Zlin

Tomas Bata took over a small shoe workshop in Zlin in 1894 and turned it into one of the largest footwear companies in the world, and from the 1920s he rebuilt the town around it to a single system: a standard structural module of 6.15 by 6.15 metres in reinforced concrete, filled with red brick and glass, used for factories, shops, schools, a hospital, a hotel and thousands of workers' houses, laid out on a grid with greenery between - a complete functionalist company town, planned by Frantisek Gahura and Vladimir Karfik. Building 21, the administrative skyscraper of 1938, has the feature everyone reports: the director's office was built inside a moving lift, six by six metres with air conditioning and a telephone, so the manager could go to any floor rather than summon people. It works and it can be ridden.

What you actually see

• One structural module, a whole town - 6.15 metre concrete bays in brick and glass.
• An office in a lift - the director's room in Building 21, still working.
• Gahura's plan - factories, schools and housing laid out as one system.
• Workers' housing - thousands of standard brick houses on the grid.

When to go

April to October. A day.

Honest expectations

The interest is architectural and needs some reading to see. The lift office runs on the tower tour with set times. Some Bata buildings are neglected. Zlin is a working city, not a preserved set.

Nearby

Luhacovice spa is south-east; Kromeriz is west.