The Baťa department store is characterised primarily by its open interior plan and austere facade enlivened only by the lighted advertisements. During the design, the architect was forced to rework the original conception so that the bulk of the store did not block the view of the historic St. Michael’s Tower. As a result, he placed at the corner a low two-storey section, with the more distant mass rising to five storeys. The architectural effect is based on the lighting of the industrial ribbon windows, and the nocturnal effect of the strip of neon lining the entire facade, Though the result lacks the refinement of Karfík’s best work in Zlín, it has become a key Bratislava landmark. During reconstruction (Peter Valach, Andrej Gürtler) in the early 1990s, a new staircase was added to the rear facade, and the surviving original fittings removed. A later reconstruction (Pavol Mrázek, Iveta Raková) enlarged the sales areas and inserted a lift-shaft at the centre of the sales floors. 

      
Literature:
Ein Eingriff in das Stadtbild von Pressburg. Deutsche Bauzeitung DBZ 64, 1930, p. 175 – 176.
KARFÍK, Vladimír: Dom služby Baťa v Bratislave. Slovenský staviteľ 1, 1931, p. 210 – 213.
GÜRTLER, Andrej: Rekonštrukcia Domu obuvi v Bratislave. Projekt 32, 1990, 4, p. 26 – 28.
FOLTYN, Ladislav: Slovakische Architektur und die tschechische Avantgarde 1918 – 1939. Dresden, Verlag des Kunst 1991. 236 p.
KARFÍK, Vladimír: Architekt si spomína. Bratislava, SAS 1993, 330 p., p. 97 – 98, 196.
DULLA, Matúš – MORAVČÍKOVÁ, Henrieta: Architektúra Slovenska v 20. storočí. Bratislava, Slovart 2002. 512 p., p. 117, 156, 263, 359.
HABERLANDOVÁ, Katarína: Prestavba Obchodného domu Baťa na módny dom Alizé. ARCH 11, 2005, 5, p. 26 – 28.
SLABEYOVÁ, Michaela: Príbeh jednej budovy. Malý Baťa – Alizé. Projekt 47, 2005, 5, p. 16 – 19.
SLABEYOVÁ, Michaela: Architekt Vladimír Karfík - symbol modernej československej architektúry. Architektúra & urbanizmus 42, 2008, 1 – 2, p. 71 – 99.

Source of picture:
Archive of the City of Bratislava