Overview

Desire to Create: Baťa’s Architecture of Belonging is an exhibition in London at the Czech Centre’s Vitrínka Gallery. It examines the relationship between industrial planning, housing, and community design through the legacy of Tomáš Baťa and the East Tilbury settlement in Essex. The event sits within architecture, urban history, and design culture.

Focus

The exhibition focuses on how corporate vision can shape the built environment. It studies modernist planning, worker housing, civic identity, and the integration of labour with daily life. It also raises questions about whether employer-led urban models create genuine community or controlled environments.

Architecture here is presented not only as buildings, but as a system of social organisation.

Program

The program includes a public exhibition with architectural drawings, historical photographs, and archival artefacts related to Baťa’s planning model. It traces the translation of business principles into physical space, from urban planning to domestic life. A related panel discussion titled Designed to Belong expands the debate around modernism, industry, and belonging.

Audience

This event is relevant to architects, urban researchers, preservation specialists, students, and visitors interested in the political role of design and planned communities.

Event Details

✦ ArchUp Editorial Insight

The exhibition is strongest when read as a case study in paternalistic modernism. Baťa’s model linked welfare, efficiency, and spatial order, but such systems often blur the line between community care and behavioural control. For architects, the project remains relevant because many contemporary masterplans still promise belonging through centrally managed environments.

Closing Note

Rather than focusing on iconic buildings, this event positions architecture as an instrument of economic and social planning, giving it broader relevance than a standard historical exhibition.