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Zlin (Gottwaldov), Czech Republic, Europe |
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Workers colonies in Zlin.
source: http://arttattler.com/arc
hitecturemodeltown.html
Memorial for Bata.
source: http://arttattler.com/arc
hitecturemodeltown.html
Dominik Cipera, Jan
Antonín Bata, Vladimír
Karfík, Frantisek L.
Gahura and managers of
the Bata corporation
looking at the planning
of the new satellite town
source: http://arttattler.com/arc
hitecturemodeltown.html
Aerial view of the town
source: http://arttattler.com/arc
hitecturemodeltown.html
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The rise of New Town Zlin in the southeast of the Czech Republic was the result of the economical success of Europe’s biggest shoe factory of Tomáš Baťa. When Tomáš Baťa founded the shoe factory, Zlin was only a small town with 3,000 inhabitants.
During World War II Bata produced many shoes for the military. The factory was expanded and transformed into a production laboratory according to ideas about mass production and the assemblage techniques inspired by the ideas of car manufacturer Henry Ford and others. The employment in the factory attracted laborers from everywhere and the town expanded. In 1938 it had grown to 43,000 inhabitants.
After Tomáš Baťa was appointed mayor of the town he wrote a design contest for architects to design a model town. The Czech architect František Lydie Gahura (1891-1958) got the assignment. According to his plan the town was divided into zones assigned to working, living, recreation and traffic — a separation of functions corresponding to the key concepts of modern town building that were later propagated in the "Chartre of Athens."
Zlín can be regarded as a model town of modernism, since many architectural and social modernist ideals that politicians, entrepreneurs and architects propagated as visionary after World War I, were realized in Zlin. The town became known worldwide and turned into a pilgrimage place for the avant garde of the 1930s.
Bata had factories and towns erected in other countries and continents as a smaller version of Zlín using modern architecture to convey a corporate identity and modernity.
source: http://arttattler.com/architecturemodeltown.html
http://www.projekt-zipp.de/publications-texts/Vorschau_Publikation.pdf |
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