Zlín's School of Arts

Abstract

The idea of connecting culture, art and education with the needs of the factory also prompted the establishment of the last major cultural institution in Baťa's Zlín, the School of Arts. Although the school developed its activities during the 1939-1945 period, the years of war and German occupation, it celarly built on the traditions of Germany's Bauhaus. The new arts training center was founded on 14 January 1939 based on an organizational and personnel statute compiled by architect František Kadlec, whom Jan A. Baťa later appointed the school's director. Its founders conceived the school as part of the industrial factory and as a supplier of "industrial employees." The institution represented a new type of arts education, and it was here that leading sculptor Vincenc Makovský laid the foundations of Czechoslovak industrial design. The school trained many specialists - graphic designers, stage designers, machinery and tool designers - as well as creative artists. An important factor in the school's history was its existence during the time of the Nazi occupation, which made it possible, due to the closure of Czech univerities, to acquire a first rate teaching staff. In addition to Vincenc Makovský, instruction was given by e.g. restorer František Petr; Jan Vaněk, a leading figure in residential culture; architects František Kadlec, Bohuslav Fuchs and František L. Gahura; and art historians Albert Kutal and Václav V. Štěch. From among the students there emerged a group of adherents to banned modernist art, led by the strong personalities of Čestmír Kafka and the unfortunate Václav Chad, who was shot by the Gestapo in 1945. Other prominent graduates included designer Zdeněk Kovář, graphic designer Jan Rajlich, illustrator Mirko Hanák, film director Karel Kachyňa and painters Miroslav Šimorda and Vladimír Vašíček. The school's further existence was affected by postwar events: In 1946 the school was forced to reform its curriculum; in 1949 it was nationalized and in 1952 it was relocated to Uherské Hradiště, where it exists to this day as the Secondary School of Applied Arts.