The exhibition in Zlín charts the hundred-year history of the Zlín-based company Centroprojekt

Zlín - The activities of the Zlín-based design and engineering company Centroprojekt are showcased in an exhibition at the company’s headquarters in the center of Zlín. The exhibition Centroprojekt 1925−2025 was prepared by the association aArchitektura and the Research Center for Industrial Heritage of the Faculty of Architecture at CTU on the occasion of the centenary of the founding of the design company, whose history dates back to Baťa. The exhibition will last until the end of October and is complemented by lectures and guided tours, said the exhibition curator Lucie Šmardová to ČTK.

The core of the exhibition is an archive documenting the activities of the organization, changes in the design process, and everyday life in a company that employed almost 700 people at the end of the 1980s. "Among the most interesting exhibits are newly digitized original plans of the administrative building 21 by architect Vladimír Karfík and the competition designs for the Centroprojekt administrative building," Šmardová stated.

The exhibition presents the history of the organization and its design activities, particularly focused on the leather, footwear, glass, ceramics, and textile industries. The projects were intended not only for Czechoslovakia but also for dozens of countries around the world. The main emphasis of the exhibition is on the period from the 1950s to the 1980s when Centroprojekt was one of the most significant design institutes in the country.

The establishment of the company is connected with the construction department of Baťa. In 1925, a separate group was founded within it, which included the most significant architects of interwar Zlín such as František Lýdie Gahura, Vladimír Karfík, Miroslav Drofa, Jiří Voženílek, and Vladimír Kubečka. The structure of the construction department, where the Zlín construction standard of 6.15 by 6.15 meters was developed among other things, changed over time. In addition to designing factories, public buildings, and family houses, one of the tasks became the regulatory plans for both Czechoslovak and foreign satellites of Baťa.

After World War II, the architects helped with the rapid reconstruction of the factory complex and housing stock of Zlín by designing large-capacity apartment buildings in the eastern part of the city. In 1958, the State Institute for Projecting Consumer Industry Plants Centroprojekt was established in Gottwaldov. The institute's activities and its specialization gradually expanded, and the number of employees also grew.

The 1990s and the following decade brought new challenges and a different spectrum of contracts that the company prepared for both domestic and foreign clientele, Šmardová stated. Centroprojekt Group currently employs around eighty people and is part of the Agrofert holding.