Dr. Ing. arch. HENRIETA MORAVCÍKOVÁ
Institute of Construction and Architecture, Slovak Academy of Science
Dúbravská cesta 9, 845 03 Bratislava 45
HENRIETA MORAVCÍKOVÁ
BAŤOVANY -- PARTIZÁNSKE: AN EXEMPLARY SLOVAK INDUSTRIAL TOWN
"For a village person that was used to the richness of shapes and decorations, variety of contours in nature, this austere geometric rigidity was shocking, it was as if he found himself in a different, sort of unreal world." (E. Cepceková)
After the establishment of the Czechoslovak Republic in 1918, Slovakia was a predominantly agrarian country, and unlike Czech lands, its transition from traditional to modern industrial society was only partial /1/. After the Great Depression in the 1930s, which dramatically affected Slovakia in particular, the Czechoslovak government started to solve the local situation. It has founded the National Economic Institute for Slovakia and Ruthenia where the plan for industrialization of Slovakia was elaborated. However, this plan was met only in part. The efforts to build industrial factories in the territory of Slovakia included the expansion of the Bata Group into the regions of Upper Nitra and Sub-Tatran basin.
In the 1930s, the Bata Company was a well-known and prosperous business. The production of shoes started up by Thomas Bata (1876 -- 1932) in the 1920s continued successfully and expanded also beyond Zlín, its hometown. Production facilities were established both in the territory of Czechoslovakia and abroad, for example in Croatia (Borovo), Poland (Chelmek, Otmet), the Netherlands (Best), Switzerland (Möhlin), France (Hellocourt, Vernon) and even outside Europe in the USA (Belcamp), India (Batanagar) or Brasil (Batatuba) /2/. The Bata Group founded a number of production facilities in Slovakia, which were united in 1940 under the name 'Bata, Slovak Joint-stock Company, Šimonovany' /3/. The Bata Group, a European example of the Taylor-Ford business model, was a unique phenomenon in the Pre-Modern situation of predominantly agrarian Slovakia -- it was a synonym of progress and modernization. If we admit that industrialization is an essential factor of the transformation of society into the modern one, then we can also consider the shoe-producing Bata Group one of the players of modernization in Slovakia. Its activities immediately influenced the settlements it had established (Bat´ovany, Batizovce), but it had also broader economic, social and cultural effects. Bata's satellite towns were highly attractive mainly for the young. Education, work, social benefits, independence and liberation from the Christian patriarchal tradition of Slovak countryside -- these were the values that lured hundreds of young people to Bata's schools and factories. This social phenomenon also included Bata architecture that was the bearer of new esthetics developed beyond traditional patterns. In Bata's satellites establishment of new social relations was supported that related to the production facility, education and work, and the organization of life in the town. On the other hand, it has to be mentioned that technical progress, architecture, and social organization of the Bata firm came to Slovakia from the outside as alien import and the target group of inhabitants coming mostly from backward countryside was not prepared to such an extent of innovation. Nevertheless, they were young people capable to cope well with such a revolutionary change. This is confirmed by the extent, to which they identified themselves with the settlement and became aware of its specific values.
Bat´ovany -- an Ideal Industrial Town
Bat´ovany originated as a materialization of the then reflections on an ideal town that were very popular in the 1900s. Throughout the whole century, modern architects, town planners, sociologists and economists, seeing into the future, were producing visions of a better world, which were to be realized based on their plans. Leading representatives of the European architectural avant-garde, such as Tony Garnier (Une cité industrielle, 1917), Ludwig K. Hilberseimer (Projekt Hochhausstadt, 1924), Le Corbusier (Plan Voisin, 1925) or Nikolaj Milutin (Socgorod, 1930) designed new models of human settlements. In their reflections, towns originated based on the single justification -- industrial production. Industrial production and its rational organization also determined the concept of a functionalist town. Frederick Winslow Taylor's Scientific Management theory and practical experience of Henry Ford, who was a cult figure of European radical Modernism, inspired architects to plan identically rational, standardized towns /4/. In the visions of modernists, an ideal functionalist town was divided into autonomous functional units serving for production and work, housing and recreation. This was to eliminate the negative impact of production on housing and to provide an undisturbed relax after the work. The efforts of architects, however, were also aimed at influencing social relations and modeling the life of modern people. And it was Tomáš Bata, who was the most important representative of American Taylorism in Europe. Not only he applied the ideas of pragmatism and productivism in his industrial plant, but with the same intensity he also supported related town-planning and architectural concepts. The town of Zlín whose development T. Bata directly influenced was the prototype of a rational industrial settlement based on standardization and repeated use of identical spatial modules -- we can therefore considered it to be 'the very first execution of a functionalist town' /5/.
The architects of Bata Construction Department in Zlín were working on the concept of an ideal industrial town since mid 1930s. While majority of European Avant-garde architects had no opportunity to implement their visions in practice, the planners of Bata's studio made modern dreams happen rapidly and in a large scale. They thus gathered a lot of theoretical knowledge as well as practical experience. In 1937, they even wrote a book named An Ideal Industrial Town, however, it was never published. Despite that fact three satellite towns of the Bata Group -- Bat´ovany, Zruc nad Sázavou, and Sezimovo Ústí -- were planned based on the principles of the book. One of the most important representatives of Bata's planning department, Jirí Voženílek (14. 8. 1909 -- 4. 11. 1986, Prague) was the key person in the preparation of the general plan of Bat´ovany. J. Voženílek became the member of the Zlín general plan working team in 1937. With regard to his previous specialization, he was predestined to meet with the Bata Company. While "Tomáš Bata created and spread the Czechoslovak version of Scientific Management in the CSR" /6/, Jirí Voženílek ranked among the leading representatives of scientific functionalism and promoters of scientific architecture.
J. Voženílek cooperated with K. Janu and J. Štursa on setting-forth the principles of scientific architecture immediately prior to his start at Bata's planning department. And it was there where he could later fully implement his ideas, in which architecture was no longer a mere "aid of the required industrialization of the building industry, but became part of the planned management of the entire society" /7/. Together with his colleagues K. Janu and J. Štursa, J. Voženílek also dealt with a functionalist town; they even prepared a number of plans of a linear town. His working on general plans of Bata's satellite towns was a logical result of his long-term interest in the layout of a town of the future.
The location that the Bata Group chose to build its Slovak satellite town was in accordance with the long-term strategy of the company. The aim was to position new production facilities in underdeveloped regions with strong labor force potential, adequate traffic connection (a railway was built near Šimonovany as early as in 1896) and a perspective of controlling large territories. During the first Czechoslovak Republic, the surrounding of Šimonovany was mostly agricultural and unemployment was relatively high there. Salzberger's estate with a distillery was the only important factory in this area. Jan Bata, who was the Tomáš Bata assignee in the management of the company, bought the distillery as early as in 1933. Five years later, in summer 1938, the construction of the first production hall began /8/. However, immediately after this, the Czechoslovak Republic was split and the independent Slovak State was established. Being considered a foreign investor in Slovakia, the situation of the Bata Group was partly complicated. Nevertheless, Jan Bata was an extremely capable, pragmatic businessman and so he concluded mutually advantageous agreements with the Slovak government (Bata granted the Slovak government a loan and got freedom in doing business in return). In this way he guaranteed prosperity for the plants in Bat´ovany for the long years of war. From 1939 on, the construction of the factory and adjacent residential and social districts of the newly established settlement was continuous. The local press commented on the development of Bat´ovany as "the construction of an exemplary Slovak industrial town" /9/.
The general plan, according to which development of Bat´ovany began in 1939, was based on an ideal plan of industrial town with 5,000 to 15,000 inhabitants, which J. Voženílek had dealt with before /10/. The spatial layout was based on the division of individual functions into relatively independent units depending on cardinal points and prevalent wind directions, and spacious placement of solitary buildings. The factory complex was located on the northern border of the planned town. It was separated from the rest of the build-up by a strip of traffic and greenery, but at the same time, a wide street, the so-called Promenade, connected it to the main public space -- Námestie práce ('Labor Square'). Labor square was the main compositional and symbolical axis of the town. With the East- West orientation, public buildings such as Community House, Town Hall, cinema, department store, schools, student dormitories and a church rimmed it. Residential quarters were built along both sides of the square -- a quarter of detached and semi-detached family houses, and a quarter of row houses and apartment houses. The houses were positioned in order that their southern orientation was maximally exploited. In the southern outskirts of the town, there was a sporting area with a football stadium and a swimming pool. Greenery was an integral part of the spatial concept, in line with the Bata's idea of "a factory and town in gardens". An urban park covered major part of Labor Square. A lot of attention was paid to the landscaping of the park. The planning departments in Zlín and later in Bat´ovany -- Partizánske, were dealing with it from 1944 till 1955. The park landscape of the Square was designed as two different zones. The zone near the Community House looked like a relatively compact urban space and the zone in front of the church was to resemble English parks. /11/. Here the park naturally interfered with the residential development that was freely located in the greenery without any borders between individual plots. The general plan of Bat´ovany was slightly modified several times, and there were plans to use differently sized areas for a new development /12/. Nevertheless, local town planners adhered to Voženílek's town planning concepts until the 1960s. A number of public buildings such as the House of Culture or the Town Hall were built on the locations determined by the original general plan. The monofunctionality and layout spaciousness of new residential suburbs in the town's outskirts further developed the ideas outlined by modern town planners, including Jirí Voženílek, in the first half of the 1900s. Probably the worst detriment to the original appearance of the town, or the central part thereof, is the building-up of a residential tower house in the middle of the former Labor Square/13/.
Construction According to Bata
Besides functionalist town planning, the satellites of the Bata Group are also characteristic for their unique, well recognizable architecture. Like in case of Bata's shoe production, standardization, typification and unification were maximally applied at the construction. From 1924 on, a structural skeleton bay of 6.15 x 6.15 meters was the basic standardization unit of Zlín architecture; it was used at all production, administrative and public structures. Circular columns built with the help of travelling formwork characterize the ferro-concrete skeleton. The outer walls were made of brick and had window openings of different sizes. This characteristic system was used in the construction until the 1950s /14/.
František Lydie Gahura, the key person of Zlín architecture, commented on the Bata standardization of construction: "Architect's invention also had to cope with the problem of adjusting the layout of a public building to factory construction standard. This standard is the module (element) of Zlín architecture. It is a structural bay of 6.15 x 6.15 meters. The plan views of all building are based on the module. The external picture of Zlín architecture is therefore defined by the unity of style with many variations. These variations are made in three different ways: 1. By variations in window openings proportions in relation to wall filling. 2. By variations in wall filling proportions in relation to ferro-concrete structure. 3. By complementing the above two ways with other motives that contributed to the determination of the building's purpose. (A successful example of this process is using a top plate above the terrace and the cube of lift motor room that completed the silhouette of a Community House.). 4. By exclusion of filling and by the glazing of ferro-concrete skeleton." /15/
At the construction of family and apartment houses, different typification and standardization were applied. All residential houses were built according to a number of basic disposition types, using traditional filling technology. The outer treatment varied between unplastered and plastered brick and between flat and saddle roof.
Standardization, typification and unification made the construction process more efficient and faster. To an extent, a compensation scheme implemented in the Construction Department contributed to it, too. At the beginning of any building project, a bonus was specified for each day of completing the construction before the deadline. Therefore, it is no wonder that majority of buildings grew up during a single construction season /16/.
The characteristic way of project preparation was an integral part of Bata architecture. Most of projects, including those concerning satellite towns, were drawn up directly in the Zlín headquarters, especially in case of general plans or designs of more important buildings such as Community Houses, churches or schools, or standardized structures of factory halls and family and apartment houses. However, each satellite had its own Construction Department with planning and implementation units. It was here where projects coming from the Zlín center were adapted to local situation, but autonomous solutions of local projects were also prepared here. František Fackenberg (20. 6. 1904, Vienna -- 2. 4. 1972, Bojnice), who came to Bat´ovany in 1938 from the Zlín planning studio, was the head the Construction Department in Bat´ovany. In the same time he was the key person of the local construction. He checked and approved practically all project drawings and designed a number of buildings in Bat´ovany and in the Batizovce town under the Tatras. The staff of his Construction Department in Bat´ovany also tried to develop own improvements and innovations of technological procedures and projects. František Fackenberg was ready to boast this in 1941 when he was showing Slovak industry representatives round the town and the factory: "In case of family houses, we pursue the principle of changing the types every year. We draw from the experience of previous years and we seek to eliminate what we considered less advantageous and suitable for our dwellings…." "We also do the same at the construction of the factory." /17/
Authorization of drawings was an interesting phenomenon of projects preparation in the Bata Group. Most of projects by Planning or Construction Departments resulted from the co-operation of unknown authors. Such practice was well in-line with the then efforts to suppress authorial subjectivity and it reminds of the collectivism and anonymity promoted by Le Corbusier in relation to modern architecture.
Production and Work in Bat´ovany
Bat´ovany was supposed to be an ideal industrial town. It was established on a green field site as a 'machine for living and work', paraphrasing the statement of Le Corbusier, the Modern Movement magus. The production was both an initiating and driving force of all Bata satellite towns. Its rhythm also conditioned the rhythm of the life in the settlement whose very existence depended on the prosperity of production. In Bat´ovany, too, the production plant was the alpha and omega of each inhabitant's life. Everybody participated in the production somehow, be it was directly by working at the machines or in the construction or in service units. This dependency started to weaken only at the end of the 1950s when other production plants were established in the town, with more new jobs being created subsequently. The Bata phenomenon did not become famous only for the characteristic architecture, but primarily for the so-called 'Bataism' -- a highly efficient organization of production and sales. Bata's system was a unique product of the era when technological progress met with the application of new scientific methods in economy and production.
The system included, for example, introduction of workshop autonomy (individual workshops operated as autonomous economic units); compensation taking form of employee participation in profit (the variable part of wage motivated to better performance); implementation of detailed planning (both long-term and daily plans of production, work, sales, development, etc. were being prepared); building own chain of retail outlets (in 1931, there were 2 500 houses of Bata Services world-wide); selling strategy based on low prices together with tactical pricing (for example, all prices ended by the number 9 from 1922 on); and strong advertising as an important tool to make the system successful (in the spirit of the slogan "Our customer is our master"). Thanks to the above; Bata company employees had a feeling of social security, sense of belonging and employee pride. And this was in spite (or, maybe thanks to) the fact that "during the seven years of Jan Bata's government, exploitation of workers has became extremely insidious…" as was stated by the architect Vladimír Karfík, head of Zlín Construction Department, who was involved in the running of the company /18/. Bata was an enemy of labor unions and the Communist ideology. His approach to social issues was far from leftist ideas of the Avant-garde. For example, he introduced social benefits such as the five-day working week primarily for well-thought-out and well-calculated economic reasons. The conditions in the Bata Company were uncompromising. Perfect performance and total devotion to the company were required. The above-the-standard relation with employees were kept with the help of various benefits, such as good salaries, loans, provision of housing and education, but also through uncompromising immediate firing /19/.
Originally, there were plans to produce shoe-making machinery directly in Bat´ovany. This intention was still considered in 1938, when the construction of the first production hall began. However, with regard to economic and political situation after the split of Czechoslovakia at the beginning of 1939, the plant was built as a shoe-making factory only. The production of shoes started in July 1939. Production machinery and the first workers came to Bat´ovany from Zlín. A number of trained staff returned home in fact, as they were Slovaks. Other employees of the factory were recruited from local population. The fourteen-year old came to the shoe-making school in Bat´ovany from wide surrounding areas and later became the production force of the town. Bat´ovany with its perfect organization of production and employment benefit system were a unique island of modernization in mostly agricultural Slovakia. That continued to attract newcomers, who sought to find a job in the well-functioning concern.
Despite Bata founded his shoe making company in today's Partizánske at the dawn of the World War II, its prosperity was really high. "The lives of all people changed…only the Bata Group was capable to use the new situation and thus experienced a new boom, based primarily on war supplies to Wehrmacht. The mystery of how it managed to benefit from the boom at both sides of the war will probably never be revealed. And the strangest thing is that this happened with bilateral approval," V. Karfík commented on the economic miracle of Bata's war business /20/.
On January 1, 1949 Bata's plants were nationalized by the state and later renamed to Závody 29. augusta ('the Works of the 29th August' -- in honor of the Slovak National Uprising declaration). The town was also renamed -- on February 2, 1949 Bat´ovany became Partizánske. Nevertheless, the production of shoes continued. The inertia of the well-established production plant was strong. It only began to decay with diminishing labor productivity that accompanied increasing political pressure in the 1970s. The decay process culminated, paradoxically, due to 'November 1989', subsequent privatization of the plant and disintegration of East European markets. At the beginning of the 1990s -- immediately after social and political changes in Czechoslovakia, the Bata Group in Canada showed interest in its former operations. However, the state representatives and Thomas Bata did not achieve agreement /21/. Today, the complex of former Bata plants in Partizánske houses a number of companies that deal with production of shoes and shoe components, or perform other business activities such as storage management.
"Etage halls"
Three- or five-story production halls, the so-called "etage halls", rank among the oldest products of the Zlín planning studio. The standardized design of an etage hall with a vertical circulation core in the middle of the façade dates back probably to 1924. Its basis was a standardized ferro-concrete monolith skeleton of 6.15 x 6.15 meters, with brick filling of outer walls and single-glazed windows. Originally, the skeleton of the etage hall consisted of angular columns, which were replaced by circular columns in 1930. They were built with the help of travelling steel formwork; this shortened the duration of construction. The dimensions of the standardized etage hall were 13 bays lengthwise and 3 bays widthwise. The basic shape was complemented by centrally placed sanitary facilities and the vertical circulation core (3 bays lengthwise and 1 bay widthwise). Etage halls, three to five stories high, can be found in any of Bata's satellites. They were the first buildings to be built in Bat´ovany, too: in 1938 and 1939 /22/. Within next two years, other two five-story production halls with central staircase and a boiler house were added (1939 -- 1941).
During the war, Jirí Voženílek was working on the design of a new production hall. He tested one of his innovations in Bat´ovany, too, where the construction of two five-story etage halls began in 1942. The production space of the new production hall was still based on the standardized skeleton with 13 structural bays, but one bay was added to both sides of the building where circulation core, sanitary facilities and change-rooms were placed. The floor-to-ceiling height changed, too, which consequently lead to changes in the outer appearance of the building. The new etage hall was more massive and, at the same time, more articulated. J. Voženílek was further developing this design until 1946, when he executed it as the buildings No. 14 and 15 in Zlín /23/.
A three-story office building was constructed at the entrance to the production complex in 1943 to 1944, on the basis of the Zlín planning office's project, with the standardized skeleton fifteen bays long and four bays wide. In the middle of the layout were the entrance into the building and a staircase.
Within the production complex, production buildings were arranged in a chessboard-like pattern and interconnected by transportation facilities. The construction and the start-up of production were phased to reduce investment costs.
Although Zlín instructions were kept at the construction of the factory, the local construction office could do small disposition or construction modifications in the working drawings. The office also introduced new construction materials. F. Fackenberg, the Construction Department head, described how the unique steel floor of production spaces originated: "We search new materials that would better satisfy our requirements. They may be details only, yet they are important -- flooring and paving could be the examples" /24/. Before the nationalization, there were fourteen different buildings built within the factory complex, including production halls, power plant, brickyard, engineering shop, office building and a canteen /25/. The complex was extended in following years, but the original character of the plant was preserved. Majority of buildings in the complex have been used for production or storage purposes till today. Facades of a number of buildings (one of them being the very first three-stories etage hall) were remodeled. A layer of red plaster covered the original unplastered brick. Nevertheless, plastic and color differentiation of the skeleton from the filling was preserved, as well as original windows and floorings. Some of the buildings inside the production complex, e.g. the former boiler house, are not used any more and therefore deteriorate. Other buildings have been adapted to new purposes in such a way that their new appearances almost do not suggest that they once were part of Bata industrial architecture.
The Town of Bata-Men
Like other satellite towns of the Bata Company, Bat´ovany -- Partizánske was a large community since its foundation. All inhabitants of the settlement worked at one company, lived in similar houses in one quarter and spent their leisure time together. They were mostly young people, with the average age of Bata employees being 26 years. About 30% of the company's employees were young people aged 14 to 21 /26/. Many of them were trained in Zlín and later moved into one of the satellite towns. Others studied in local schools of work and afterwards began their careers in the production or other units of the company. Bata's School of Work was a unique institution. It was a boarding school where studying was combined with working in the factory. The craft of making shoes was taught there, but students were also provided with a more general education; they could learn foreign languages or basics of social conduct. The learners were called "young men" and "young women". As their parents did not need to pay for the studies of their children, many people not only from the town were interested in it. The admission requirement was to successfully pass entrance tests. An elegant school uniform also confirmed the exceptionality of Bata school students. The Slovak writer Elena Cepceková mentioned the uniqueness of this institution in her social-critique novel Nezabudni Monika (Don't forget, Monika). She described the feelings of the main character coming to the Bata School of Work like this: "Even now she doesn't clearly know what the "young women" and the "young men" mean. She only knows that they wear nice uniforms and that there are tutors and tutoresses at student dormitories. And that later, the best out of hardworking young men and young women are chosen and given a chance to study and to become well-paid Bata-Men /27/."
The education at the Bata School of Work in Bat´ovany began as early as in September 1939. Continuous inflow of students was the basis of local population growth. Education acquired, good working conditions, above-the-standard wages and a chance to obtain a modern dwelling strengthened the feeling of identification with the company among school graduates. In this natural way they formed a community. They were called 'Bata-Men'. Bata-Men also included another type of immigrants -- the intelligentsia. Teachers, engineers, physicians came to Bat´ovany with expectations of good salaries and better living conditions, but they also sought participation in something special -- in the development of a modern society in a modern town. They brought a modern urban way of living into the town, including affection for motoring, photography or tennis. Nonetheless, all new inhabitants felt the exceptionality of the local community and tried to integrate in it. Prosperity of the company, social benefits and the unique character of the town made them proud and firmly committed with both the location and the community. The company's management enhanced such climate on purpose. Collectivism was part of the strategy of Bata -- he considered it a good tool to control his employees. It is therefore somewhat difficult to identify how much the relations within such communities are spontaneous. At any rate, we can state that natural human desires successfully met with well thought out business strategy in case of the Bata-Men community. The brightness of Bata's intentions was fully manifested here. Although the aim of the company was to get maximum profit possible and social benefits were mostly an effective tool to achieve this goal, the company's management cared about education, health and leisure time of their employees. Good education, health care, and a feeling of well-spent leisure time were assumptions of good performance at work. According to this philosophy the company also built schools, cultural and health-care facilities -- almost synchronously with production halls. Social aspects thus became a natural part of Bata's economic program. A hospital with high-quality staff, a Community House, primary and technical schools, as well as a number of sports grounds were established in the town. The company built a football stadium with a stand, tennis courts, and a summer swimming pool. It also initiated a sports club (well known for its football and boxing teams were, in particular), amateur theater, company's brass band and a photography club. The Community House was used for concerts, movies and theater performances, but there were also held balls and public dance parties. The company's newspaper was a remarkable part of the life of the community. The weekly called Budovatel ('The Constructor') brought detailed information on town's life, but it also informed about the Bata Company and contemporary politics. The importance of this media is emphasized by the fact that its editor-in-chief, J. Dado, was invited to important meetings of the company's management.
The nationalization of the production plant in 1948 did not change the life of the community significantly. In fact, Bata collectivism was close to the leftist state. It was the political pressure in the 1950s and strong influx of new inhabitants in the 1970s that put an end to traditional social relationships in the town. The communist, anti-Bata propaganda interpreted the Bata history of the town as a damnable period of capitalist exploitation. Local population thus showed only little interest in the Bata tradition. This has lead, inter alia, to poor informedness of younger generation about the Bata history of the town. Former constructing enthusiasm was replaced by general skepticism. The question therefore is how much the relations within the community resulted from a smart manipulation, and how much they stemmed from natural emotions of local inhabitants. Today, however, the former functioning of community is impossible because of the size of the town and its population. The Bata history together with the tangible cultural heritage of those times could still become a source of pride and sense of belonging of present-day inhabitants of Partizánske.
Labor Square
The life of the community had a substantial influence over the town planning of the settlement. A Labor Square was the center of public life in each of Bata satellite towns. Its concept got a lot of attention. Labor Square was the main gathering place of the town. This was the place of the Bata School of Work graduates parades as well as May Day parades, which were spectacular and very representative both in Bata's satellites, and in Zlín, the hometown. The more compact part of the square, the so-called "Kalverstraat" /28/ was supposed to enable Bata employees to do everyday shopping when going to or from their work. The development consisted of two-story buildings with sales outlets on the ground floor and apartments of employees and shop tenants on the first floor. The Community House with a hotel was the first building on Labor Square in Bat´ovany (No. 3, SNP Square, 1939 -- 1941). Together with production halls and residential buildings, it was a typical part of every satellite. The Community House played a significant role in the settlement -- it was the center of public life. Public meetings, cultural events took place in it, there was also a restaurant, café and a cinema. Two alternative Zlín projects were preserved that dealt with the design of the Community House in Bat´ovany; one of them was prepared by Antonín Vítek and the other by František Kucera /29/. Both architects designed the Community House as a three-story building based on a standard module of 6.15 x 6.15 meters. The Kucera's design was executed eventually, which had a better functional layout solution and could more effectively vary the basic structural system. Moreover, Kucera's design also reflected the lesson learnt from V. Karfík's successful execution of the Community House in Zlín. This is apparent on the layouts of rooms with combined sanitary units, but also at the showy sign "Hotel Spolocenský dom" ('The Community House Hotel') in the attic /30/. The Community House ground floor housed shops and services outlets, on the first floor was a restaurant and a café with a podium. The second floor served for the accommodation of guests and non-resident employees and managers. Managing director's apartment was here, too. On the east side of the building a cinema had been before that was closed during the conversion in the 1980s. The simple architecture of the Community House was determined by the rhythm of structural system and characteristic large window openings. In the spirit of principles formulated by F. L. Gahura, F. Kucera also showed the building's purpose in the stepped mass of the balcony projecting over the entrance of the Community House hotel. According to the general plan, the Community House building was supposed to stand at the peak of the Square and to counterbalance the building of the church. However, it was executed on the northern border of the square opposite to the Town Hall. During the conversion in the 1980's, red tile covering and massive profiled marquises were added to the façade of the Community House, which changed its overall character.
Synchronously with the Community House, the first building of the Bata School of Work was being built nearby -- it was Dormitory I for Boys (No. 224/5 SNP Square, Bata Construction Department, 1939 -- 1941). Three years later, Dormitory II for girls (No. 151/6 SNP Square, Bata Construction Department, 1939 -- 1944) was built in the opposite part of the square. The design of both buildings is based on the model of Zlín dormitories, which were being built from 1927 on. The boarding school building consisted of three bays of the standardized skeleton widthwise and thirteen bays lengthwise. As to the layout, it was a three-wing structure with a central corridor. The rooms did not have own sanitary facilities; there were shared ones at both ends of the corridor where there was also a small apartment of tutor, or tutoress. Student rooms were equipped with built-in cabinets and simple furniture. Ten young men or young women inhabited one room. While upper floors of the dormitories served for accommodation, the ground floor housed social and service facilities, and a canteen in the girls' dormitory. /31/.
Schools were other important public buildings that rimmed Labor Square. The first school (No. 180/14 SNP Square, 1945) was built based on the design of the important Zlín architect Miroslav Drofa (October 25, 1908 -- May 1, 1984, Zlín) /32/. Later, the second school was built according to this design, too (No. 200/22, SNP Square). However, being executed later influenced its overall appearance.
Miroslav Drofa also co-operated on another important project in the town -- the movie-theater building (1944) /33/. It was supposed to stand in the western part of the Square, next to the Town Hall building. It was a relatively generous, representative structure. Nevertheless, it was also based on the standardized structural system. The façade of simple longitudinal mass was completed with an unusual element -- a pillaring of seven structural bays facing the Square, with a terrace on the first floor. Within the exact rectangle volume of the structure the architect smartly placed two auditoriums -- a big movie and theater performances hall and a small conference hall. However, the movie-theater was not built eventually. On charming colored drawings by Miroslav Drofa, the dynamic interior of both halls as well as an elegant lobby were preserved.
The Protestant Church project by Eugen Kramár and Štefan Lukacovic (1948) had a similar destiny /34/. The intention to build a Protestant church in Velké Uherce district originated in the time when the Roman-Catholic church construction was almost finished. Updated 1948 general plan of the town included plans for the construction of another church. The project was commissioned to Kramár -- Lukacovic, a well-know architectural studio in Bratislava. Eugen Kramár and Štefan Lukacovic were also known in the region of Upper Nitra. They planned and executed the Post Office in the town of Handlová (1943 -- 1944) and residential houses in Topolcany (1946 -- 1947); they also won the contest to remodel a square in Prievidza, which was executed in 1947 -- 1948. They designed the Protestant church as an impressive asymmetric composition of one-nave ceremonial space and a separate slim belfry tower that were interconnected by a side wing. An elegantly undulated marquee emphasized the church's façade. The main nave was to be illuminated through a roof skylight and by a sculptural wall with narrow window openings. The plan of the church bears the signs of advanced Modernism, anticipating courageous artistic gestures of later period. The church undoubtedly ranks among the authors' best works and it is a pity that it has never been built.
The Most Grandiose Architecture in the Town
The Roman-Catholic church of Divine Heart of Jesus (SNP Square 34, 1943 -- 1949) has always been the most grandiose building of the square /35/. It is the only evidenced work by the Zlín architecture's key person, Vladimír Karfík (October 26, 1901, Indrija, Slovenia -- June 6, 1996, Brno) in the town. The original project of the church dates back to 1937. V. Karfík designed it for the Moravian satellite Batov (today's Otrokovice). However, the church was not built. In line with practices of the Bata construction office, the architect used this project later as the basis for the construction of the church in Partizánske. However, the original design underwent a development, which was required by different location and a decade between the first project and the execution. The size of the church changed most significantly. Compared with the original design, the church built is 10 meters shorter. There were also changes in the dimensions of the skeleton module. While originally they were 9.020 mm x 6.150 mm (which was, in fact, a derived Zlín module), in the working project the module was adjusted to non-standard 9.900 x 4.500 mm. Similar adjustments were made to the dimensions of the interior. Today, the main ceremonial space is wider and shorter and has a smaller seating capacity (originally 400 seats, today 270). Its clearance height changed, too. In the original design for Otrokovice, the clearance height was 11 m. The church in Partizánske is 9.9 m high. The tower built in Partizánske is 3 m lower than the tower designed for Otrokovice. However, the subtle steel staircase inside the tower that leads to the belfry was preserved in the Partizánske version. From the belfry, a narrow exterior gallery is accessible with a unique view over the whole town. The main celebration space of the church is completed by presbytery rimmed by sacristy, service rooms and oratory. In comparison with the first design, there were also minor layout changes. The chapel with the font was originally placed right to the presbytery, however, it was built on the left side of the main entrance /36/. With regard to the drawings preserved, we can suppose that the original design was more constructivist and had a more subtle vertical raster. Vladimír Karfík modified the church project several times. The resulting appearance probably reflects broader European contexts, when in the first half of the 1940s monumental tendencies in architecture prevailed again. Within sacral buildings by Karfík, the church in Partizánske is the most expressive and the most grandiose one. The basic volume, spatial concept and layout of individual internal spaces follow his previous works. Here again, layering of prisms is used, but their mutual proportions and the elevation of tower are unique. Verticality -- the theme that attracted V. Karfík throughout his entire architectural career -- is the key motive of the church, both in the original and the executed versions. His lifelong "inclination towards skyscrapers" /37/ was undoubtedly displayed here. After all, what might better express desires of believers then a temple -- skyscraper?
In the internal space of the church eight pillars, frame construction of the ceiling, and characteristic vertical raster of tall windows at the sides of the nave are dominant. The pillars are lined by pinky artificial marble, which evokes an impression of fluting. The interior is equipped soberly, using the materials available in profane architecture -- plastering, paving made of marble chipping and terazzo combination, aluminum, opaxite glass, neon lighting. Although the materials used are sober, they cannot be considered a cheap or substandard solution /38/. The interior differs from the design by the placement and shaping of the pulpit (in the version executed it is part of presbytery whereas in the original design it was separate), benches, lights, and by the decoration. While paintings were planned in the original design, in the church built there are 14 realistic monochromatic reliefs on the walls of the main nave that figure the Stations of the Cross (by Tibor Bártfay). Artificial lighting of this work is also worth mentioning. Despite tradition prevalent in catholic churches, ceiling lights were not planned in this case. The range of lighting devices used highly surpassed the conventional wall lamps designed. A neon tube is the basis of all lighting devices. Simple straight tubes are placed in aluminum cornices under the wall reliefs and in the portal of presbytery. In the cornice of the pulpit curved tubes were set that copy its oval shape. In the day chapel, the tubes form an ethereal four-arm figure on the ceiling. Pop-art crosses on the main-nave pillars are also shaped out of neon tubes. The admitted riveting of aluminum elements further strengthens the technicist look of the lighting. The lighting devices have a charm of ad-hoc solutions, and at the same time they are surprisingly ahead of the overall appearance of the church, although they logically reflect the fact they originated in the town of industry and unification.
To Work Collectively, to Live Individually
If we were to choose one element that critically influenced the appearances of all Bata satellite towns, it would definitely be a 'family house' of unplastered brick. Looking at whichever of the settlements that originated during the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s, be it Zlín, Best, Netherlands, Möhlin, Switzerland, Belcamp, the U.S.A., or Bat´ovany, in each of them red housed organized in a neat structure are dominant. The prevalence of family houses in Bata satellites results from the opinion of Tomáš Bata; he wanted his employees to "work collectively, but live individually". The main Zlín architect, F. L. Gahura commented on it: "Mister Bata, the boss, thinks that a person living in a house with a garden is not a job-jumper and instead of politics he prefers working in his garden or relaxing in the grass; he doesn't go to pubs or political meetings" /39/.
In Bat´ovany -- Partizánske, several types of detached houses were built. They differ in the number of apartments, roofing, interior layout, and surface treatment. As far as the number of apartments is concerned, three types of detached houses were being built -- for one, two or four families, with the semi-detached houses clearly prevailing. Roofing of the houses can be classified into two basic types: flat roof and saddle roof. Unlike other settlements, saddle roof is definitely dominant in Bat´ovany. In terms of surface treatment, there are also two types of houses -- unplastered and plastered ones; in both cases building construction is made of brick. In this aspect, Bat´ovany differ from the other settlements again as most of the houses are plastered here. Besides single-family houses, or semi-detached houses, also decent apartment houses were built in Bat´ovany -- Partizánske, the six-flat detached houses and eight-flat detached houses. The situating of individual types of houses within the settlement corresponds with the chronology of the residential development. The part around Cervená (Red) Street is the oldest one, where the influence of Zlín pattern is the strongest. The younger the houses, the more influenced they are by tradition and local particularities /40/.
The major part of Bat´ovany -- Partizánske was planned and built during the World War II. In countries under German and Italian political influences the architectural models coming from these centers gradually prevailed. The conservative residential architecture of Germany, bound to Romanesque tradition, influenced the character of residential development in Bat´ovany, too. Saddle roofs (required by construction regulations of the Slovak State), arches above the entrances and wooden shutters or decorative details corresponded more with "Blut und Boden" German architecture than Zlín Modernism. In Bat´ovany, this trend was so strong for two reasons probably. Firstly, it was the influence of the Slovak State's cultural policy that set Italian and German architecture an example to local architects. In that period, most of residential districts at industrial plants supported by Germans in Slovakia were built in line with the traditional opinion. To exemplify we can mention the family houses for the Herman Göring Werke employees, Nová Dubnica (1943), the residential settlement of the Dynamit Nobel company, Bratislava (1942), or the residential houses at Ružomberok paper mill (1941) /41/. Secondly, the management of Bata's Zlín headquarters was directly under the German influence. The new German director Miesbach prompted Bata's architects not to design "Bolshevik or American projects", and he even organized an excursion to show them the right German architecture /42/. The position of the town in close proximity of Hauerland settled by Germans could also play a role in the positive inclination of Bat´ovany towards conservative forms. Unlike the above-mentioned residential settlements in Nová Dubnica or Bratislava, where also traditional town planning applied, the modern general plan by J. Voženílek was followed in Bat´ovany. And it is this combination of modern town planning and conservative architecture that gives Bat´ovany -- Partizánske its unique position. The local construction office decided on the appearance of a broad range of family houses and we can only guess today to what extent this was influenced also by the strong personality of František Fackenberg, the head of the office.
Bata's residential houses had simple functional equipment. They had public water supply, sewerage, and electric network; in their neighborhoods were roads with hardwearing surface and public lighting. The houses had local solid-fuel heating and standardized sanitary and kitchen facilities. Both system and individual equipment of the residential development met basic functional requirements. Nevertheless, for people coming from a background without running water, sewerage or electricity this was a significant change in the way of life. In this respect, Bata's School of Work played an important role where students learnt how to use modern conveniences. Individual family or apartment houses were not fenced; hedgerows demarcated the residential area around the house only. The maintenance of public greenery was provided by the Construction Department of the Bata Company. However, the immediate neighborhood of a house was to be maintained by its own inhabitants and the company newspaper directly criticized those that neglected the surroundings of their homes. No domestic animals were allowed in residential quarters, including even pets such as dogs or cats. Construction of shelters or sheds was prohibited, too. In this way the company's management directly tried to eliminate rural habits of their employees. Paradoxically, constructing various shelters, as well as growing small plants and raising small animals began in Partizánske after the nationalization in the 1950s only, and to a small extent it has preserved till today. After the nationalization of the factory, and with growing number of inhabitants, fencing the plots of family houses started. Nevertheless, the relative proximity of family houses has always lead to higher frequency and level of mutual social contacts among inhabitants. The strong neighborhood relationships within the residential structure were also caused by the system of cross pedestrian sidewalks that complemented the network of parallel concrete roads. They lead to public wells originally. Even after the plots were fenced these paths have remained preserved, together with the wells; they have been an important tool of social relations in the territory and have given the residential development a unique character till today.
Bat´ovany -- Partizánske in the Context of Slovak Architecture and its Monument Protection
Bat´ovany, or Partizánske, has a unique position within architectural heritage in Slovakia. It is a well-preserved ensemble of modern architecture that documents an international dimension of the Zlín architectural model, but also the structure of local influences that had a large impact on the character of this settlement. The Slovak periphery with strong traditions 'recast' the central Zlín model in a number of ways, particularly in terms of architecture, be it by using hip roofs, plastered surfaces or application of wooden rustic elements. However, this does not mean that the typical Zlín buildings made of unplastered brick were something unknown in the local setting. In Slovakia -- from the beginning of the 1900s -- unplastered brick was associated with search of new expressions in architecture. This can be seen on the works of Hungarian Art-Nouveau architects or the later works of modernists such as Klement Šilinger, Artur Szalatnai, Alois Balán and Jirí Grossmann; it is also apparent on production facilities, railway buildings, electrification facilities, and residential houses for workers and railway men built of exposed brick in the wave of industrialization and modernization /43/. In Slovakia, modern unplastered brick architecture was one of the important ways of transformation from traditional to modern architecture -- the Zlín construction model could become quite a natural link thereto.
A number of places with Zlín-architecture elements have been preserved in Slovakia. However, it is only Batizovce -- Svit, a part of Bošany village and Bat´ovany -- Partizánske that are more comprehensive examples of the Bata's system of development. All these settlements were established during the wave of industrialization that hit Slovakia in the first half of the 1900s. In this regard we can also mention other production plants that also built housing and basic amenities for their employees beside production facilities. The example are Coburg Steel Works, Trnava, the munition factory in Dubnica nad Váhom, or the Dynamit-Nobel plant in Bratislava, and other factories, too. Nevertheless, these plants were limited both in dimensions and functions and did not get over the limits of a residential neighborhood. Unlike them, efforts of the Bata Company were aimed at the development of autonomous settlement units. For most of its satellites, the "application of spatially demarcated schemes of ideal industrial towns, regardless of different territorial situation or historic and demographic development of the area and its possibilities, as well as dependence on a single production plant and the required isolation from the rest of the settlement, later became barriers to further organic development" /44/. In Bat´ovany -- Partizánske this was not quite the case. A lucky coincidence of favorable circumstances enabled the settlement to develop in compliance with the original intentions for several decades. Undoubtedly also because of this the today's Partizánske is the best-preserved and actively functioning example of the Zlín construction model in Slovakia.
In the context of the other Bata satellites, but also other comparable functionalist settlements, Partizánske is a surprisingly living organism that underwent a whole range of changes, yet it preserved the original spirit of a "town in gardens". Bata quarters have kept the character defined by Voženílek's general plan despite modifications of individual buildings (inappropriate modifications were made to the Community House building, former lodging houses at Jesenského Street, and a number of production buildings) and they constitute the principal parts of the town organism. It is only the high-rise residential house in the axis of the former Labor Square (today's SNP Square) that strongly interferes with the original urban concept.
The relation of the inhabitants to the town's architectural and cultural values is less satisfactory. It is definitely positive only in case of the old, founding generation of former Bata-Men. Identification with the above mentioned values is questionable in case of younger inhabitants, who did not experience the 'Bata times' and therefore do not share older generation's nostalgic memories. Their reserved attitudes are evident, although these stem from ignorance and disinterest rather than from conscious rejection of cultural and historical values associated with the Bata Era. Lack of information, together with changes in lifestyle and increasing requirements for operational and technical comfort of buildings are a problem for monument protection. These conflicts are most serious in the residential quarters. It is hardly possible to prevent conversions and modernization of family houses, and so the question is to what extent it is possible to preserve the model of a standardized residential quarter in today's strongly individualized living conditions.
Partizánske has not enacted a comprehensive model of monument protection till today. The only exception is the Roman Catholic Church that was declared a cultural monument in 1955 /45/. At the beginning of the 1990s, the Monument Protection Institute in Topolcany drawn up a concept of monument protection of the original Bata part of the town, where also buildings meriting protection were specified. These efforts were aimed at the development of regulations for further construction activities in that zone. However, the Monument Protection Institute and the town representatives did not achieve agreement /46/. It is difficult to clearly answer the question of how to solve the monument protection of a functionalist assembly such as the central part of Partizánske, as it depends on a lot of variable factors such as a social need, the physical condition of buildings, property rights in the location, funds available and the attitudes of the inhabitants as well as their willingness to participate. Variability of the above factors as well as previous experiences indicate that it is difficult to express a generally accepted opinion on monument protection approaches. We can only say with certainty that a thorough architectural and historical survey and documentation should precede any interventions in the territory. It is the first and inevitable step that, although relatively inexpensive, can serve as a background for physical renovation of buildings, if required, or as a study material where it is impossible (for different reasons) to preserve the building. The very meaning of monument protection seems to be its key problem. It is definitely not easy to identify reasons and the perspective of architectural monument protection intended to be time-limited at the very beginning. Standard arguments such as the value of age or artistic, architectural and cultural values must be formed in such a way that would hold out in a discussion with the public. Finally, it is always the inhabitants of a particular protected location that are to bear the burden of financial and social impacts of monument protection. The examples of other functionalist ensembles that have also undergone the problematic phase of seeking the monument protection meaning can be a good starting point for the search of motivation and proper monument protection approaches. Monument protection bodies and local authorities can perform a wide range of activities in the fields of research and education, renovation of the local population's cultural memory and the development of sufficiently wide and attractive range of possible solutions concerning, e.g., the modifications of houses. If we consider the town planning of Partizánske to be an important influence over its character, then this very town planning can be the basis of protected merits of the town, together with selected examples of Bata architecture preserved and carefully reconstructed (e.g., one of the production buildings and a number of family houses). There is no such a complex ensemble of a functionalist residential quarter in Slovakia as Weissenhofsiedlung in Stuttgart, Werkbundsiedlung in Vienna, Baba in Prague or Nový dum in Brno. Partizánske could thus become a good opportunity to obtain a vivid representative ensemble that would constitute a concentrated opinion on housing and work in the spirit of modernist ideals of the 1930s. Such recognition could form the basis of a future model of monument protection in the town, acceptable for all parties.
NOTES
1 In 1918, 60% of inhabitants of Slovakia worked in agriculture, compared with merely 30% in the Czech lands. Only 17% of the population was employed in industry compared with 40% in the Czech lands.
2 For more details see Satelity funkcionalistického Zlína (Satellite Towns of Functionalist Zlín). Ed: L. Hornáková, L. Ševecek, Zlín, the State Gallery in Zlín 1998, 91 pp.
3 Its registered capital amounted to 75,000,000 crowns, which was the second largest capital within the Czechoslovak Group of the Bata Company, Zlín. The company named Bata, Slovak Joint-Stock Company, Šimonovany included: the works for the processing of leather and shoes in Bošany, a factory for artificial silk, footwear and underclothes in Batizovce, coal mines in Obyce, Lomy and Tuhár, a factory for the production of cream in Liptovský Mikuláš, the spa and forest and land farm in Bojnice, and the Kotva Export -- Import company in Bratislava. The Group's companies also produced buildings materials used for the construction of its buildings. A fast-growing chain of company's outlets and Service Centers was also part of the Group. In 1930, there were 1211 sales outlets and 31 Service Centers in the territory of Czechoslovakia. For more details see KUDZBEL, Marek: Bata. Hospodársky zázrak. (Bata. An Economic Miracle.) Bratislava, Marada Capital Services, a. s. 2001, 195 pp., here pp. 121 and 178 -- 178.
4 See HILBERSEIMER, Ludwig: Grossstadtarchitektur. Stuttgart 1927, and HILPERT, Thilo: Die funktionelle Stadt. Braunschweig 1978.
5 MORAVÁNSZKY, Ákos: Competing visions. Aesthetic Invention in Central European Architecture, 1867 -- 1918. Cambridge (Mass.), London, The MIT Press 1998, 508 pp., here p. 60.
6 SEDLÁK, M.: Manažment (Management). Bratislava, Elita 1998, pp. 29 -- 30.
7 JANU, Karel -- ŠTURSA, Jirí -- VOŽENÍLEK, Jirí: Je možná vedecká syntéza v architekture? (Is scientific synthesis in architecture possible?). Magazine Družstevní práce (The Cooperative Labor), V 4, 1936 -- 1937, pp. 176 to 182. Quotation according to 'Form follows Science'. Exhibition catalogue. Ed. S. Ryndová, R. Švácha, P. Pokorná, Prague, Jaroslav Fragner Gallery, here p. 253.
8 Partizánske. Staré a nové epochy. (Partizánske. Old and New Eras) Ed. Jozef Vladár, Egon Wiedermann. Bratislava, Mesto Partizánske 2000, 230 pp., here p. 100.
9 Budovatel (Constructor newspaper), 1939, No 18.
10 Jirí Voženílek, the General Plan for the 2nd phase of the Development of Bat´ovany, 1945. The Regional Gallery of Fine Arts, Zlín, Documentation Archives S-691. Other drawings of the 1945 Bat´ovany General Plan signed by J. Voženílek are stored in the Svit Archives under the numbers 245-000245-000001/0,24 and 1146-001146-001705/0,11
11 Drawings of landscaping treatment dated 1944, 1946, and 1949 to 1955. The Archives of the Partizánske Municipal Office.
12 In 1946, F. Fackenberg drew up a development plan for the extension of the original settlement of Šimonovany. Šimonovany was to be connected with Bat´ovany through a new residential zone. Town planners were working on this plan till 1948. However, the plan was not executed eventually.
13 Building a thirteen-story prefabricated residential house in the center of the Square was undoubtedly ideologically motivated. The situating of the structure divided the Square into two parts: the representative part with the Municipal Office, the House of Culture and the hotel, and the recreational one with the park, housing, and the church. The church thus got into the desired inferior situation. Its dominant position in relation to the Square was thus also limited.
14 NOVÁK, Pavel: Zlínská architektura (The Architecture of Zlín). Zlín, Agentura Cas 1993, 320 pp., here p. 152.
15 GAHURA, František Lydie: Budování Batova Zlína (Construction of Bata's Zlín). Stavitel (The Builder), 1933 -- 1934, No 14.
16 KUDZBEL, Marek: Bata. Hospodársky zázrak. (Bata. An Economic Miracle.) Bratislava, Marada Capital Services a. s., 2001, 195 pp., here p. 145.
17 FACKENBERG, František: Ako budovat priemyselné podniky? (How to build industrial plants?), Budovatel (The Constructor), 1941.
18 KARFÍK, Vladimír: Architekt si spomína (Architect is recollecting). Bratislava, SAS 1933, 329 pp., here p. 109.
19 At the Bata Company, people got fired immediately. Although the company paid the fired a six-week salary, he (she) had to leave the workplace immediately; the company did not trust him (her). Writes V. Karfík in his memoirs. Ibidem, p. 102.
20 Ibidem, p. 132.
21 Tomáš Bata Jr. visited Partizánske as early as in 1989 and then again in summer 1990. His visits met with a tremendous response in local as well as nation-wide press. Opportunities for cooperation were discussed with hope; the cooperation was, however not achieved. See more in Hlas ludu (Voice of the People) daily dated December 15, 1989 and June 5, 1990, Pravda (Truth) daily dated July 11, 1990, and Dnešok (Today) weekly dated April 9, 1991.
22 Svit Archives 507-000507-000007/0,24 and 508-000508-000007/0,24
23 The production hall plan dates back to 1942. The State Archives, Topolcany, 502/1943.
24 FACKENBERG, František: Ako budovat priemyselné podniky? ('How to build industrial plants?'), Budovatel (The Constructor), 1941.
25 The Svit Archives 93-000093-999999/7,60, 510-000510-000007/0,24; the Archives of the Partizánske Municipal Office; the State Archives, Topolcany, 495/1942, 497/1943
26 KUDZBEL, Marek: Bata. Hospodársky zázrak (Bata. An Economic Miracle). Bratislava, Marada Capital Services, a. s. 2001, 195 pp., here p. 92.
27 CEPCEKOVÁ, Elena: Nezabudni Monika (Don't forget, Monika). Bratislava, Mladé letá 1974, 338 pp., here p. 130.
28 Kalverstraat, the shopping street, is mentioned in the 'Accompanying Report of the Šimonovany General Plan'. The Svit Archives 000032-001682/0,11-1-1936.
29 The Regional Gallery of Fine Arts in Zlín, Documentation Archives, S -- 2570 to 77; the Svit Archives 1075-001075-0000019/0,24 and 1076-001076-0000019/0,24.
30 These features are probably the reason why P. Novák mentions V. Karfík to be a co-author of the Community House in Partizánske. However, he dates the project back to 1942 only. See NOVÁK, Pavel: Zlínská architektura (The architecture of Zlín). Zlín, Agentura Cas 1993, 320 pp., here p. 286. In his memoirs, V. Karfík does not list the Community House project among his works.
31 The Svit Archives 1287-001287-001713/0,11. P. Novák mentions V. Karfík to be the author of the dormitory for 500 apprentices in Partizánske, he dates the project back to 1942. Ibidem, p. 286. However, there are no such data mentioned on the drawings, neither does V. Karfík list them in his memoirs. Repeated association of Karfík's name with various projects in Partizánske may result from his position of the head of Bata Construction Office in Zlín. He was probably signing most of the projects of the Bata Company.
32 The Svit Archives 1361-001361-001715/0,11, 1362-001362-001715/0,11, 1363-001363-001715/0,11, 1364-001364-001715/0,11. In this case, too, P. Novák mentions V. Karfík to be a co-author and dates the project back to 1939. Ibidem, p. 286. When listing his works in his memoirs, Karfík also mentions the school in Partizánske to be a joint work with M. Drofa dated 1939. See KARFÍK, Vladimír: Architekt si spomína (Architect is recollecting). Bratislava, SAS 1933, 329 pp., here p. 321. However, on the project drawings of the school dated September 1945 only Miroslav Drofa is mentioned.
33 The Svit Archives 1378-001378-001719/0,11, 1379-001379-001719/0,11, 1380-001380-001719/0,11, 1381-001381-001719/0,11
34 The project dates back to March 1948. The building permit for the church was issued on November 14, 1949. The State Archives, Topolcany, 2697/1949.
35 The building permit was approved on August 31, 1943. The occupancy permit was issued in spring 1949 and the consecration was planned for June 1949. However, political reasons prevented the public consecration to be performed eventually and the church was consecrated in a narrow circle of church representatives on June 25, 1949. The State Archives, Topolcany, 2697/1949 and GREŽDOVÁ, Helena: Premeny cirkevného života (Transformations of Church Life). In: Partizánske. Staré a nové epochy. (Partizánske. Old and New Eras) Ed. Jozef Vladár, Egon Wiedermann. Bratislava, Mesto Partizánske 2000, 230 pp., here p. 139.
36 In the plan, the dimensions of the church were 47.22 m x 23.8 m. Its dimensions based on the working drawings are 37.4 m x 21.2 m. The proposed length of the main nave was 41.3 m. However, the executed building is 26.4 m long. Compare the documents of the State Archives, Topolcany 505/1943, 604/1943; the Svit Archives, 1395-001395-001720/0,11 and 1396-001396-001720/0,11; the Regional Gallery of Fine Arts in Zlín, Documentation Archives S-602, S-603, S-624, S-2589, S-2590, S-2591, S-2592, S-2593.
37 BENCOVÁ, Jarmila: Vladimír Karfík & mrakodrapy (Vladimír Karfík & Skyscrapers). Architektúra & Urbanizmus 35, 2001, No 3 -- 4, p. 79.
38 The years of war destitution had much smaller impact on Partizánske than on the rest of Slovakia. A better example is to compare the church in Partizánske, e.g., with the Church of Our Lady of the Snows at the Calvary, Bratislava, that has a similar spatial layout and was built in the same period (J. Fuchs, I. Vécsei, D. Quastler, 1943). The interior of the Calvary church is wholly plastered, including columns. Here, too, no roof lighting were used, there are only simple wall lamps on the columns. The floor is poured with terazzo without using any sophisticated patterns or marble chippings like it is in Partizánske. The interior decoration is modest; it is reduced to the altarpiece in fact.
39 KARFÍK, Vladimír: Architekt si spomína (Architect is recollecting). Bratislava, SAS, 1993, 329 pp., here p. 99.
40 For more details see the study DORICOVÁ, Slávka -- TOPOLCANSKÁ, Mária: Variácie štandardu individuálneho bývania firmy Bata. Prípad Bat´ovany -- Partizánske. (Alternations of Bata Company individual living standard: case Bat´ovany -- Partizánske) in this issue of the Journal.
41 For more details see the chapter Architecture and State in DULLA, Matúš -- MORAVCÍKOVÁ, Henrieta: Architektúra Slovenska v 20. storocí (Architecture of Slovakia in the 20th Century). Bratislava, Slovart 2002, 511 pp., here pp. 162 -- 173.
42 KARFÍK, Vladimír: Architekt si spomína (Architect is recollecting). Bratislava, SAS 1993, 329 pp., here p. 134.
43 For more details see DULLA, Matúš -- MORAVCÍKOVÁ, Henrieta: Architektúra Slovenska v 20. storocí (Architecture of Slovakia in the 20th Century). Bratislava, Slovart 2002, 511 pp., here pp. 78 -- 80.
44 Satelity funkcionalistického Zlína (Satellite Towns of Functionalist Zlín). Ed: L. Hornáková, L. Ševecek, Zlín, the State Gallery in Zlín 1998, pp. 91, here p. 22.
45 It is a paradox that despite the highest degree of protection, plastic ones have recently replaced the steel profiles of the large windows in the main nave of the church.
46 See more details on the intentions of the Monument Protection Authority from the beginning of the 1990s in JURKOVIC, Peter: Pamiatková ochrana diel funkcionalizmu a socialistického realizmu (Monument Protection of Works of Functionalism and Socialist Realism). Architektúra Urbanizmus 34, 2000, 159 -- 166 pp., here pp. 162 -- 164.
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