Zlín City - Bricks and Factories

Only about an hour away from Brno is town of Zlín, marked by its historical connection with factories and their workers

Nine o'clock. That was the time we met on our second day. A few of us struggeled to make it on time but then we all were on the bus that took us to Zlín.

Zlín is in the East of Czech Republic an was Europe's first functional city, following the principals of the Charta of Athen

Our first stop in the city was the rooftop of building 21, today it is used as a tax office. From here we had a good sight over the whole city and Doc Havliš told us about Zlín, its history and a lot of little details.

It used to be a tiny town until it quickly grew in the late 19th century. Thomas Batas shoe factory boomed and he influenced the whole city. Building 21 had his office inside. But instead of a regular office room he had it built like a lift that was able to move between the different departments.

Apart from this magnificent and technical highly functional building, 860 brick houses for the workers were build. They seem pretty modest, but their orientation guaranteed a supply of fresh air from the surrounding forests.

Younger family members lived in a boarding school where they were thought to work in the factories. There the new assembly line technology from the USA was used to produce shoes and the necessary machinery for the factories. Another specialty was that each factory building had rooms for social infrastructure next to the production halls.

During World War Second Zlín was bombed, since it produced for the war industry. Luckily not too many buildings were damaged. But later on, there accured other problems with the stability of the oldest buildings: the materials used caused a chemical reaction and therefore some had to be torn of. Others however could be renovated. For example Building 14 and 15: During the 20th century there were production halls inside. The bridge connecting the two buildings was used to transport blocks of paper over the roof. This allowed it to be transported from preparation to the next production step. Today there are a library, museum and gallery inside the buildings.

After this short but informative introduction about Zlín we went off to have some lunch and see the city centre and university campus.