The Project Zlín. Everyday Life in a Materialized Utopia ****************************************************************************************** * Barbora Vacková - Lucie Galčanová ****************************************************************************************** Abstrakt This article is based on a contribution to the “Město – mýtus – identita” (City – Myth – I conference. In it we attempt to consider Baťa and Zlín as a specific kind of myth which is within our cultural milieu. In the text which follows we will deal with one chapter from t of Zlín: with the forms of worker housing, the original assumptions around its constructio in everyday currency (based on in-depth interviews with the residents). With this analytic unique phenomenon we wish to peer under one layer of the Zlín myth. Klíčová slova Zlín, Baťa, modernity, myth, ideology, utopia, housing, family house The Zlín of the Baťa family is without doubt one of the most interesting projects to have in the modern history of Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic and also had considerable s abroad. It was built during the First Republic as a model town - it reflected contemporary the business ethos and quality of life which a modern town and its hinterland should provi perspective of today's social science researcher Zlín is therefore from one point of view "preserve" of modernity: the purpose behind the construction of the town and its buildings and researchable. This "preservation" can serve as good comparative material for researchi in the Zlín of today, which on the one hand refers frequently and with pride to its past, hand is trying, more or less successfully, to escape from the stereotype of an industrial The second reason why we take Zlín to be a suitable environment for the study of these cha particular form of housing which Baťa provided for his employees. Family housing in Zlín, in other towns, was provided in the form of standardized family houses. By historical coin out that these houses, originally conceived as temporary dwellings to be replaced after th so to meet new living standards, continue to serve their inhabitants to the present day. T of these standardized houses designed seventy years ago, with a view to the fastest possib and lowest level of costs, as minimal housing (a very topical issue in its day), are today these building techniques in seeking to achieve their own ideas of quality modern living. are reflected the needs of individuals and families, shaped by a modern lifestyle, with it individualization and rhythm (influenced by technological progress and the diversity of so is very different from the day-to-day habits of their grandparents' generation. So while i part we deal with the initial circumstances and starting point of these family houses, in are concerned mainly with the topic of the individualization of historical standardized ho present users. In other words we are asking how the inhabitants of these typified housing rebuilding them and what is their reasoning? In what directions are the inhabitants develo while the basic inner dispositions and technologies of the houses are almost the same? How house function at the present time? The myth of Zlín Present-day Zlín came into being as a project on which leading architects and urbanists wo was dictated by the interests and aims of the Baťa company. The plans of the town as a who and building techniques of the individual buildings reflected the Baťa work and life ethos The rapidity with which the town grew, together with its business success, which allowed t expand throughout the world, supported the growth of the significant myth of First Czechos which "Baťa Zlín" undoubtedly was and is. In this context, let us mention the Barthian myt its own characteristics. In this sense a myth is a speech which "has in fact a double func out and it notifies, it makes us understand something and it imposes it on us." (Barthes i 102). Myth is an instrument of naturalization of our social world. It legitimizes social i and status quo. It is not a speech which speaks about reality directly. Its aim is not to objectively. The main characteristic of myth is that it "deforms" (ibid: 108) - it highlig and suppresses others, but it covers nothing up and hides nothing. The myth of "Baťa Zlín" hard work, decency and appropriateness of the capitalist democratic system, of the figure entrepreneur and of the moral significance of labor. It positively does not hide the fact policy aim of the company was profit, the development of a loyal workforce and the overall the town and its inhabitants. Of course the ethics of the capitalist method of manufacture disciplining. From the point of view of the myth it is not important who Baťa really was, employed in his companyreally lived, and what were the real motives for his activities. On Baťa's fate and the history of its enterprise became a symbol of the prosperity and succes Czechoslovakia. The totalitarian act of renaming the town confirms the strength of this speech on success: years (from 1949 till 1990) Zlín became Gottwaldov. The town, whose name was linked to the the young Czechoslovakia, was changed into a town whose name was meant to remind people of communist Czechoslovakia. For this reason also the originally value-neutral name of Zlín, connotations through historical events, had to be replaced with the clear, unambiguous "Go myth about capitalist success was to be replaced by a myth about a president from the work The Zlín utopia There is often talk of utopia in relation to the town of Zlín. Even we have not avoided th the title of this section. But we speak deliberately of a materialized utopia, by means of to capture an important dimension of the whole Zlín undertaking, and that is the successfu lived) attempt to achieve it. We can characterize utopia as a knowledge? type through its society, understand its functioning as a unit and in particular in its attempt to propose social organization. A further sign is that in some of their forms utopias assume that the society can be influenced by the material form of its environment. In other words an ideal ideal town. And finally, utopian knowledge to a large extent is emancipatory - it aspires in the sense of improving its shortcomings. Nor was Baťa a stranger to all of this. On the other hand one must realize that to talk of Zlín as a utopia is problematic. If we Mannheim's concept of utopia, we cannot avoid the duality of utopia and ideology, which is understanding these types of knowledge. Put simply, Mannheim (1991) characterizes utopian as typical of that social group which has an interest in a change in the status quo of soc by contrast ideology as the consciousness of the group which is satisfied with the current arrangements. A myth in Roland Barthes' conception is an ideological speech, not a utopian doubt Baťa tried to change the social reality and living conditions of his factory workers other hand he did not stand up against the underlying social order, indeed quite the oppos is the paradox which encounters anyone who attempts to achieve his plans for an ideal soci is also analyzed by David Harvey (2000) in his book Spaces of Hope, in which he devotes on an analysis of various kinds of utopian consciousness and to attempts to achieve utopia. I visions of society to be successfully achieved, many compromises are necessary which resul with the everyday practice of social reality. The result of this is the "materializations utopias" (Harvey 2000: 164) which often lose much of their original emancipatory potential paradox comes from the basis of Mannheim's concept: by being achieved the utopian nature o lost, because the aim has been realized. By contrast it can happen that original utopian t ideological, as victims of historical changes and the social context in which they occur. actions must be considered more ideological. At the same time this ideology was supported speech, which we have called the Zlín myth. Of course it must be admitted that Baťa and his company supported the discourse of utopia the newly established ideal town. We can track this support at the level of practice and d As far as practice is concerned, it is clear that Baťa and his construction department bui new town. The clearing of whole blocks of flats and streets in the original historic centr was accompanied by slogans on the walls declaring We are building a new Zlín, Demolishing while an entirely new town centre began to be built, focussed on the main entrance to the conceived as a large square with the characteristic name "Labor Square." The factory becam town centre. At the same time developments of model houses grew up for worker housing and houses for managers of the town and the factory, all linked by the concept of a garden cit The employees and associates in the design and construction departments of the Baťa compan Gahura, Gočár, Voženílek and others) were concerned at the theoretical level with the conc an industrial town. They were led to this particularly by requirements arising from the de and construction of the company's satellite towns. Novák (2008) mentions that in 1937 a th publication, never published, was ready for print, entitled The Ideal Industrial Town of t this work there arose in the Zlín studios several designs for an ideal town, of which the probably Gočár's design for an Ideal Industrial Town for 10 000 inhabitants. The family house and the family in Baťa Zlín In these concepts of the ideal town and in the actual construction great emphasis was plac of housing for company employees. This emphasis was linked to the significance which Baťa life. For him the family functioned as a metaphor for a good working collective in the wor workshop boss as head of this close-knit working family). Architect Gahura recalled Baťa's "An industrial worker is a servant when at work, so he needs the kind of private life wher that he is king of his own castle." (Gahura 1944 in HORŇÁKOVÁ 2006: 35). This was a matter for factory workers the best possible living conditions and quiet surroundings for family other reasons, because a satisfied employee is a good employee. It was to this requirement of family housing and the conceptual internal layout and connection to the garden were dir his associates regarded a family house as the only suitable form of accommodation for a wo guaranteeing an appropriate standard of living: "Everyone, if he does not live in a large a house to provide healthy living conditions, in accordance with today's living standards. be a house which can be built based on his annual income. At the moment we build houses to which have throttled and suffocated future generations in the same way that houses built b suffocate us. It is natural that a house built to last 500 years costs so much that a pers enough in even over 20 years. And that is why the greater part of the nation lives out its the time when they are raising their children, living in hovels." (BAŤA: 1990: 113; speech This condition was met by the highest levels of standardization and rationalization when b housing developments. There is of course no doubt that in quality terms the Baťa housing e the experience of his workers with other forms of their present housing. A house was of course to be above all a place where a company employee would have the chan and relax. This relaxation was linked to the so-called traditional view of the family, whe was a housewife and took care of the household and children, with responsibility for their space. The schoolgirls in his schools and unmarried workers in the factory were considered as future wives of his employees: "But the upbringing of girls will follow a different cou of boys]. We must improve our cooking schools, since that is a science, the knowledge of w good health, while ignorance of it is damaging. We must give them greater opportunities to clothing, to raise children, to manage a household. So far men cannot even imagine how far and feminine housewifely spirit can contribute, to the point that women with their creativ complement to their men in good housekeeping. They should become the most sought-after wiv men for their practical education, for their moral sense, as well as for their social skil for their financial worth." (BAŤA 1990: 56). The role of women in the Baťa system was abov a suitable home environment. The equipment of a house was to provide suitable help in this the main creators of the whole Zlín housing concept, the architect Gahura, put it this way the future of housing: "The rationalization of domestic economy and complete equipping of (labor-saving) aids will allow women to devote themselves more to their children and their and to enrich their lives with ethical and aesthetic values. The use of free time for thei of such values. This is an economic, social and cultural prerequisite." (Gahura 1933 in HO 9-11). As the Swedish anthropologist Orvar Löfgren points out, this moral appeal calling f of the "rational and disciplined male operating in the public sphere" and "a loving wife a home" was the basis for a (bourgeois) ideology of values of working life and the idea itse the effort to discipline the potentially dangerous working masses: "If only the working cl domesticated, if only their unrest and ambitions could be turned inwards, towards the home problems would be solved." (LÖFGREN 2007: 149) So all Baťa houses were equipped with modern kitchens (with a sink and draining board, bui stove and worktop) and bathrooms (enamel bath, sink, tiled heating stove, toilet), living square meters) and at least one bedroom with a built-in wardrobe (at least 13 square meter least 11 square meters for children). They were not standardized just from the point of vi and construction techniques, but also in terms of their internal fittings. Musil (2003: 20 the following minimum requirements to be met by each house: "Layout requirements: Usable area of the dwelling to be at least 80 square meters; two flo the upper floor serving only for sleeping accommodation; [...] kitchen min. 6 square meter from the corridor; bathroom, WC and larder of minimum size; in the basement a laundry, dry fuel; semi-detached houses with three rooms; entrances in semi-detached houses to be on op detached houses with four or five rooms, with possibly a garage and terrace." It is clear the social structure of town society was already reflected in the planned construction ("d for senior managers"). At the same time there is emphasis on the need for individual priva for absolute privacy ("entrances in semi-detached houses to be on opposite sides"). It is this reason that the semi-detached house was chosen as the ideal type of housing. Gahura e choice in these words: "The choice was made of a house with two apartments, which allowed independent access to the apartments and had its own small garden, accessed by its own pat the street. This was to allow completely independent surrounds for the garden and the hous full only by one family. This kind of semi-detached house acknowledged the right of the em individual development not only of a family life, but also of the employee's own personali in HORŇÁKOVÁ 2006: 35). For the same reason a semi-detached house was conceived as housing of a house: thus the families would not be living one above the other. On the contrary the the house was theoretically completely equal. An integral part of Baťa housing was a garden. Originally the gardens were intended as agr plots for those inhabitants who came mainly from the countryside and were used to farm wor growth of the factory this idea soon foundered: First, building had to be condensed in ord demand for housing, and there was insufficient space for gardens used in this way. Secondl that in the concept of a house as a space for recuperation, it was appropriate to use the for relaxation. The gardens were maintained by the municipality, which was responsible for and appearance, any form of subsistence farming (growing vegetables or keeping small anima permitted. Over time three basic house types developed in Zlín for workers at the factory. of these (semi-detached and four-apartment houses) can be designated blue-collar housing, as mentioned earlier were allocated to management employees, to the families of the doctor hospital and so on. The 4-apartment houses, as the name implies, are houses with four apar bathroom, small kitchen and a living room on the ground floor and one larger or two smalle first floor. Semi-detached houses (two apartments in one house) have basically the same la rooms being somewhat more spacious. Research history and methods used From a methodological point of view our research was in part inspired by the so-called "Sh approach developed by Jane M Jacobs' team for a project researching life in high-rise bloc Red Road (the Highrise Project). This approach is based on the direct contextualization of (in Jacobs' case using a video recording) in the location the interviewees are discussing. home' (SUYH) is a method of gathering information about people in, and in action with, the works as a data?gathering method in conjunction with standard format interviews but it was way of rupturing the relatively static framing of the interview. Basically, the provisiona think about asking residents to show us their homes as a mechanism for activating the soci of the home, the lived event of the home." (JACOBS, CAIRNS, STREBEL 2008). Our research us recorder and documentary photographs. The "static" part of the interview took place in one which the interviewees considered suitable for this kind of "event." A further, "dynamic" place as a tour of the house, its different rooms or spaces, a description of everyday act occur in them and their rough distribution in time, the people who use them and most of al on changes they have already made or are planning to make. It is an epistemological diffic set up in this way that we capture practices using narratives about them - narratives whic selective or partial, but they allow us "to get closer to people's lived experience" (MILL 1997: 103) using the technique of the open-ended interview. Therefore only the outline str the interview was set out in advance, the thematic areas coming from the definition of the phenomenon: the individualization of historical standardized housing by its current occupa the research is addressed and also to the interdisciplinarity which stood at the start of (the two interviewers are sociologists, the research was initiated by an architect). In ou form of research enables active participation of the interviewee, gives him/her space to i own relevant subjects (PATTON 1990). In spite of this open form of interview we kept to a mapping the history of life in the building, based on these research questions: 1. The sto purchase, or acquisition, of the house and their moving in. 2. The circumstances around an or more minor changes. 3. Day-to-day practices set in specific spaces of the house and per of the household. 4. The street, the neighborhood and the district. 5. The town of Zlín an make of other parts of it. Particularly for the third point, placing the interview directl of the interviewees once more proved of great worth. Everyday practices taking place "at h "invisible," are taken for granted. To obtain suitable interviewees (both male and female) both personal contacts (one of the currently lives in Zlín) use was therefore made of her gatekeeper position for the chosen later we linked in with a technique based on the use of social networks - snowball samplin number of interviews conducted in houses in the former worker districts of Zálešná, Podves 10, with a further 2 detailing interviews being conducted outside. The research also inclu documents and two detailed interviews with experts (on the history and present day of the All interviews took place in 2008, all participants signing an Informed Consent Form. The City Transformation For the current occupiers of the houses the town is an important context for their narrati speak of their house in connection with the street (for any changes it is of great importa house is situated with respect to other buildings in the surrounding area and in relation of the town as a whole, when they compare it with other kinds of houses in other districts functionalist town regularity, the repetition of a certain element and also the frequency the effect of this repetition were all characteristic. We can see this both in the urbanis town and in the rhythm of its social life, which as late as the early 1990s was phased in life of the factory. As Jan Sedlák mentions, typical of the construction was "a thorough s and normalization, excellent organization of construction work and specialization of const workers. With justification therefore they spoke of Zlín architecture as more like manufac building" (SEDLÁK 1991: 57). The regularity of the built-up area, the lines of houses, the of buildings was also the subject of criticism; on many photographs the built-up area is d organized into military lines, called a "modern flood" (see HONZÍK 1947 in SEDLÁK 1991). B Švácha points out, this does not fully apply to the Zlín area of family houses. Here there the themes of regularity and repetition, but also a conscious breaking-up of this unity: " model shows the continual efforts of the designers not to succumb a priori to the geometri take account at each placement of a new building of the whole of its spatial and natural f lines and individual buildings today spread out into all sorts of oblique directions. With irregularity it evokes the organically overgrown ground plans of villages, ancient cultura age-old towns." (ŠVÁCHA 1995:6). Let us however leave these birds' eye reflections on the town and look at how it appears, below. Zlín was built as a town, but it was far from the atmosphere of an organically grow if according to Švácha it has its organic moments in some respects. In the theory of towns the main characteristic of this social space a diversity, a variety of forms, groups, indi their mutual relationships (see for example ŠULÉŘOVÁ 2006). The prerequisite for such an u its slow growth and layering. The speed and relative homogeneity, the "integral concept of town" brought into being as a "project" also leads to questions about whether Zlín is a "t Kubová-Gauché quotes an unknown French architect who took part in a visit to Zlín in the 1 built on human will. Zlín is simple, without any kind of error. [...] Now all they have to Zlín into a town." (KUBOVÁ-GAUCHÉ 2002: 59). Zlín was not intended to be a town of variety be a town of modernity; homogeneity and clarity of purpose were part of its myth, the narr industrial town. Some aspects of the "old town" had no place in it. Rostislav Švácha desig thanks to this selective impact of its urbanism as a town where it is possible to find the the avant-garde": "Let's try to image members of the artistic avant-garde hanging around o Square or on the open space in front of the Baťa monument. [...] In the open spaces of Bať everyone is hurrying along with his clearly defined work function, that kind of night-time waster would stick out painfully like a sore thumb." (ŠVÁCHA 1995: 6) So we can say that w the town connects the two most significant features of (organized) modernity (WAGNER 1994) perforce emancipatory; it offers a vision, a future, growth (but not however in the sense transformation of the social order). Its second also typically modern feature is then the discipline, its visibility and control. This regularity of the town's urbanism was however conditioned by the prerequisite social which was tied to the rhythm of the factory. In photographs of the period we often see cro bound for or from the factory complex or resting on the lawns. This overspill of people in the town and beyond it was still visible at the beginning of the 1990s, not long before th closed down, as is illustrated by the following reminiscence: "Actually it isn't any more as it used to be. Me, I was goin' to work still in '88 through a live factory that was pou pm everyday, simply through the gates when you went through, so big crowds, yeah. We used "aisy," in '92 to "aisy," ye know it's a pub in the middle of the city, it's got a terrace there's my mate, takin'-off, fireworks, so we went out to the terrace, all the folks had a hand, and it was 10 past 10 and the fireworks started and from that bus park 50 buses pull 'cause it was end of shift and the buses was flooded, so you was standin' with that glass class was leavin', yeah (with a smile)." He used the word firework to describe the atmosph of the shift, when so many people were leaving the factory. Many of the workers commuted t from other cities and villages in the region, so they used public transportation to get ho spectacle is different. Let us complete this view (looking at the situation once more from somewhere above, aside with two more reminiscences. Those of their initial feelings after the arriving of a fifte boy and girl at the factory and the town from the Vysočina highland region: "Up in Vysočin freedom, the kind of chores that some of the farmers' sons had, I didn't have any of those arrived in Zlín, at that boarding school, it was a bit like military service in a way, the on us, in the room we had that, leader, mayor or whatever they called them then, who kept there was lights-out at night, and there was a roll-call before lights-out and so on. On S Sundays, on Sundays we had to go on voluntary work parties.... I got used to it in the end first arrived from our villages at the age of fifteen, we were right twits." In this extract from a now pensioned-off employee of Svit (post-1948 name of Baťa - trans. the factory just after the war, we can see the strong element of supervision, which he per the position of a young future worker migrating for work from an area which at that time w on agriculture. However another contemporary witness points out how strong an emancipatory for newly-arrived young people, however limiting it was: "I really tried very hard, I wasn home. My dad had said to me, either you make a success of it there or you come home to her to the brick factory.... I say, no I really must, I worked like a madwoman." At another po the comment: "We came here ... those were runaways." The Baťa myth worked on the principle a future, hope and order. Within it, Zlín represented the chance of making money and a cha living standard, the gaining of experience; with its symbolic and economic power the facto migrant workers from many corners of Czechoslovakia. However contemporary Zlín lost this magnetism as a consequence of the closure of the facto city profiles itself as an administrative and university center; public life penetrates in the factory buildings and the city is a donator of huge constructions of buildings without traditional brick aesthetics. Contemporary reconstructions of Baťa family houses American anthropologists Arnold and Graesch make the distinction between two kinds of inve people make in upgrading their housing - the first is remodelling as a "complex, expensive fascinating process experienced by many homeowners. Major changes in home design may occur family expansion or generational cycling, or perhaps major upgrades or modernization may b related to ‘keeping up' with trends and neighbors." The second is then beautification, tha upkeep rather than structural changes and includes fresh coats of paint, new furnishings, landscaping, and the like. Families of different backgrounds may have very different ideas to which such investments in their homes are needed and what forms they may take" (ARNOLD 1-2). For the purposes of the present work it is mainly the first motive which is importan more to the interaction between people and the material environment into which have been " cultural and social ideas and values of its builders. Reconstruction is also a long-term p is always something which is "not quite done," as Arnold and Graesch write, it is a proces builders are engaged not only financially and in terms of their time, but also emotionally can be seen in the context of building a home, a space for a present or planned family and "There are still lots of things to be finished here...It's like that, when it starts to ge you're pleased that you can take a rest from it, that's the way with any building, you are with all that sorting out and dealing with problems, I was taking pills, it got on top of there are supposed to be some shelves, there's a wardrobe to go in upstairs, this door ope finished yet." The boundaries of the urban heritage zone in Zlín. Source: Town of Zlín, official website. In all the reconstruction (or remodelling) cases mentioned in the next part of this text, concerned are located in the urban heritage zone, that is, in the area where the internal can be changed, overall construction and insulation undertaken, but only if the exterior a retained. To this end standardized extensions are available and each request to reconstruc by relatively complicated negotiations between the builder and the town. One important con the realization of occupiers' ideas and the satisfaction of their needs is the formal "adm framework, which is formed mainly by the heritage preservation office for districts and bu sets permitted dimensions and appearance for extensions, insulation options for houses and used for cladding, windows, etc. So a significant player in the reconstruction process is "authorities" which in most interviews means the Town Hall, its Chief Architect's Office a Department (which together with the former approves any proposed reconstruction), and poss Department (which has responsibility for the Program for the Regeneration of the Urban Her see Fig 4) and in conjunction with this, the National Heritage Office, which issues expert proposals. The current owners of the houses, thanks to their progressive sale into private hands, mak increasingly differentiated group of occupiers, who are distinguished on the one hand by t household in which they live, but also by their income and different lifestyles and values time living in the originally workers districts can be a relatively costly affair, with th already reconstructed semi-detached houses reaching 4 million CZK. As one of our interview it, "this semi is a kind of emergency measure within Zlín for living in the centre of town to go [to the center] and to have a bit of ground for these flowers" saying that, original to live in a house on the edge of Zlín." This 35-year-old man talks of an emergency measur of the costly reconstruction into which he has invested some 2 million CZK. Another occupi wife has owned a semi-detached house since 2000, summarized its condition before reconstru very illustrative account: "It was like this, there was just one gas heater for the whole less no kitchen, the bathroom sort of had tiles, but only just, well, it was just awful, y how anyone could live in it, there was only hot water from a water heater, and the waste p fixed in the kitchen, so that you could wash dishes in the sink. The kitchen floor was som which had fallen in one place, it was creaking. When it was ripped out, they discovered th centimetre gap between the bath waste outlet and the main waste pipe, so water was everywh summarized the terms which interviewees, male and female, use to describe problems with li houses, they are mainly "water" and the linked "rot" and "mould." and the "chilliness" and the materials used. They mainly point out signs of decay: the house is getting old, changi shifting slightly and are cracking. The building technique used is specific - brick walls thickness (later increased to 45cm), plastered only on the inside let in both winter cold Earlier cold was normal in other kinds of buildings as well; today however older residents own recollections rather as unusual: "There was no heating upstairs, so I remember that wh the ice crystals would sparkle on the walls (laughs) and the spoons would freeze in our te "So it was actually freezing indoors?") "Indoors, yes. We would make up hot-water bottles something to pop on our heads, a cap, and went to bed..." The red brick material is an imp element of the town, the streets and the houses. But it is also the thing that limits and way of life in the house and the scope for modifications. The size of the internal spaces of a house can also be perceived as giving rise to "cosine could be the narrative of a student, whose relationship to renting in one of the four-apar can best be described with the word "tender": "No one has looked after the house much for so the hot water doesn't work in the kitchen [...] blocked pipe or something. But other th made up for in summer by the garden - and well, the house as a whole. It has its own charm circumstances of the building of the house and its appearance can also be used to justify the original layout of the accommodation: "Well, the house is smart. [...]I think these ho smart on the whole. There is not much space, but actually when you live here, you find you need that much space. There is enough room here. That the bathroom is so small doesn't rea the kitchen - well, it's enough. And that it's well put together." Let us now look at specific examples that are the subject of the foregoing narratives, whi legitimize the changes taking place in the houses. We have focussed on certain elements of prove to be significant places in everyday use. Stairs Stairs are the place which is at the very heart of the house. Their function is purely con not used for people to live in; they are intended for movement "up" and"down." The stairs the house which is most resistant to changes and withstands them best. At first glance the ladder. They divide the house into two defined parts, and to a large degree determine thei in the house can be perceived as an obstacle to be overcome on a daily basis, which affect practices of the occupants "...at home, when I go downstairs, I go down to the bathroom an am still asleep, I wake up in the bathroom and want to get dressed and I go upstairs but t the windows are, then I go back to the bathroom, take my things back down to the bathroom, dressed [...] then that is when the stairs bother me, because if I forget something, then upstairs and then come down again." In view of the size or, more exactly, the smallness of and the lower room of the four-apartment house this young woman living on her own maintain keeping her clothes in the upper part of the house in the bedroom, gathering her clothes i of the house during the week and generally laundering them with other things at the end of putting them away again "upstairs." The practicality of building separate apartments on tw as we have mentioned, driven mainly by the effort to create two identical living units, th "downstairs" being maintained within one apartment and not being the factor that different The main feature of the stairs emphasized by the occupants is their dangerousness. "I simp understand how she (the previous occupant) could carry the baby downstairs here - I am alw when it starts toddling, that - that it might fall down these stairs or something - I real - I was saying - that I would put in a fireman's slide here- it is the only thing I am afr because when you have children - it is a bit frightening - but I don't know - because we w a children's room out of the study." As this extract from an interview with a 30-year-old has to deal mainly with its steepness and the banister, which is not suitable for small ch of the layouts, the stairs form a dangerous place - an open hole - at the upper end. If th older or ill, the stairs mean that they do not use the upper floor in practice, that they downstairs rooms. We met one elderly woman for whom the bedroom served as a storeroom to k several months before All Souls' Day, as a store for things she does not need too often, b difficult and hazardous. Another interviewee described the situation at her parents, who l house: "They had their bedroom upstairs because there it is simpler, being a detached hous and they have an extension, so in essence they have two rooms downstairs, in one they have in the other a room for their grandchildren when they come. So upstairs there are two room unusable. So they have furniture there, they clean, they heat it, air it, but no one lives one sleeps there." Often it is the stairs which prevent changes to other parts of the hous of house they go through the middle to separate the kitchen and the living room - two room part of reconstruction. Kitchen The original kitchen was conceived as a workplace - mainly for women's work. It was intend would by their efforts create a domestic background for workers in the factory; their educ Baťa system was aimed at this assumed role, since it was assumed that after marriage they be working outside the home. The image of the respectable working family was an integral p The justifications for changes to the kitchen are thus linked to a number of social change taken place in Czech society since the time of Tomáš and Jan Antonín Baťa. Perhaps the mos is exactly the change in the position of the woman and the places in the home linked to he not mean that the kitchen has ceased to be a workplace; by all accounts it remains primari women's work, but it gains new significance within the house - we may say that it is re-in the living room (in the same way, for example, as it was in traditional country buildings) through of the kitchen and living room, the two ground-floor rooms which are the same in t and semi-detached houses, is brought about by the occupant's effort to increase living spa four-apartment house] there were a stove and a sink, but no worktop"), but also by the dem life, which takes place in this altered place: "It is pleasant for me, because most of my in the kitchen, just like for my grandmother in the semi. I just love it." An open space i areas remain separate only in a symbolic manner. But in contrast to her grandmother this ( woman stays at home to work, which she can do from home on her computer. The space which s is workroom, living room and kitchen - the various functions are defined as zones, rather Children's room The need to provide or expand space for children is a further significant justification us in connection with reconstruction. "Well I am looking forward to when we have that extensi will be a children's room, so all the toys and everything will go in there. The children, visitors, like a child, then they will not be going up and down the stairs dragging their can do that on their own here, and will not need so much help on the stairs." From the beg offered the option of creating two rooms "upstairs," one of which served as a children's b reminiscences of our witnesses contain no reference to a "children's room" as a separate p their games, their privacy and personal development. In this respect the garden and the ar the house were an important extension: "Our children grew up on the street [...] I cannot children any other way, from very young. I had a small bed here as well, they would wake u put the pram out and would feed them, dress them, everything, then they just came home in same with eating, when they were older, we ate outside, they simply were not at home." Thi significantly different from the current everyday practices of the occupants. *** The idea of "home" was a major part of the Baťa myth. "Home" was not only a place of priva care, but was, like other aspects of life in the town, subject to supervision by the autho said that they came and took a look at how she looked after me, how she looked after the c the house was clean [...] If the children had clean things and so on [...] they were disli afraid of them." In reminiscences the vocabulary of the communist era, "screening," is oft supervision which the Baťa administration (the company Personnel Department) applied to wo "They would come from the Department, on a visit, into people's houses and inspect their a always asking: well, how are you getting on, are you saving, what have you bought recently points [...]Those were plus points if they were considering promoting someone, if they wer buying things, doing something for their family and taking care of them, then if two peopl position, then it was about who had more of these points." Conclusion In the first part of this article we presented myth and utopia side by side. Myth as a spe speech which has the character of constituting the world, justifies and naturalizes social gives the world the quality of naturalness. If we think of it in conjunction with utopia, calls the existing order into doubt and points out its social origins, we can say that it We have shown that Baťa Zlín can be considered under both categories - mythical and utopia a story which has the function of a myth can also under certain circumstances support utop and that in the historical vicissitudes of Czechoslovak society there thus arose the basis the "Shoemaker who conquered the world" (ERDÉLY 1990). Just like any myth this narrative i ideological (and has its "countermyth" (BARTHES 2004) mainly in the story of Baťa's collab footnote 2). Therefore, alongside the undoubted benefits in the shape of improved living s to education and so on, we do not want to forget this emancipation had another side to it: discipline. As we pointed out, the specific socio-economic system was imprinted in the mat city and into its urban design - as a "materialization of spatial utopy" (in David Harvey' The concept of worker housing is also part of this strategy: the joining together of emanc disciplination. We believe that in studying the current form of life in these houses we ca an ideologically unburdened look at the whole Zlín urban and social project. In the second work we were therefore interested in how the present occupiers deal with the original inte in the materials and form of the houses in which they live. Our main focus was on the inha perceptions of the houses and their remodelling concerning three examples that occurred to our interviewees and their everyday experience in Baťa houses: the stairs, the kitchen and room. The overall text is thus linked by descriptions of current practices and everyday ac reminiscences of eyewitnesses concerning worker housing and life in a "materialized utopia the ways in which people come to terms with a disciplined (and disciplining) space. We hav out those layers of the Zlín myth which are connected to housing, the home and the family. fading illustrates the continuity of the living in these houses and at the same time it he the directions of its consequent development. Tomáš Baťa was the founder of the Bata Shoes Company, born in Zlín in 1876, died in a plai Zlín in 1932. His half-brother Jan Antonín Baťa became the head of the company after his d Second World War Jan Antonín left Czechoslovakia and settled down in Brazil. After the war as a collaborationist, however in 2007 was acquitted. He died in Brazil in 1965. We would like to kindly thank Stuart Roberts for the translation of this text. We should mention at the very least Jan Kotěra, František Lydie Gahura and Vladimír Karlík In his interpretation of myth Barthes refers to the concept of sign - the signifier - the (Barthes 2004). By analogy it creates a second (metalinguistic) level of significance for discourse: signification - form - concept. In our case the form is Baťa Zlín and its histo is the economic success and way of life which the factory, around which the town formed, r In respect of the Zlín concept Novák speaks thus of worker housing: "A no less important f supported further efforts to secure better housing for the workers was that a satisfied wo the boss's efforts to provide him with a better living standard is more restrained in his reform." (NOVÁK 2008: 260) Klement Gottwald (1896-1953) was a politician, leader of The Communist Party of Czechoslov February coup d'état he was elected the first communist President of Czechoslovakia. His e the time of Stalinism, political persecutions and encroachment on the democracy and freedo For example the work by A. Steinführer Stadt und Utopie: Das Experiment Zlín 1920-1938 (ST Another example is the Utopie moderny: Zlín (Utopia of Modernity: Zlín) symposium which to in 2009. Karl Mannheim speaks of utopia as a characteristic form of knowledge and we understand it (MANNHEIM 1991). By their nature these types of knowledge are value-based and cannot be objective: while ut to evaluate anything in social reality positively, ideologues are unable to perceive their would disturb their distorted picture. One should not forget that Howard's original idea for a Garden City had within it very str potential: his primary concern was to improve the living conditions of workers and their f HOWARD 1902) Emphasis on the form of housing is key in classical utopias. See the project website: http://www.ace.ed.ac.uk/highrise/. As of 1/30/.2009 See as an example http://www.staryzlin.cz/. This quotation probably refer to the famous novel The Begum's Fortune (French original: Le millions de la Bégum). This title was published in Czech as Steel City and its author Jule very popular among young Czech readers. Available on http://www.zlin.eu/upload.cs/0/03f5ce84_1_pamatkova_zona_zlin_hranice.jpg (ci For examples of permitted extensions for the Letná district see for example http://www.zli page/37461.pristavby-ctvrtdomku-ve-ctvrti-letna-zlin/; for recommended changes to houses s issued by the Town Hall (NOVÁ 2006). At one point they experimented with warm-air heating between the brick wall and a plastere wall. The heater was in the bottom half of the house, with warm air let in to the upper floor th vent. In addition, it was not possible to use the heating at night for reasons of safety. In spite of the attempt at equality (indeed not so much equality as comparability) of the find some features which are perceived as distinctive - not in relation to upstairs/downst to the relative positioning vis-a-vis the street, to the "sunny side" and to the points of A large part is also played by the size of the garden belonging to a particular apartment. however even the result of the urban design of the surrounding area, as much as the aforem and negotiation between neighbors. This example does not however come from the research in Zlín, but from a visit to a standa the town of Svit in Slovakia. It is also interesting to follow how the change in this situation is reflected in occupier connection with the Letná district we heard "stories" about "seamstresses,"unmarried mothe smallest houses: "It was dreadfully hard work for next to nothing and these ladies, I'll c OK? So in fact they did not hesitate to swear, because their life was so hard that they ha that was the way they brought up their children. And those generations, they are still the see how it has changed there, but two-thirds of the occupants are the originals, or their elsewhere "There were these unmarried mothers, who had various men and a child with each o stayed on living here, and then later left." The narrative also contains an expression of idea of the reproduction of social inequalities within the district, which our discussion in the context of talking about the problems she had with her neighbors at her previous ho terminology these stories about seamstresses represent an evident countermyth. However her daily program once more reveals a division of the house into "upstairs" and "d working day starts at 6.30 a.m. by "coming downstairs" to the bathroom, with a cold shower activities taking place more or less in the lower part of the house (the upper floor conta and the room of her son, who now lives independently). We should not at the same time forget that, if the original form of discipline linked with factory has now disappeared, a new form has appeared linked to the workings of the urban h Vydání: 11, 2009, 2 Zdroje Arnold, Jeanne E.; Graesch, Antony. (2002). “Space, Time, and Activities in the Everyday L Families: An Ethnoarchaeological Approach.” [online] CELF Working Papers 2002/02. Los Ange on Everyday Lives of Families. Available on [cit. 2009-02-22]. Barthes, Roland. (2004). Mytologie. (Mythologies) Praha: Dokořán. Baťa, Tomáš. (1990). Úvahy a projevy. (Reflections and Speeches) Praha: Institut řízení. Erdély, Evžen. (1990). Švec, který dobyl světa. 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