Architecture

Zlín has always been recognised as an exceptional example of urban planning and architecture. It not only represents a phenomenon uniqut within the Czech context, whose emergence was driven by one of the most extensive and at the same time most carefully conceived applications of standardisation and typification, the maximum economisation of construction, and the simplification and reduction of the number of building elements across all types of buildings. By combining a reinforced-concrete skeleton with a unified span of 6.15 x 6.15 metres and brick infill with metal-framed windows, one of the most compelling branches of modern architecture emerged – architecture that is economical, rational and functional, operating like a perfectly functioning machine. Zlín became one of the most important centres of interwar modern architecture in the Czech lands and the only consistently built functionalist city in Europe.