Baťa's skyscraper was also made famous by the director's mobile office

Prague - At the turn of 1938 and 1939, the management of the shoe company Baťa moved to a brand new building in Zlín. It was not just an ordinary construction but, at the time, the second tallest building in Europe, which still attracts attention today due to its elegance and natural incorporation into the Baťa city. The skyscraper, standing 77.5 meters tall, was officially completed 80 years ago on December 15, 1938. However, the then head of the company, Jan Antonín Baťa, did not enjoy building number 21 for long, as he did not return to Czechoslovakia after the German occupation.

The building, designed by architect Vladimír Karfík, was completed in just two years from the laying of the foundations. It is reported that a reinforced concrete skeleton of the skyscraper was constructed by 40 workers using four cranes in 160 days. It is no surprise in terms of speed, as the design included the already proven Baťa module measuring 6.15 by 6.15 meters. The space between the columns was filled with bricks, and ceramic cladding was used for the building's outer shell. The building, which is also 80 meters long and 20 meters wide, naturally blended in among other factory buildings in the city.

The first of more than 2000 officials of the Baťa conglomerate took their seats in the still-under-construction building as early as May 1938, when the builders handed over the first three floors. At that time, they had access to the most modern technology—from elevators to telephones and air conditioning. The concept of the offices itself was ahead of its time, with an entire floor being a single large room. However, if necessary, the space could be divided into smaller rooms using pre-prepared standardized partitions made of steel, wood, and glass. The eighth floor was an exception, housing the management of the plants, including the highest executive.

Jan Antonín Baťa had one more special office that still attracts the interest of experts and the public today. One of the columns of the "cells" that make up the structure of the skyscraper did not have floors, essentially forming a huge elevator shaft. In it was a cabin measuring six by six meters, in which the director had a fully equipped office. It included air conditioning, a telephone, and part of the mobile office was also a sink with hot and cold water and drainage. Thus, Baťa could visit his subordinates in the other floors whenever he wanted during his work.

The operation of the Baťa skyscraper would not have been possible without the technical facilities, which occupied a significant part of the basement; some facilities were on the roof as well. Below the ground, in addition to the archive, there was a machine room with an electric substation and two telephone exchanges, an internal automatic one for 3500 phones and a manually operated one for long-distance calls. On top, the architects placed a machine room for air conditioning and water tanks besides the terrace. Since it was not possible to open windows in the building, there was also a movable basket on the balcony from which cleaners could wash the exterior of the skyscraper.

Building number 21 survived until the end of the 20th century without major interventions. In November 1944, it accidentally escaped damage during a bombing that destroyed part of the Baťa factory, and after February 1948, its face was significantly changed only by the extension of the showroom on the rooftop terrace from the late 1950s. The significant reconstruction of the Zlín skyscraper did not occur until the early 21st century, with the transformation into the seat of the regional and financial office in 2003 and 2004 costing nearly 630 million crowns. The sensitive renovation of the famous building even received an award in the Grand Prix of the Architecture Community competition.

Baťa's skyscraper is now also a popular destination for tourists. Their attention is attracted, for example, by the executive elevator office, the observation deck, or the exhibition on Baťa's past. In the park opposite the building, there are statues of entrepreneurs Tomáš and Jan Antonín Baťa. Next year, the skyscraper is expected to have a comprehensive sightseeing circuit with a unified information and orientation system. This will include a terrace with telescopes, a bronze model of old Zlín, an animated film about the building, and the former management's floor, which will be more accessible.

Karfík's building was the second tallest European building at the time of its completion, surpassed only by the Palace of the General Banking Union in Antwerp, Belgium, which stands at 87 meters. Over the eighty years since its inception, however, much has changed. On the pan-European ranking, Zlín's "twenty-one" is now somewhere deep down and is not even among the tallest buildings in the Czech Republic. The record currently belongs to the AZ Tower multifunctional building in Brno, standing at 111 meters, completed in 2013.