Real interesting story behind this small city in Czech Republic… I just summed up some of the info I found on the web…

From the official website of Zlin: “Zlín, the administrative center of the Zlín region, lies along the river Dřevnice in a mild climatic area of southeastern Moravia. It is also a crossroad for the ethnographic boundaries of the Wallachian, Hana and Moravian Slovak regions. This region of 590,000 inhabitants became famous for more reasons than its advantageous location.

The city is famous as the birthplace of the founder of the colossal Bata Shoe Empire, Thomas Bata, where his company flourished in the first half of the 20th century. One facet of the city’s character is its one-of-a-kind functionalist architecture.”

And more from Wikipedia: “The astonishing feature of the city’s architectural development was a characteristic synthesis of two modernist urban utopian visions: the first inspired by Ebenezer Howard’s Garden city movement and the second tracing its lineage to Le Corbusier’s vision of urban modernity.

From the very beginning Baťa pursued the goal of constructing the Garden City proposed by Ebenezer Howard. However, the shape of the city had to be ‘modernized’ so as to suit the needs of the company and of the expanding community. Zlín’s distinctive architecture was guided by principles that were strictly observed during its whole inter-war development. Its central theme was the derivation of all architectural elements from the factory buildings. The central position of the industrial production in the life of all Zlín inhabitants was to be highlighted.”

Check out the video below + the official website

Link: City of Zlin
Link: Thomas Bata (Wikpedia)
Link: Zlin (Wikipedia)
Link: Zlin Docu Trailer (German)
Link: “A Utopia of Modernity : Zlín” by Katrin Klingan, Kerstin Gust

share: