The boldest building in Zlín

Set forth to explore extraordinary architecture

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Architect F. L. Gahura’s masterpiece

Discover functionalism in its purest form

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An homage to Tomáš Baťa

Be inspired by the heritage of the man behind modern Zlín

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Tomáš Baťa Memorial

A functionalist building that pays tribute to the founder of Zlín’s Baťa shoemaking concern. A shining showcase of concrete, glass and steel. Or, if you will, a modern paraphrase of High Gothic architecture. These are just a few ways we may describe the Tomáš Baťa Memorial – a radical achievement by the architect František Lýdie Gahura, and a can’t-miss place on your next visit to Zlín.

45-minute guided tour

Tour schedules for the next 60 days can be found on the website. Do you need to book a date for a package tour or a school group further in advance? Contact Us.

Select the date and time of the tour

Public access to the Tomáš Baťa Memorial is possible thanks to the City of Zlín

The journey to the Memorial’s reopening began in December 2011, when the Zlín city council approved the plan to restore the building, then in use as an art museum, to its original appearance from the 1930s. Its renovation began five years later. The first visitors entered the restored Memorial’s interior on 28 October 2018. The renovation was funded by the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic, the Zlín Region and, alongside a number of minor donors, the City of Zlín, under whose administration the Memorial has become one of the Zlín Region’s most significant architectural features.

About project

The Memorial
through the eyes of…

“The Tomáš Baťa Memorial is an amazing building for one amazing personality. At the time when the Memorial was built, its architecture was absolutely unique, and it expressed the admiration of a superb architect and collaborator for his client and friend. The Memorial is rightly considered one of the most important buildings in the history of architecture to this day. Zlín has something to be proud of.”

Eva Jiřičná

Architect

“In his design for the Tomáš Baťa Memorial building, František L. Gahura successfully found an apt architectural and spatial expression for his boss’s lifelong message. This building is composed within a stringent architectural and mathematical order, dominating Zlín’s urban backbone like a Greek temple and symbolising, through its transparent interior containing a Junkers aeroplane, the dynamic enterprising spirit with which Baťa conquered the world and served as a model of exemplary diligence and consistency for the entire nation during Masaryk’s Republic.”

Vladimír Šlapeta

Historian of architecture

“My favourite building in Zlín. I would recommend to every visitor to Zlín that they start their sightseeing here, then proceed to the city’s various sections and then wrap it up here again, in this place devoted to the personality and ideas of Tomáš Baťa. The Memorial is the masterwork of František Lýdie Gahura, and I would also recommend that you get to know his tragic fate and pay tribute to him at his beautifully modest gravestone in the local Forest Cemetery.”

Adam Gebrian

Promoter and architectural theorist