<html> <head> <title>Architect Eva Jiřičná to Celebrate Eightieth Birthday</title> </head> <body> <p>Architect Eva Jiřičná to celebrate her eightieth birthday</p> </body> </html>

Publisher
ČTK
01.03.2019 08:30
Czech Republic

Prague

Eva Jiřičná
Eva Jiricna Architects

Prague - Simple lines, steel, glass, and sober modernity. And spiral staircases that seem to float in space. The projects of architect Eva Jiřičná have a hallmark of originality, and her illuminated interiors fill luxury shops, apartments, and offices around the world. This year, on March 3, this probably most famous Czech architect of the present will celebrate her eightieth birthday.

Jiřičná harmonizes glass and steel into perfect harmony in her interiors. Her signature also includes tension cables for the famous glass staircases, which she has perfected over the years into a festive jewel: "Inside objects, I am fascinated by light and working with it. I seek ways to bring it into spaces. Brightness, transparency, and materials in their purest form," she says.

Her designer stores are located on prestigious streets in London and New York. She has worked for brands like Hugo Boss, Kenzo, Joseph, Vidal Sassoon, and also for many significant cafes and restaurants. She designs luxury hotels, private apartments, and bridges. Her clients include nobility as well as successful businessmen, including in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Florence.

In her native country, people did not know her work for a long time. A native of Zlín (March 3, 1939) with a British passport became an emigrant against her will in 1968 and did not return to Czechoslovakia until 1990.

Her work in the Czech Republic includes the modern Orangerie (a greenhouse with a steel skeleton) at Jelení Příkop in the Prague Castle complex, the interiors of the Dancing House on Rašínovo nábřeží in Prague, the Černá labuť café above the Bílá labuť department store, or the footbridge in Brno. She also designed the Prague hotels Josef and Maxmilian, the residential complex Sky Barrandov, and for her native Zlín, the Congress Center, University Center, and Faculty of Humanities of Tomas Bata University. In Brno, a new highest skyscraper in the country, the 117-meter Palace Heršpická, should be built according to her design in the future.

She entered the world of architecture with a high-quality education. Her father was an architect who worked for Tomáš Baťa. She studied this field at the Prague Institute of Technology and further with Jaroslav Fragner at the Prague Academy of Art.

After her studies, she was offered an internship in England, and she left on August 1, 1968. Then came a letter from the embassy stating: "Your visa has been revoked, and returning to your homeland is undesirable due to public interest."

At Louise de Soissons's studio, which designed the new port in Brighton, she learned to use materials of industrial design, later collaborating with architect Richard Rogers, and then received commissions for several stores in central London and the United States.

Thus, she became independent and founded her studio in 1976. She worked for Lloyd's insurance company, Lord Rothschild, and others. She designed the Canada Water bus station in London and the extension of the library in Leicester.

Now, Jiřičná has an architectural studio in Prague (AI Design Praha; with Petr Vágner) and in London (Eva Jiricna Architects). She also taught at the AAAL in Prague, where she was the head of one of the architecture studios. The renowned architect claims that she does not have much business sense and feels stronger in creation: "Creation is a constant search, a lot of work, and an ocean of sweat. It rarely happens that one reaches the goal. But it doesn't matter that one doesn't get there. The purpose is precisely that process and that journey."

Jiřičná received the Order of the British Empire from the British Queen and has also received many other prestigious awards. Last September, for example, she received a medal for lifetime achievement at the London Design Festival. She is a member of the Royal Academy of Arts and the American Institute of Architects, and she has honorary doctorates from several universities. She speaks English, Russian, French, and Italian. The men in her life have always been architects, including Jan Kaplický.
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