Architect Martin Rajniš celebrates a milestone birthday

Prague - Czech architect and urban planner Martin Rajniš, who was born on May 16, 1944, has earned respect in the Czech Republic and on the international scene for decades. His numerous works include the Máj department store in Prague, the Czech post office Anežka on Sněžka, and the airship Guliver on the contemporary art center DOX building in Prague; recently, he has become the author of several unconventional lookout towers. The essence of Rajniš's buildings lies in experimentation and the relationship between architecture, nature, and human society.

Prague native Rajniš studied architecture at the Czech Technical University and then worked for several years in the prestigious Liberec studio SIAL, headed by Karel Hubáček. Together with John Eisler and Miroslav Masák, he designed the Máj department store in Prague, which began construction in 1972 and opened three years later. The façades of Máj featured the contrast of a fully glazed escalator hall with a solid tower of freight elevators made from exposed concrete. The Máj building, which was technically and architecturally timeless for its time, continues the interwar functionalism and foreshadows the high-tech style in its interior. In 2006, the department store was declared a cultural monument. Its reconstruction began last July, and it is expected to open to the public in June this year.

Rajniš left SIAL in 1979 and between 1981 and 1985 worked as an independent architect with the architectural studio Shape, during which time he became the author of the Transport History Pavilion at the World Expo EXPO in Vancouver in 1986. After the revolution, Rajniš led D. A. Studio with Stanislav Fiala, Jaroslav Zima, and Tomáš Prouza, whose most extensive work became the new shopping center in Prague's Smíchov, which opened to visitors in November 2001. It was built as one of the first centers of its kind in the Czech Republic on the site of the former Ringhoffer factory, later ČKD, in the Anděl area.

Since 2002, his work has changed. He focuses on smaller buildings made from natural materials, primarily using wood as the main building material. Together with Patrik Hoffman, he designed the modern Czech post office Anežka on Sněžka, which replaced the original 19th-century building in 2007. The new modern structure consists of wooden parts reinforced with steel rods and is complemented by glass panels covering hydraulically operated wooden shutters. In June 2008, Rajniš's design saw the opening of the unique wooden lookout tower Bára, shaped like a triangular pyramid, constructed on the Podhůra hill near Chrudim. However, it served tourists for only four days before a strong storm demolished the entire tower. The restored, more durable Bára II, standing 30 meters tall, was opened in September 2009.

Since 2012, Rajniš has led the architecture studio Huť architektury, which prepares twenty to fifty projects a year. "It is a group that not only designs but also builds, experiments, and invents architecture - just as it has worked since ancient times, in Rome, in Greece, through the Italian and Czech Middle Ages. That is what studios used to do, and we continue in that tradition," Rajniš told ČTK.

Rajniš's team continues to work on lookout tower projects. A fictional Czech genius, Jára Cimrman, received his own lookout tower based on Rajniš's design in 2013. The Museum and Lighthouse of Jára Cimrman have been built in Příchovice, located at the border of the Jizerské Mountains and the Krkonoš. Since 2017, Rajniš's wooden lookout tower Ester in Jerusalem symbolizes the close relationship between the Czech Republic and Israel, and a year later, a 23.5-meter-high lookout tower Doubravka, shaped like a triangular pyramid, was opened in the Čihadla Nature Park in Prague 14. A wooden lookout tower was also constructed at the Celtic fortification Závist in the cadastral area of Dolní Břežany near Prague, based on the project by Huť architektury.

Other projects by Huť architektury include the 42-meter-long steel-wood construction Gulliver, shaped like an airship, created in 2016 between two buildings of the Holešovice contemporary art center DOX in Prague, as well as a large winery in Dolní Dunajovice in Moravia.

Rajniš has previously taught architecture at VŠUP in Prague and led the architecture studio at the Technical University in Liberec. From 1992 to 1995, he was a member of the Czech Chamber of Architects (ČKA) court, which he helped establish. He was also the chairman of the Gremial Council of the Institute of Planning and Development of the Capital City of Prague.

He is a laureate of the ČKA Honor for 2016, and in 2021, the capital awarded Rajniš a commemorative silver medal for his significant lifelong architectural work associated with Prague.