Department Store Globus

The department store Globus is Ravnikar's fourth and largest realization in Kranj. With this building, he completed the last missing structure on Revolution Square, fulfilling the function of a new city center. The land under the department store is located in the southeastern part of the square, which opens to the north toward the building of the civic committee. Opposite the department store lies the Creina Hotel, which Ravnikar completed two years earlier. Compared to the airy and 'winged' hotel, Globus gives an inaccessible impression at first glance. The massive block with a corten steel shell reinforces the impression of invulnerability, further accentuated by the protruding 'bastions'. It only slightly opens up through an entry slit on the ground floor and a parking space on the top floor. The suspended outer shell is composed of gigantic corroded sheets measuring 1.8 x 1.4 meters. The fact that corrosion is still progressing is evidenced by the visibility through some sheets today (originally they had a thickness of 2.5mm). To soften the massive metal wall, a pressed decoration composed of three smaller circles in the middle of rectangular panels serves, which also functioned as the logo of the department store Globus. The main entrance to the building is located in the middle of the western façade. Additional secondary entrances are also at the corners. Retail spaces are distributed in the basement, ground floor, and first floor, which can be accessed via an airy steel staircase. The reinforced concrete skeleton with mushroom capitals of the columns is topped with a light steel roof that hovers over the parking area on the top floor, where visitors arrive from the back of the building via an external ramp. Toward the square in front of the department store lies a ground-floor building of Ljubljana Bank (now Goriška Bank) composed of three smaller pavilions, which, with their small scale, create a soft transition between the square and the massive mass of the department store.