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Serge and Shirley
victor munoz sanz
Serge came to Batawa from Hellocourt, France, a name that might not mean too much unless we mention that it is also known as Bataville. Serge had worked for Bata since he was fifteen. When his superiors discovered his artistic inclinations, he was trained in the design of shoes, but also of machinery for production. He offered to go abroad and work in the brand new factory in Canada for three years. There he met his wife Shirley. As Batawa was built during the war, the company had not enough resources to build the modern serial brick houses that characterise all the other the Bata towns since Zlin. By shifting production to warfare materials for the allies, Bata managed to maintain operations and to apply to a Canadian government program of wartime housing to supply houses for his workers. Serge and Shirley lived in one of those houses for eleven years, with a monthly rent of eleven dollars. When finally prosperity came to Batawa, workers began to move from the company town to other surrounding areas in search of better housing. At that point, the company offered the workers larger plots – amalgamating two of the existing lots – to build their own houses. Serge and Shirley bought one of these cheap pieces of land from Bata, and designed and built their own house. It was convenient to live there: the company supplied all the utilities, the community feeling was strong, and work was within walking distance. Serge and Shirley have been living in Batawa ever since.
The Bata factory was built in the image of the other Bata factories in Europe – according to Czech blueprints, by Czech workers and with Czech machinery – the first of a series of factories that would make a new Zlin in this remote land. The five-storey building was as exotic as extraordinary in its context. It was built according to a modular construction system developed by Czech architect Gahura and the engineer Sehdal, inspired and supported by Tomas Bata’s admiration of American industrial architecture, pragmatic and efficient. Huge clear glass windows allowed maximum transparency, sunlight and visual connection with the natural environment. However, as desirable this was, it was also problematic in terms of thermal efficiency and operating costs for the company in the Canadian winter. Windows were downsized by wrapping the building with an insulating white aluminum panel system; the original brick parapets and windows remain under that skin. The Batawa Development Corporation plans to keep the building, un-used since 1999, as an icon of new development, converting it to a mixed-use condominium building, restoring it to its original architecture with the promise that another global trend, the LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) brand will return it to the dream of sustainability and efficiency. –
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Special thanks to Emanuele Lepri and Suzanne McLean in the Bata Shoe Museum; Heather Candler and Jeff Leavitt in the Batawa Development Corporation; Darren Lobb in the Batawa Ski Hill; Serge and Shirley Folsch in Batawa; Brian Gibbs, Libuse Peichl and Sonja Bata in the Bata Shoe Organisation.
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