Stavoprojekt

In 1953, the national company Stavoprojekt was established, an independent nationwide design institute for the construction of towns and villages. Architect Miloš Totušek was appointed the first director of the regional branch. The institute was divided into several locations in Gottwaldov (at the town hall and in building no. 21), Luhačovice, and Kroměříž. In 1963, the existing workplaces were vacated and all departments moved to a new building on Úderníků street (now třída Tomáše Bati). The Stavoprojekt building is located west of the city centre, on the edge of the Letná residential district. The headquarters of Stavoprojekt encloses a smaller square, consisting of the polyclinic building, which was built in 1954 according to the design of Miroslav Drofa, and the ČSAD building by Hynek Adamec from 1957. The building has a flat roof and four above-ground and two underground floors. Its simple layout consists of a hallway flanked by offices on one side. The structure is a reinforced-concrete monolithic skeleton and it is orientated to the east-west. Architects Miloš Totušek and Jiří Čančík let the basic structural element – the panel – become the main feature in the simply-designed façade. The regular grid of rectangular windows on the eastern façade is interrupted only by the awning above the main entrance. It is a cantilevered slab bended on two sides, carried by sloping pillars, from which a subtle staircase extends to the ground.

The elegant entrance to the building thus contrasts with the simple façade design. The west façade is divided by a strip of windows illuminating the main staircase. The ground slab is cantilevered on all sides, exceeding the two underground floors that are clad in brick lining where they come above the sloping terrain. The entire perimeter masonry is replaced by panels made in nearby Malenovice, just 6 km from the centre of Zlín. A Wolf crane with a capacity of up to 1500 kg was used for the installation of panels already containing windows and external and internal plaster. Architects Totušek and Čančík intentionally excluded traditional plastered perimeter masonry and used heavy mechanisation, thus speeding up the construction process.

The interior of the building was divided by flexible partitions so as to allow for open space arrangement as well. The individual floors had different layouts. On the ground floor there was an entrance hall with a U-shaped staircase, a room for the porter and visitors, a cafeteria, a club room, operating rooms, and also a two-room caretaker's apartment. The first floor was divided into smaller offices for the director, accountant, and management. On the second floor you would find a technical library, a conference room, a clubhouse, offices, and archive. The individual architectural studios operated on the top two floors (in 1973, the heads of the studios were architects Miloš Totušek, Arnošt Kubečka, Dušan Živocký). Warehouses, photographic and chemical laboratories, changing rooms, and garages for four cars were placed in the basement.

In 1978, a new three-storey building with a square floor plan was added to the existing building according to the design of the architect Adolf Šrom.