Church of the Divine Heart of Jesus

Although the Baťa company founded a large number of colonies and satellite towns, the number of religious buildings built by its construction department is not large. In Baťovany we can find one of the few examples, but the course of its construction was not smooth. In 1942, the Baťa company - a Slovak participating company - decided to build a Roman Catholic church for Baťovany. Until then, the Roman Catholic church, as well as the Evangelical church, was located in a temporary wooden building. In the late 1940s, a design for the construction of an Evangelical church was created, which was ordered by the Evangelical community (the authors were Eugen Kramár and Štefan Lukačovič). Only its foundations were built, however, as the construction was halted by the new communist state power. The Evangelical church is still located in the same wooden “temporary” building after more than 80 years. In this respect, the Roman Catholic believers were more fortunate. They nevertheless struggled with a lack of resources.

 

The author of the church in Baťovany is the architect Vladimír Karfík (1901−1996), who was the head of the Zlín construction department at that time. It is a project that Karfík originally designed in 1937 for Baťov (today Otrokovice), but it was not implemented there. Compared to Baťov, the Baťovany church was designed for a smaller number of residents, which indicated a smaller number of believers. Karfík modified his original design, changing the span of the skeleton module from 9.02m x 6.15m to 9.9m x 4.5m. This shortened the length of the main nave of the church and changed its capacity (originally 400 seats, reduced to 270). The floor to ceiling height was also reduced, changing from 11 m to 9.9 m. Karfík also lowered the church tower by 3 metres.

 

The church closes the square from the south side. The square is in many ways reminiscent of the Gahura Boulevard in Zlín, especially the park area. From the south, it borders the Nitra River and the highland landscape of the Tribeč Mountains. It is, with the exception of the adjacent residential zones from the east and west, planted in greenery, which makes its pale-grey façade stand out. In Karfík's works, one cannot help but see the influence of the great architects of his time, with whom he gained experience during his studies in the USA. His experience with high-rise buildings was not only evident during the design of the administrative building 21, but is also noticeable in the architecture of the church for Baťovany. The church seems taller through emphasising vertical lines. It is evident especially in the design of the monumental windows, which give the impression of the stained-glass windows of Gothic cathedrals. Unlike gothic windows, they are purely functionalist, strictly geometric and clear. This verticality is achieved mainly by the subtle longitudinal frames of the windows, which always run along the entire height of the building. On the contrary, the horizontals are as if suppressed; they are only felt in the almost invisible divisions of the window panes. Even the horizontal cascading of the tower accentuates the verticality of the building. The church has a gallery on the tower, with a view of the entire Baťa city centre. Unfortunately, the tower is currently closed to the public.

 

We can say that the church essentially copies the programme of Catholic churches as we know them from the Middle Ages. It is a three-nave hall finished with a presbytery with side chapels. The pillars of the reinforced concrete skeleton construction really seem to divide the space into the main area and the two side naves of the church. The technical equipment of the church is also noteworthy. The heating system is located in the basement and the heat enters the church through vents in the walls and under the pews. The artificial lighting of the church was carefully planned in advance, so there are no randomly placed lamps in the interior. Aluminum frames are created for these, and each light has its rôle. Neon lighting was also a part of the church's decoration - eternal light in the form of a red flame, a rosette in the side chapel and crosses on the pillars (now replaced by LED lighting).

 

The author of the interior design is also Vladimír Karfík. In terms of materials, in addition to the clean white plastered surfaces, we come across Tuhár marble cladding - on the columns it creates the impression of fluting, on the floor in the form of terrazzo. The marble comes from a quarry in the village of Tuhár, which was bought by the Baťa company in 1937 when they began systematic mining there. Also, the supplier of the church's wooden inventory was the Baťa furniture factory in Pravenec (pews, confessionals, other furniture). The author of the sculptural decoration is Tibor Bartfay (May 12, 1922, Nitra – October 3, 2015, Bratislava), who was chosen by Karfík himself. It consists of 14 Stations of the Cross, a central statue of Christ and twelve figures of the apostles, for the two side altars reliefs of the holy family and scenes from the cross, and a sculpture of Christ for the Holy Sepulchre. In the exterior, this work is complemented by reliefs with the symbols of the four evangelists above the main entrance and the Holy Spirit above the rear entrance to the church. The construction of the church kept being extended, first due to a lack of material, later due to a lack of funds. The church was completed thanks only to the public collection of Baťa employees in Baťovany. The ordination church was planned for May 1949, but due to the incoming regime, it could not take place and happened only in secret. The church was officially consecrated on September 2, 1989. The Church of the Divine Heart of Jesus is included in the List of National Cultural Monuments of the Slovak Republic.

 

 

KJ