The Architecture of the Baťa Company as a Factor in Modernization : The Example of Slovakia

Abstract

Baťa architecture constituted a foreign element within the context of interwar Czechoslovakia. The company's very first project in Bratislava was accompanied by a scandal: two historic buildings were to be pulled down to make way for the construction of the House of Baťa Services. In an attempt to preserve the city's cultural heritage, officials from the Government Agency for the Preservation of Historic Monuments even elaborated a plan to adapt the Baroque buildings to suit the needs of the House of Services. Understandably, such a plan was unacceptable for the company; after all, modern constructivist architecture was inseparably linked with the firm's corporate strategy. Ultimately, Vladimír Karfík, who designed the architectural project succeeded in seeing through a compromise solution, and construction could begin. Hence, from 1930 onwards, the building represented in Bratislava's provincial environment all the positive and negative aspects associated with the Baťa Company: an unbridled Taylor-Ford-type system of enterprise, flawless customer services, standardized and uniform architecture, and minimal respect for the appearance of the original locality. During the following decades, Houses of Baťa Services, stores and shoe-repair shops sprung up in almost every town and city in Czechoslovakia. Although many of the Baťa structures were later modified, together with the industrial facilities and residential districts in the company's satellite communities, they had a considerable impact not only on the population's aesthetic views and work customs, but also on its social habits. Various theories of modernization describe the industrial establishment as "one of the central institutions through which modernization is implemented and from which it is disseminated into the broader social environment." In the pre-modern conditions of predominantly agrarian Slovakia, the Baťa Company represented a unique phenomenon, a by-word for progress and modernization. Education, employment, social benefits, independence, liberation from the Christian partriarchal tradition and a modern urban lifestyle - those were the values that attracted mainly young people to Baťa's schools and factories. It is quite difficult to determine the measure of spontaneity in the relationships within the Baťa communities. Whatever the case, it can be ascertained that with regard to the Baťa communities, natural human desires were happily wedded to a well-conceived corporate strategy. Architecture as a vehicle for a new aesthetics built outside traditional models and urbanism as a tool of societal organization were inherent factors in the Baťa Company's modernization intiatives. As such, architecture and urbanism constituted a framework for Baťa's social engineering to successfully function. Architecture was no longer simply "an instrument in the desired industrialization of the construction sector, but a part of the planned management of the entire society," as was tellingly observed by Jiří Voženílek, one of the key figures in Zlín Design Office and a noted exponent of scientific Functionalism. The technical progress, architecture and social organization of the Baťa Company arrived in Slovakia from abroad as a foreign import, and the target group of the population - that had come largely from a rural milieu - was not prepared for such a degree of innovation. The transformation of people's values, social behavior and aesthetic sensibilities was therefore only piecemeal. Thus, the modernization process remained unfinished. This is corroborated by the fact that after the Baťa Company was nationalized, the modern mode of life gradually disappered from the satellite communities, together with Baťa's ideas on the organization of work. The characteristic combination of Baťa architecture with the programmatic rejection of the past and tradition has become a source of doubt in accepting this architecture as part of the country's cultural heritage. On the other hand, for the Baťa satellite communities their architecture and urbanism constitute the most effective tool in the process of reconstructing, addressing and reflecting their own complex history.