David Vávra is celebrating his 50th birthday

Prague - He never looked back, nor did he look forward to the days to come. Although by profession he is an architect and by spirit a great dreamer, he never imagined any city of the future or himself and his loved ones in a time when it would be the year 2007 and he would be 50 years old. "I have always lived only in the present, the moment; I never worried about what would be. The uniqueness of being is great," said David Vávra to ČTK, an architect, theater artist, and promoter of modern architecture, who will celebrate his fiftieth birthday on Friday.
One thing he knew long ago was that he would earn a living from architecture and live "as it comes". "But even if it were different, it would be fine," he reflects with considerable humility. And if he were offered to change something about his past? "One would surely like to avoid mistakes and poor decisions, but they happened. Many errors could have been avoided, but it’s about the main direction, about a certain path of a person," he says.
Although most people know David Vávra from the environment of the Sklep theater, from television sketches heavily employing Sklep humor, or from a series of programs popularizing modern architecture, his main focus still remains, alongside family, on his work as an architect. The scope of Vávra's studio work is broad - from restaurant and bar interiors to the construction of family houses. The number of renovations in Vávra's work also points to his humility - humility toward existing and admirable architecture.
One of his first projects was the completion of a Protestant church in his hometown Braník. "Churches interest me the most - and it’s even partly coming true; last year we completed the reconstruction of the Evangelical Church congregation in Modřany," he recalled.
"You won’t buy a book that doesn’t interest you. But you can’t get around architecture; architecture determines your life," he once said. Therefore, he not only creates good architecture but also popularizes it and fights for its preservation. He is saddened, for example, by the recent demise of the Přerov commune, and he is also concerned about the current efforts of an investor to dispose of the Ještěd department store in Liberec, for which a second wave of petitions and support is currently being generated.
"For Přerov, however, the loss of that monument is a far greater shock than the possible loss of Ještěd for Liberec, which has more significant and beautiful buildings," he points out. He signed Miroslav Masák's petition for Ještěd. He is currently working on the next phase of the city library project in Hradec Králové. He plans to convert it from an old factory.