A life in Bata Modernism: Straight Lines Flat Roofs and Planned Communities
Tuesday, 15 July 2025 | 6:30 – 8:30 pm
Sir John Tusa will talk about his personal connection with the pioneering modernist Bat'a factory and its village in East Tilbury
Sir John Tusa, distinguished writer, broadcast journalist and former managing director of the Barbican Centre, will talk about his personal connection with the pioneering modernist Bat’a factory and its work-living community in East Tilbury.
Sir John Tusa was born in Zlín, in Czechoslovakia in 1936. Two days before the German occupation of Czechoslovakia on 15 March 1939, his father flew out on a Bat'a company plane to become general manager and later managing director of the Bat'a factory and its associated village in East Tilbury, Essex.
British Bat'a Shoes created a pioneering work-living community around its model modern movement factory, with estate houses, tennis courts, a swimming pool, and factory buildings, all in the idiom of European high modernism. For 1930s England, this was a radical concept. A 2006 article in The Guardian remarked that the estate’s architecture “perhaps eclipses” buildings such as Highpoint 1 and the Isokon.
Sir John Tusa is a writer, broadcast journalist and arts administrator. He presented Newsnight from 1980 to 1986, before becoming the head of the BBC World Service from 1986 to 1992. He ran the Barbican centre from 1995 to 2007. He comments:
"From the Neo-Bauhaus Modernism of my birth town, Bat'a 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."
Doors will open at 6.30pm, when complimentary drinks will be available. The talk will begin at 7pm. The Isokon Gallery shop will be open before and after the talk.