Three-storey houses with shops

The central square in Baťov was already conceived in the Basic Development Plan of the Municipality of Greater Zlín (Základním upravovací plán obcí Velkého Zlína) by František Lýdie Gahura from 1934 as a free park area, surrounded symmetrically on its sides by commercial street fronts. The southern side of the square got its real contours in the second half of the 1930s, when a department store and a building with shops and apartments by Vladimír Karfík were opened one shortly after the other. However, the feverish construction activity in the rapidly developing factory colony was interrupted by the war years, and the building plot opposite remained vacant until the early 1950s. The northern side of the square, which Gahura reserved in the plan for buildings with small businesses, shops and a cinema, was only then filled by an apartment building with shops designed in 1950 by Miroslav Drofa and completed two years later.

Architect Drofa had been active in the services of the Baťa company since the end of the 1920s. For the shoe company, he prepared proposals for a respectable number of building types for residential purposes (semi-detached houses with flat and sloping roofs referred to as Drofa I, II, III, four-storey houses on Podvesná, eight-storey houses, terraced houses). In the post-war period, he made a significant contribution to the renewal of the housing stock in Zlín. He is the author of the Morýs and tower houses in the eastern part of the city, which are among the best examples of the architecture of the two-year plan period (1947-1948) throughout the country.

In the Otrokovice residential block Drofa continued in these activities which represented a change in the housing policy of the national company Svit much as the previous blocks in Zlín. Instead of the previously promoted family living in individual houses, multi-storey buildings with apartments equipped according to current standards were preferred. This helped make up for the decline in construction during the war years. With their architectural form, these houses follow on the corporate aesthetics of Baťa. The influence of Drofa's travels to Scandinavia can be seen in the processing of details, and the work with materials and the surrounding environment.

The distinctly horizontal apartment building with a smooth brick façade combines both residential and commercial functions. The architect disrupted the monumental length of the block by dividing the building into three parts, with the middle (four-storey), slightly receding, used only for residential purposes. Adjacent to this part of the building on both sides are shorter three-storey wings with sales areas on the ground floor and apartments on the upper floors.

The generously-glazed commercial parterre with an advertising sign strip contains entrances to the individual stores. It is separated from the residential floors by a protruding rounded cornice, whose shape repeats the cornice of Karfík's department stores which stand opposite. Both end wings feature generous loggias continuing around corners, which expand the living area of the apartments and provide a shaded relaxation space. The same expressive element of the open loggia was used by Miroslav Drofa in tenement houses in the Fabiánka district in Kudlov from 1948-1950. 

The central part of the house was dominated by rows of metal-clad balconies creating a canopy above the main entrances. The pairs of balconies, separated by a concrete partition, were inserted into a shallow fold of the façade, with a nice detail of windows set in oblique walls.

Each entrance had its own house sign with a relief, similar to the three-storey houses by Vladimír Karfík in Zlín Obeciny, whose Otrokovice variants are adjacent to Drofa's residential house in the north. The entrances are also complemented by a thoughtful detail in the form of built-in flower pots for ornamental flowers. The façades facing the inner yard are smooth and simple, divided by smaller two-part windows with ventilation flaps and small balconies with fine lattices located in the mezzanines of the stairwells. The architect also used the decorative effects of laying bricks. He installed a garage on the ground floor of the residential area.

Drofa's house still provides comfortable living in the city centre with views of the green park. It has undergone a number of modern modifications, including the replacement of windows and doors with plastic ones, the replacement of balcony sheeting, cladding with brick strips in the central part with apartments, and partial glazing of the loggias. Although the house is not listed, its renovation shows an effort to preserve its authentic qualities and some original details.
 

 

KE