Zlín
The Model Town of Modernism
19 Nov 2009 - 21 Feb 2010
ZLÍN - THE MODEL TOWN OF MODERNISM
The development of Zlín, a town situated in the east of the Czech Republic, is closely connected with the Bat¿a Shoes company. From 1923 to 1938 the entrepreneur Tomás Bat¿a and his stepbrother Jan Antonín had the small place developed into a huge laboratory for communal life and work. According to plans by Franti¿ek Lydie Gahura, a town with a spacious factory site, residential buildings as well as cultural and social facilities was developed on a planning grid of 6.15 by 6.15 m in the countryside. The brothers Bat¿a combined clever entrepreneurship, Fordian mass production of shoes and social experiment. At the company¿s headquarters »21«, erected by Vladimír Karfík, a former Le Corbusier assistant, an office in the shape of a room-sized lift was designed for Bat¿a, from which he was able to communicate with the whole world, at the same time observing his workers. This unique example of a town erected according to strictly funtional principles has been studied and admired as a showcase by modern architects and politicians of all kinds alike.
The exhibition shows the architectural development of the town and its social background by means of models, plans, photographs and films. In addition, the show will present Le Corbusier¿s plans for Bat¿a, even hardly known to experts until today, such as the further expansion of the town, shoe shops all over the world, a factory site as well as a Bat¿a pavilion for the World Fair in Paris 1937 ¿ with original drawings and a model.
The exhibition is compiled in close cooperation with the National Gallery Prague and the Regional Gallery of Fine Arts in Zlín. »Zlín ¿ Model Town of Modernism« is part of »Utopia of Modernism: Zlín«, a project of Zipp ¿ German-Czech cultural projects, an initiative of the Kulturstiftung des Bundes.
The development of Zlín, a town situated in the east of the Czech Republic, is closely connected with the Bat¿a Shoes company. From 1923 to 1938 the entrepreneur Tomás Bat¿a and his stepbrother Jan Antonín had the small place developed into a huge laboratory for communal life and work. According to plans by Franti¿ek Lydie Gahura, a town with a spacious factory site, residential buildings as well as cultural and social facilities was developed on a planning grid of 6.15 by 6.15 m in the countryside. The brothers Bat¿a combined clever entrepreneurship, Fordian mass production of shoes and social experiment. At the company¿s headquarters »21«, erected by Vladimír Karfík, a former Le Corbusier assistant, an office in the shape of a room-sized lift was designed for Bat¿a, from which he was able to communicate with the whole world, at the same time observing his workers. This unique example of a town erected according to strictly funtional principles has been studied and admired as a showcase by modern architects and politicians of all kinds alike.
The exhibition shows the architectural development of the town and its social background by means of models, plans, photographs and films. In addition, the show will present Le Corbusier¿s plans for Bat¿a, even hardly known to experts until today, such as the further expansion of the town, shoe shops all over the world, a factory site as well as a Bat¿a pavilion for the World Fair in Paris 1937 ¿ with original drawings and a model.
The exhibition is compiled in close cooperation with the National Gallery Prague and the Regional Gallery of Fine Arts in Zlín. »Zlín ¿ Model Town of Modernism« is part of »Utopia of Modernism: Zlín«, a project of Zipp ¿ German-Czech cultural projects, an initiative of the Kulturstiftung des Bundes.