Czechoslovak State Bank (now Komerční banka)

In 1962, the Czechoslovak State Bank building was created at the junction of Dlouhá Street and třída Tomáše Bati (formerly Murzínova and Stalinova Streets), on the site of former stables and outhouses. The first mention of the project can be found as early as 1954, when the regional branch of the investment bank was intended to operate here with service apartments, together with the associated financial, insurance and inspection departments. The building in the centre of the city was considered atypical and its construction was postponed several times. The architects Eduard Staša and Adolf Zikmund from Stavoprojekt are named in the preparatory documents, though ultimately the author of the plans was their colleague architect Antonín Flašar (1919–⁠2002), a graduate of the Prague UMPRUM under Professor Adolf Benš (1941–⁠1948), another of the generation of architects who only started their professional careers after 1948, when they came to Zlín.

 

The new financial institution has three floors facing Dlouhá Street, but is one floor taller on the side facing třída Tomáše Bati, so as to match the height of the surrounding buildings. By receding the upper floor, the architect created a clear corner structure at a busy intersection. The building combines brick walls and a reinforced concrete frame with circular columns and monolithic ceilings. In the plan it has a corridor with offices on one side and there are two underground floors; in addition to garages, they house engine rooms and a shelter. The other floors were used for communication between officials and the public, and there were residential apartments on the upper floors. The 1960s design refers to the customs and standards of the time. The façades were made of textured plaster, punctuated by a regular grid of double-part windows, while the plinth of the building up to the cornice above the ground floor was lined with slabs of artificial stone. The ground floor to the main street was glazed and partly roofed. The house served its purpose until 1990, when new state banking institutions were created by delimitation. The building began to be managed by Komerční banka, which was allocated more than 50% of the assets of the (already) former State Bank of Czechoslovakia. This new banking institution changed its form twice during the nineties.

 

In 1995, the bank building was raised by one (fifth) floor, which is set back so that a new terrace is created. New offices, meeting rooms, and other operating rooms were located in the resulting spaces. The authors of this concept were the architects Jiří Záhořák (1957) and Jaroslav Habarta (1958), both former employees of Centroprojekt from Zlín, who in 1992 founded their own architectural office ADDO. The corner and the roof structure underwent the biggest change. The architects introduced unusual elements into the urban space in the form of a roof suspended on steel struts, columns with tie rods, and aluminium slats. There is also a façade design from the Záhořák–Habarta duo in the archival documentation, which is characterised by a technical solution of a generous glazed corner. This design was not implemented, however. Two years later, in 1997, Komerční banka took its current form according to the design of architect Štefan Čilík from the Formica, s. r. o. studio. He had the bank building insulated and the ground floor and corners covered with natural stone (grey-wine coloured granite). The project also included the overall modernisation of equipment and layout changes corresponding to the needs of the bank's operation. The residential apartments were repurposed to become new offices. 

 

The Komerční banka building on třída Tomáše Bati dominates the intersection, as do other banking houses that were built during the 1990s. The distinct colour and material design of the exterior and interior demonstrates the banking houses' efforts to dominate the city with the flamboyant self-confidence of institutions that were the driving force of society in the time of transformation.