In 1929, the building underwent a renovation that changed the façade from Art Nouveau to Modernist: the glass globe was removed, the large glazed shop window facing the Market Square was replaced with rectangular windows, and on the façade facing Szewska Street the Art Nouveau elements were replaced with brick columns. On this occasion the city's first escalators were installed, connecting the ground floor with the first floor. In the 1930s, following the boycott of Jewish shops, the department store changed owners, and in 1936 it reopened under the name "Münstermann & Haedecke".

Wartime destruction and return to trade

In 1945, the building was damaged by an explosion that destroyed the roof structure, and the façade cladding and roofing were also damaged. Reconstruction lasted from the end of 1945 to July 1946: a new roof was laid, window panes were installed, and the surviving furniture and technical equipment, including cold-storage cabinets and escalators, were reused. The building then reopened as a Cooperative Department Store, handed over to the General Consumer Cooperative. In the second half of the 1950s, the building was incorporated into the PSS Stare Miasto cooperative and renamed the Cooperative Department Store, and in 1965 the name "Feniks" was chosen through a competition. In 1970, the building was entered into the register of historic monuments.

Post-war renovations

Between 1961 and 1965, the windows, doors and shop windows were replaced, the oak parquet flooring was removed in favour of ceramic floors, suspended ceilings with sales-floor lighting were installed, and the staircase steps were clad in polished Silesian marble. The work took more than three years, and the building remained open throughout. A further renovation, involving among other things the free-standing ceiling between the ground and first floors, was carried out at the end of the 1990s.

Practical information

• Address: Rynek 31-32, Old Town, right next to the Wrocław Town Hall.
• The building stands on the eastern side of Wrocław's Market Square, within walking distance of the Market Hall and Tumski Bridge.
• It's worth looking at the surviving elements of the Art Nouveau façade facing the Market Square and the four towers with copper domes facing Kurzy Targ.
• The building serves a commercial and service function, so it's best to view the façade and details from outside, walking along the Market Square frontage.