Developments Abroad

Developments Abroad

Wenceslas

Bat'a, Wenceslas Square, Prague
Ludvk Kysela (1883–1960)
1927
Photograph by Francis Yerbury, 1929    RIBA Library Photographs Collection

Through the 1920s shop fronts, and shop design in general, became of increasing interest to British architects. Magazines and books provided new ideas in shop design, often taken from examples in Holland, France, Czechoslovakia and Germany. Later, in the 1930s, an influx of émigré architects to Britain, including Erich Mendelsohn, Ernö Goldfinger and Walter Gropius, brought a further proliferation of European ideas. American retailing methods and shop design were another source of inspiration, for both architects and entrepreneurs.  

 

 



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