In 1927, the Wertheim consortium located in Berlin announced a contest for designing a department store located in Wroclaw (then Breslau) city center. Various renowned local architects submitted their projects: Erich Mendelsohn, Werry Roth, Theodor Effenberg and Herman Dernburg, whose concept won. Dernburg’s design was based on steel framework and at the time became the biggest department store in Wroclaw, encompassing 35,000 square meters and also the largest building of steel framework construction in Europe. In order to realize the project, a few buildings including well prospering hotel and 12 tenements in the location were demolished. All the works were finished in three years and Wertheim Department Store was opened on 2 April 1930. Thanks to Dernsburg’s visionary modern architecture, spacious stores and first use of escalators in the region of Lower Silesia, the department store turned out to be a successful project.
http://dolny-slask.org.pl/910658,foto.html?idEntity=508876
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_ZcVvAQxgw
http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Ledwinka
http://pl.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Plik:Bundesarchiv_Bild_146II-732,_Erholung_am_Flussufer.jpg&filetimestamp=20081209161803
