Keith Williams in his role of the Chair of Trustees at docomomo uk welcomed his old friend sir john tusa the celebrated broadcaster and arts supremo as Sir John delivered a superb Docomomo lecture last Tuesday evening, 19 November. Sir John’s talk was the latest instalment of Docomomo’s ongoing invitational lecture programme at the Alan Baxter Gallery in London’s Clerkenwell.
Sir John, with characteristic modesty, gave a truly inspirational talk entitled “A life in Bata Modernism Straight Lines, Flat Roofs & Planned Communities”
The talk covered Sir John’s birthplace of Zlín in then Czechoslovakia, home of the famous Czech international company Bata shoes, its revered classic 1930s high-modernist factory and campus and his personal connection with UK’s Bata satellite in East Tilbury, Essex of which his father was MD during the 1940s – 1960s
His family fleeing the Nazi invasion in 1939 made their home at East Tilbury. The factories and campus followed Bata’s international modernist blueprint, created a pioneering work-living community around its model factory. Estate houses, tennis courts, a swimming pool, and factory buildings all in a high European modernist architecture, established an entire live/work community for its huge workforce. A more radical introduction into pastoral interwar Essex it is hard to imagine but it engendered a local and dedicated workforce who clearly valued their roles in this important international company.
John took us through a captivating record of close familial connections to the organisation that provided not only jobs for its many thousands of employees, but also homes, welfare, shopping and entertainment venues all within the architecture of 1930s European high modernism, which it exported to its satellites across the globe. New photos taken by John on a recent visit to Bata Zlin, included him sitting in the office and chair of the international company’s founder Tomáš Baťa.
In the introductory text, John had commented, “From the neo-Bauhaus modernism of my birth town, Bata Zlín, to the so called ‘brutalism’ of the Barbican, I have always lived comfortably with modernism. After all, it is the architecture of my life and times”
A packed house included art collectors Tim and Annemarie Sayer, Architects Robin Nicholson, Richard Lavington, Mike Stiff, Joanna Van Heyningen, Richard Brown, director at Keith Williams Architects, Richard Coleman and performing arts consultants Anne Minors and Bob Essert. Graham and Caroline Sutcliffe from Bata Heritage Trust were also present, who were enormously helpful in supplying archive material for the talk.
As Chair of Trustees Docomomo UK, Keith was pleased to introduce Sir John and moderate the ensuing discussion and question and answer session.
Thanks as ever to sponsors, Maccreanor Lavington, engineers Conisbee, and the Alan Baxter Gallery.
Many of us then repaired with Sir John to London architects’ favourite haunt, st.john for celebratory drinks and further discourse and debate.