Say the name Baťa and most of us instantly picture a pair of comfortable shoes, yet few people realise what an urban miracle this shoemaking dynasty conjured up in the eastern corner of Moravia. Zlín in the Czech Republic is the only city of its kind in the world that was built from the ground up by a single company.
Within just a few decades, Tomáš Baťa and his successors transformed a small, unremarkable village into a modern functionalist hub that earned the nickname “the garden city”. Everything here was given its own order, from the layout of the streets to the red bricks, glass and concrete used to build factories, schools and workers’ houses according to one unified module.
Anyone who comes to this part of Moravia suddenly finds themselves in a living, textbook example of twentieth-century modern architecture. I’ve put together a detailed guide packed with tips on what to see in Zlín, so you can make the most of this fascinating city surrounded by the gorgeous greenery of the Wallachia region and not miss a single important spot.
TL;DR
If you’re in a hurry and just need a quick overview of the most important highlights, here’s a short list of the essentials:
- Baťa’s Skyscraper: The company’s former headquarters, with its legendary mobile office inside a lift and a beautiful view from the rooftop.
- The Tomáš Baťa Memorial: A pure glass structure housing a model of the plane in which the founder of the empire tragically died.
- Baťa houses: Whole districts full of typical red-brick buildings that make up the famous garden city concept.
- Zlín-Lešná Zoo and Chateau: The second most visited zoo in the country, divided thematically by continent.
- 14|15 Baťa Institute: The cultural heart inside former factory halls, home to an outstanding exhibition on the history of shoemaking and famous travellers.
- Film Studios: A spot on Kudlov hill where the history of Czech animated and special-effects film was written.
When to Visit Zlín
Zlín is open all year round, but it only really shows its best side from spring to autumn. The concept of a factory set in gardens comes fully into its own once the trees along Gahura’s Promenade and around the Baťa houses turn green, and the leafy Baťa districts are simply a completely different experience than in grey February. Spring and early summer are ideal for long walks through neighbourhoods like Letná or Zálešná.
If you love culture and don’t mind a bit more buzz, consider visiting around the turn of May and June, when the famous Zlín Film Festival takes place. The city comes alive then, there’s something happening everywhere and the atmosphere is wonderfully infectious. Autumn brings beautifully coloured leaves that create a very photogenic contrast against the red brick of the buildings.
As for getting there from the UK, the easiest option is to fly to Prague, Brno or Vienna and continue on from there. Zlín sits a little off the main railway corridor. From Prague it’s roughly 300 kilometres by car, which takes around three hours. If you prefer the train, direct services from the capital run only very rarely. The usual approach is to take an express to nearby Otrokovice (about ten kilometres away) and then continue by local train or city public transport straight into the centre of Zlín. The coach from Prague takes about four hours. One or two days are plenty for the city itself, but if you also want to head out on day trips around the area, set aside three days.
Where to Stay in Zlín
Choosing accommodation here is a real pleasure, because you can sleep in the very buildings that remember the heyday of the Baťa empire. Local hotels often respect this functionalist legacy and offer great comfort.
For history lovers and a central location Standing right on Náměstí Práce is the unmissable Interhotel Zlín. Many people still know it by its long-standing name, Hotel Moskva. It’s the original Community House that the Baťa company built in the 1930s, so you’ll be staying right in the heart of the action with views over the entire functionalist centre.
For peace and lovely views If you’re after an oasis of calm and like to treat yourself a little, take a look at Hotel Tomášov Zlín. It sits in a quieter part of the city up on a hill, offers gorgeous views over the valley and will delight you with its on-site wellness centre, perfect for unwinding after a full day on your feet.
The middle ground and a spa option A very pleasant and practical base is Hotel Baltaci U Náhonu Zlín, praised by guests for its excellent value for money. For a more homely, cosy atmosphere, try Hotel Vila Kamenec Zlín. And if you want to combine sightseeing with a proper spa break out in nature, head just outside the city to Hotel Lázně Kostelec Zlín.
What to See and Do in Zlín, Czech Republic
Zlín isn’t a city where you wander from one baroque church to the next. Here you come to admire the vision of one shoemaker who decided to build an entire city from scratch and make it nicer than he had to. The architecture is strictly functional, but its greatest charm lies precisely in that simplicity and the repetition of geometric shapes. Let’s walk through twelve places you definitely shouldn’t skip on your visit.
1. Baťa’s Skyscraper (Building 21)
This is without doubt the city’s main symbol. Baťa’s Skyscraper, which locals simply call “the twenty-one” (after the American system of numbering the buildings in the complex), was built between 1936 and 1938. The design came from the company’s in-house architect, Vladimír Karfík. At 77.5 metres tall, it was the second highest building in all of Europe at the time. The roughly sixteen above-ground floors went up in just two years, which is a hard-to-believe pace even by today’s standards.
The skyscraper’s biggest curiosity, which housed the company’s management, is the mobile office of Jan Antonín Baťa. Picture a lift measuring roughly six by six metres that doubled as a fully functioning study. The company boss had air conditioning inside, a sink with running water and even a telephone, so he could run the business while smoothly moving between floors to reach his employees. Today the building houses the regional and tax authorities, but for tourists the most important spot is the sixteenth floor. There you’ll find a café with a viewing terrace, where the whole brick city spreads out at your feet.
2. Náměstí Práce and the Grand Cinema
Náměstí Práce (Labour Square) is the very heart of functionalist Zlín and shows how the Baťa company thought about public space in the 1930s. Everything was geared towards the needs of the employees. On one side the square is framed by the imposing Community House (today’s Interhotel Zlín) and a department store, and on another by the legendary Grand Cinema. This is also where you’ll find the statues commemorating the founders of the shoemaking empire.
The Grand Cinema deserves special attention. It was built back in 1932 and, with a capacity of over two thousand seats, it was one of the largest in all of pre-war Czechoslovakia. Baťa knew very well that after a full day at the production line people needed entertainment and culture too. I do have to flag one practical thing, though. The cinema has unfortunately been closed since 2016 due to the building’s dangerous condition and is currently awaiting a costly renovation. So you can only view it from the outside, but even so its austere, monumental architecture is worth a look.
3. Zlín-Lešná Zoo and Chateau
When you want a break from concrete and brick, you only need to travel a little way out of the centre. The local zoo is among the best you can visit in the country. It opened to the public in 1948 and today spreads across an impressive area of more than fifty hectares. It cares for around fifteen hundred animals representing roughly two hundred and thirty different species.
The grounds are cleverly divided into zones by continent (Africa, Asia, Australia, America), so a walk around the gardens feels like a journey around the world. In the middle of the enclosures stands the gorgeous, romantic Lešná Chateau from the late nineteenth century, built here by the aristocratic Seilern family. The combination of animals, mature trees and a historic residence works so well that this is the second most visited zoo in the Czech Republic, right after Prague’s, and the most popular tourist destination in Moravia overall. More than 750,000 visitors come here every year.
4. The Tomáš Baťa Memorial
This building is often described as the architectural peak of Zlín. The Tomáš Baťa Memorial was designed by architect František Lýdie Gahura and officially opened in 1933, exactly one year after the tragic death of the company’s founder. It’s an incredibly pure, light-filled functionalist building made of nothing but glass, iron and concrete. The interior isn’t divided by any walls; everything is held up by slender columns alone, creating a powerful sense of lightness and light.
The main, and really the only, focal point inside the memorial is a faithful model of the Junkers F13 aircraft. It was in just such a plane that Tomáš Baťa died in a crash near Otrokovice in July 1932, while heading off on a business trip to Switzerland. The building suffered considerable damage during the Second World War and under the previous regime it was even insensitively converted into a concert hall and gallery. Fortunately, a very careful restoration in 2019 returned the memorial to its original, light-filled form.
5. The 14|15 Baťa Institute
If you really want to understand the story of the Baťa miracle, this is where you need to head. The cultural and educational centre known as the 14|15 Baťa Institute occupies the carefully restored factory buildings numbers 14 and 15, and it opened its doors in 2013. Former abandoned factory halls have become a lively cultural centre that has still kept its raw industrial character.
Under one roof you’ll now find the Regional Gallery of Fine Arts, the František Bartoš Regional Library and, above all, the Museum of South-East Moravia. Be sure not to miss the extensive permanent exhibition called The Baťa Principle. It guides visitors through the entire history of the company, includes a huge shoemaking museum with footwear from around the world, gives you a glimpse into the beginnings of Zlín film, and devotes plenty of space to the famous travellers Jiří Hanzelka and Miroslav Zikmund, whose journeys were closely tied to Zlín.
6. The Baťa Villa
Long before the giant factory halls and the skyscraper went up, the company’s founder started building his family home. The Baťa Villa was constructed between 1909 and 1911, and although a different builder began the project, the famous architect Jan Kotěra played a major part in its final form. Compared to the strict functionalism that followed, the villa is a touch more ornate and traditional, even if it already carries the marks of modern thinking about housing.
Tomáš Baťa lived here with his family and set off from here to his factories each day. The house survived many historical upheavals and currently serves as the representative seat of the Tomáš Baťa Foundation. Its spaces come alive today with lectures, meetings and cultural events, so practically anyone can come and see this piece of Baťa history.
7. The Baťa Houses and the Garden City
This is exactly what makes Zlín Zlín. Looking down from above, you’ll see endless rows of typical little houses built from bare red brick, nestled in a sea of trees and lawns. Zlín is a textbook example of the garden city urban concept. The Baťa company wanted to provide quality, affordable housing for its workers, and so in the 1920s and 1930s whole new districts began to spring up according to the designs of architect František Lýdie Gahura.
The houses were built quickly, cheaply and to standardised plans. There were three basic types: quarter-houses, semi-detached houses and free-standing single houses. More than nineteen hundred of them survive to this day, forming cohesive districts such as Letná, Zálešná or Lesní čtvrť. Walking through these streets is a little like strolling through a film set, except that here people genuinely live, hang out their washing and grow vegetables in their gardens just as they did ninety years ago.
8. The Film Studios and the Zlín Film Festival
Zlín isn’t only about shoes, it’s about the silver screen too. When Jan Antonín Baťa needed to promote his products, he wasn’t satisfied with print adverts. In 1936 he had the first film studio built on Kudlov hill. It was originally meant only for shooting advertising clips, but over time the studios became a true cradle of Czech animated and special-effects film.
Absolute legends of Czech cinema worked here. Hermína Týrlová created her pioneering puppet animations here, and it was here, under the hands of director Karel Zeman, that the legendary film Journey to the Beginning of Time was made. The Zlín Film Festival, an international festival of films for children and youth, seamlessly carries on this rich tradition and has been held here since 1961. It’s the oldest and largest festival of its kind in the entire world.
9. The Church of Saints Philip and James
You might get the impression that Zlín dropped out of the sky along with the first shoe factory, but that’s not the case. The city has a far older history, and a reminder of those times is the Church of Saints Philip and James, which stands right next to Náměstí Míru (Peace Square). This is the original Zlín church, with foundations reaching back to the turn of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries; historical sources put its construction at roughly 1390 to 1420.
The church stands as a beautiful historical counterpoint to the modern city around it, a reminder that Zlín existed as a small Moravian town long before the Baťa era arrived and changed everything. Incidentally, right next to it once stood the very oldest Zlín cemetery, which later had to make way for the growing city.
10. The Forest Cemetery
Speaking of cemeteries, Zlín’s main one is utterly unique and absolutely worth a quiet stroll. The Forest Cemetery was consecrated in 1932 and, as the name suggests, it has a very unusual, natural design. The graves are set right among mature trees in woodland, with no showy concrete enclosures or huge marble monuments. Everything is very simple and in harmony with nature.
The cemetery is the final resting place of many notable figures connected with the city. Since July 1932, Tomáš Baťa himself has been buried here, his grave very plain and modest. Also resting here are architect František Lýdie Gahura, who gave Zlín its face, and the famous filmmakers Karel Zeman and Hermína Týrlová. It’s an immensely calm and reverent place, perhaps the quietest corner of all Zlín, where you fully realise just how much the Baťa family cared about order and beauty even in moments like these.
11. Malenovice Castle
If you do start to miss classic monuments, you just need to head to an outlying part of the city. Malenovice Castle, today part of Zlín, is a typical Gothic fortress. It was founded in the mid-fourteenth century by Jan Jindřich, who was none other than the brother of Emperor Charles IV.
Over the centuries the castle went through many alterations, so you’ll find traces of both Renaissance and Baroque on it. The last private owners of the estate were the well-known Šternberk family. The monument is currently managed by the Museum of South-East Moravia. Inside you can explore several interesting historical exhibitions, and as a reward for climbing the stairs you’ll be treated to a lovely view of the surrounding landscape from the castle tower.
12. Gahura’s Promenade and the City Greenery
The final tip isn’t a specific building but the space between them. Gahura’s Promenade is a huge green axis set right into the centre of Zlín. Architect František Lýdie Gahura designed this long, rising grassy strip lined with tree avenues as a connecting element between the Tomáš Baťa Memorial up on the hill and the educational buildings down in the city.
This generous belt of greenery is actually the best proof that the idea of a factory set in gardens was never just an advertising slogan. To this day Zlín is one of the very greenest cities in the Czech Republic. Here greenery isn’t merely an add-on but an organic part of the development, weaving right between the brick houses, factory complexes and office buildings. Strolling along the promenade or simply sitting down on the grass is the best way to soak up the local atmosphere.
💡 Tip with kids: If you’re travelling with the family, besides Lešná Zoo be sure to head to the Museum of South-East Moravia in the Baťa Institute. The part of the exhibition devoted to travellers Hanzelka and Zikmund is very engaging for curious children, as are the clips from old animated films.
Where to Eat in Zlín
Hunting down good food and coffee is a joy here, because the city has a great food scene. If you love good cafés, definitely stop by Jedním tahem, located in one of the former factory buildings. They serve excellent speciality coffee, do great brunches, and the space also doubles as a gallery. Another very pleasant stop right in the factory complex is Lusso Caffe, a stylish café inspired by the Italian way of life. In the very centre, on Tomáš Baťa Avenue, you’ll find the popular Archa café.
Good news for vegetarians: Zlín offers several meat-free options. Right in the Svit complex is the restaurant Prašád, which cooks exclusively vegetarian. In the centre you’ll find Pranaya, another purely vegetarian restaurant with a weekday lunch menu.
Of course, we mustn’t forget that Zlín lies in Wallachia, a region with a very distinctive, strong culinary tradition. Among the local specialities that tourists often seek out are the hearty cabbage soup known as kyselica and the filling potato dumplings called střapačky served with sauerkraut. Apparently you have to wash it all down with slivovitz (plum brandy) from the surrounding orchards, which the locals swear by. And for a sweet finish, there are the renowned frgály, enormous sweet cakes with quark, poppy seed or pear filling, which even boast a Protected Geographical Indication from the European Union.
Day Trips from Zlín
If you have more time in eastern Moravia, the area around the city offers plenty of further options. Both Wallachia and neighbouring Slovácko are full of history and interesting places.
- Vizovice: Just about fourteen kilometres from Zlín. Here you’ll find a beautiful baroque chateau with a unique collection of historical board games. The town is mainly famous, though, for the R. Jelínek distillery, which continues a tradition of distilling dating back to 1585 and exports its world-renowned slivovitz. In summer it also hosts the big Masters of Rock music festival.
- Luhačovice: Just sixteen kilometres away lie the largest spa town in Moravia. They’re famous for the healing mineral spring Vincentka, but above all for the gorgeous folk Art Nouveau architecture left behind here by architect Dušan Jurkovič.
- The Baťa Canal: A historic waterway built between 1934 and 1938 along the Morava River. It originally served to transport lignite, but today it hosts very popular tourist boat cruises through the enchanting Slovácko region.
- Lukov Castle: Around ten kilometres from the city, deep in the Hostýn Hills, lie the extensive ruins of this Gothic castle. The entrance gate has survived, and from the walls there’s a perfect view across the wide countryside.
💡 Tip: Tickets for the chateaux, distillery tours or boat hire on the canal often sell out fast in the summer months. If you want to lock in your trips in advance with no queueing, take a look at the experiences and bookings available through the GetYourGuide platform.
Where to Next
Frequently Asked Questions
How many days should you set aside for visiting Zlín?
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One to two days is plenty for the historic and functionalist center itself. However, if you’re planning to visit the zoo, explore the museums at the institute, and take a trip to places like Luhačovice or Vizovice, definitely extend your stay to three days.
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How to best get to Zlín from Prague?
Zlín lies outside the main railway corridor, so direct trains from Prague run only occasionally. The most common route is to take an express train to Otrokovice (which takes just under three hours) and transfer there to a local train or public transport, which will take you straight to the center. A direct bus from Prague takes about four hours.
Does the mobile office still work in the Bata Skyscraper?
The famous elevator, which served as Jan Antonín Baťa’s office, has been carefully restored and today functions primarily as a historical exhibit. It’s used for tours, so you can take a close look at the period furnishings, from the washbasin to the air conditioning.
Can you go see a movie at the Velké kino?
Unfortunately not. Although the cinema has a fascinating history and a capacity of over two thousand seats, it has been closed to the public since 2016 due to poor technical condition and safety concerns. The city is planning an extensive reconstruction, so for now you can only view the building from the outside from Náměstí Práce (Work Square).
Can tourists stay in the Baťa houses?
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Yes, it’s definitely possible. Although most of the more than nineteen hundred preserved trulli houses are normally inhabited by locals, some owners have renovated them and offer them for rent through accommodation platforms. It’s a great way to experience the architecture literally first-hand.
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Tips and Tricks for Your Vacation
Don’t Overpay for Flights
Search for flights on Kayak. It’s our favorite search engine because it scans the websites of all airlines and always finds the cheapest connection.
Book Your Accommodation Smartly
The best experiences we’ve had when looking for accommodation (from Alaska to Morocco) are with Booking.com, where hotels, apartments, and entire houses are usually the cheapest and most widely available.
Don’t Forget Travel Insurance
Good travel insurance will protect you against illness, accidents, theft, or flight cancellations. We’ve had a few hospital visits abroad, so we know how important it is to have proper insurance arranged.
Where we insure ourselves: SafetyWing (best for everyone) and TrueTraveller (for extra-long trips).
Why don’t we recommend any Czech insurance company? Because they have too many restrictions. They set limits on the number of days abroad, travel insurance via a credit card often requires you to pay medical expenses only with that card, and they frequently limit the number of returns to the Czech Republic.
Find the Best Experiences
Get Your Guide is a huge online marketplace where you can book guided walks, trips, skip-the-line tickets, tours, and much more. We always find some extra fun there!
