Opava celebrated the anniversary of the original owner of the department store Breda with a videomapping

Opava - Opava today celebrated the round anniversary of the original owner of the department store Breda, David Weinstein, who would have turned 150 on January 24 next year. The Society for the Rescue of the Breda Department Store, the Opava City Hall, and AVT Group prepared a videomapping projection that was displayed on the Breda building. It included two portraits, of Weinstein himself and architect Leopold Bauer, who designed the heritage-protected building. Artificial intelligence brought them to life and made them speak. Their voices were provided by actors Miloslav Mejzlík and Hynek Čermák.

When it opened in 1928, the Breda department store was the largest in the country. In recent decades, it has fallen into disrepair. It is now owned by the city, which has begun a gradual reconstruction.

The ten-minute videomapping, projected onto a canvas covering the scaffolding around the department store, attracted thousands of people. Police therefore closed the road in front of the building in the evening hours. The created videomapping was shown by the organizers between 6:00 PM and 7:00 PM twice in quick succession. In the conversation, for example, Weinstein persuaded the architect to include a large dome in the project and a double-sided staircase with a red carpet underneath it.

Artificial intelligence also participated in preparing the projection, which was tasked with making the portraits of both men speak. Thus, a dialogue was created between them. The dialogue was contributed by Michal Stalmach, an actor from the Opava theater. He was partially inspired in his writing by the correspondence that Weinstein and Bauer exchanged during the construction. However, the dialogue was not an exact transcription of their letters.

"We didn't rely entirely on historical facts. We didn't want to just copy the letters. The communication is therefore partially fictional. I didn’t want it to be too historical. I tried to incorporate a bit of humor into it. So that it would engage the younger generation, who might not know much about Breda. The goal was for the dialogue to be both humorous and informative," Stalmach stated. He added that the materials from which he drew for the videomapping had been created some time ago. They were part of another event at Breda, where he read the conversation with another colleague.

The cultural monument, which belonged to the bankrupt company of entrepreneur Kamil Kolka, was acquired by the city for 39.5 million crowns. It initiated rescue work; the roof, through which water had been leaking into the building, has been repaired. This year, 150 windows started to be replaced, and the facade will follow. Experts, including conservationists, long debated whether to renovate the original windows or to create replicas. In the end, they decided on replicas. The reason was not only the price. In case of repairs, the company could not guarantee the functionality of the windows.

At the time of its opening, Breda was the largest department store in the country. The building, which resulted from the reconstruction of the original department store, has long been dilapidated. The total costs for the reconstruction years ago were estimated to be around 300 million crowns; they are now 200 million higher. The annual operating costs of the building, with 10,000 square meters, are estimated to be about 17.7 million crowns. The city is now looking for new uses, which will arise from an international architectural competition.