Zlín lost an icon of Baťa-era functionalism. Fire destroyed Building No. 34, part of it collapsed, and damages run into hundreds of millions

Zlín has lost one of the best-known structures of its Baťa heritage. A massive fire on Thursday morning engulfed the high-rise Building No. 34 in the former Baťa industrial complex Svit; during the firefighting operation two parts of the structure collapsed, and firefighters did not get the blaze under control until Friday morning. No one was injured, but besides footwear from the Vasky and Botas brands and Alpine Pro goods worth over half a billion crowns, tens of thousands of valuable Baťa-era books also burned — a loss that the Tomáš Baťa Foundation calls impossible to quantify. ČT24 ↗The collapse of two parts of the burning building was also captured on video by the television station CNN Prima News.

It wasn't just any warehouse that burned, but an "icon" of the complex

Building No. 34, nicknamed "Háčko" (the "Hook"), was no ordinary industrial hall. According to architect and architecture historian Zdeněk Lukeš, the central shoe warehouse was built in the Baťa style of interwar Zlín architecture as a reinforced-concrete monolithic skeleton with a six-by-six-meter grid module and cylindrical columns. "It is of course a great cultural loss, it was a valuable structure," Lukeš assessed. Seznam Zprávy ↗

The design dates from 1947 by architect Vladimír Kubečka, and the monumental ten-story monolith with a floor plan of 78 by 72 meters was built by the construction firm Staviteľ in three stages between 1949 and 1955. The complex itself had been badly damaged near the end of the war by the American bombing of Zlín on November 20, 1944, after which part of the factories had to be rebuilt from scratch. The warehouse was the first Czechoslovak attempt at a truly modern storage technology with maximum mechanization of internal transport and the loading of finished products directly into railway wagons. Zlín.eu ↗

A loss that "cannot be measured in money"

For the custodians of the Baťa legacy, a different part of the damage is the most painful one compared to the footwear. The Tomáš Baťa Foundation also kept its stock in the building, and the flames destroyed tens of thousands of its publications — according to the foundation, more than 27,000 books. "The collapsed Háčko was the heart of the complex, we are experiencing this very hard," said foundation director Gabriela Končitíková, calling the loss impossible to quantify. Deník N ↗

It is a paradox that the building was facing a renaissance. The current administrator of the complex had for years leased it to companies and offices and was preparing an extensive reconstruction, which architects described as an extraordinary project for restoring an industrial monument. Historians also note that fires in the Baťa complex were not rare in the past — however, Háčko was among the structures that Zlín considered irreplaceable. Deník.cz ↗

📍 The Svit complex (former Baťa factories), Zlín — site of the fire at Building No. 34 — view on map

The economic tally: footwear, clothing, and half a billion crowns

Alongside the cultural loss, the economic tally also grew during the day. The footwear brand Vasky lost approximately 75,000 pairs of shoes to the fire, whose retail value owner Václav Staněk estimated at 150 to 180 million crowns, while the police estimate started at 60 to 80 million. According to him, part of the damage should be covered by insurance. Seznam Zprávy ↗

The fire hit the sportswear manufacturer Alpine Pro even harder. According to owner Václav Hrbek, goods worth over half a billion crowns, or roughly 20 million euros, burned in the warehouse. "We're expecting the worst," Hrbek described the situation, adding that the company is preparing a replacement e-shop supplied from its stores and wants to launch it within a week. hnonline.sk ↗

What will happen to the building, and why it caught fire in the first place

The structure's static stability has been compromised, and according to available information, Building No. 34 can no longer be saved — what remains of it will likely face demolition. On Friday morning, firefighters lowered the alarm level from the highest to the third degree, drew water for firefighting from the Dřevnice River, and also deployed helicopters. Seznam Zprávy ↗

Dramatic footage of part of the building collapsing during the fire itself was published by the Czech news channel POŽÁRY.cz.



The cause of the fire remains unknown for now and is under investigation. The fire broke out on Thursday shortly after eight in the morning in the upper part of the building, where footwear stocks were stored, and gradually spread to the entire structure. Hundreds of firefighters and dozens of units took turns at the scene throughout the day. iROZHLAS ↗

The flames themselves on the upper floor, where the fire started, were captured in another recording by the channel POŽÁRY.cz.

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