The Building Expansion of the Baťa Company : The export of architecture, products, commercial, philosophy, and lifestyle

Abstract

A) The Retail Chain and Department Stores: The Houses of Baťa Services. Building a retail network and especially the Baťa department stores was an important component of the company's overall business plan and investment strategy. By the end of the 1920s it had begun to build its own chain of department stores, known as Houses of Baťa Services, to complement its stores. They offered a range of customer services and were operated according to the company's slogan "Our Customer - Our Master." The department stores satisfied all operational requirements with minimal expense and a high degree of flexibility that allowed for functional modifications. The distinctive architectural form of their exterior and interior served as an effective advertisement for the company, and the stores housed a number of supplemental services within. Between 1928 and 1929 the flagship large-format House of Baťa Services was built on Wenceslas Square in Prague. It had an reinforced concrete frame - a characteristic feature of the Baťa department stores that followed - and this allowed the method of sales to evolve almost without any limitation as well as offering maximum visibility to those looking in from the street. Several Houses of Baťa Services were built nationally (Brno, Bratislava, Olomouc, et. al.) and abroad (Amsterdam, 1937). They were designed by prominent company architects working together with the Baťa construction division. B) The Satellite Communities of Functionalist Zlín. The 1920s saw the Baťa Company establish new sectors and grow in less than a decade into a colossal concern that integrated operations from the purchase and processing of raw materials, to manufacturing, to research and development, all the way to the sale of finished products in its own extensive retail network. The Baťa Company invested beyond the confines of prewar Zlín. By the end of the 1920s it had opened several foreign subsidiaries and affiliates. The company was driven to expand abroad by a need to decentralize its massive production operation; an inadequate local supply of skilled labor; the need for more raw materials to meet ever-higher production levels; the limited national market; a desire to maintain, acquire, and expand its retail presence; its investment allocation strategy and the increasingly steep tariffs being levied on the company. In addition to operating its own stores and factories, the Baťa Company began to build entire urban zones. The company's expansion required careful planning in its Zlín headquarters across a number of branches, including architectural design, urban planning, and construction (established were a construction division in 1924, a Baťa joint-stock construction company in 1930, and an expanded project department and urban planning division). The theoretical work devoted to building the ideal industrial city (undertaken by F. L. Gahura, the urban planning division, Le Corbusier, Josef Gočár, and Emil Hruška) was to be compild in the three-volume The Ideal Industrial City of the Future (1937). Employing a well-conceived and highly organized system, the Baťa Company took advantage of the latest advances in production methods and technology while maximizing human potential. It exported its know-how, experts, and the company's philosophy. The company's satellite communities reflected Zlín's distinctive architecture and were filled with the Baťa spirit.