Miroslav Šik will receive an honorary title of Doctor Honoris Causa from CTU

On the occasion of the ceremonial meeting of the Scientific Council of CTU, which will take place on January 17 at the Bethlehem Chapel, the rector of CTU, Prof. Petr Konvalinka, will award the honorary title of Doctor Honoris Causa to architect Miroslav Šik.

Miroslav Šik (*1953) is one of the most respected figures on the contemporary international scene. He is an architect of Czech origin, the son of a prominent Czech economist, and in 1968 he emigrated with his parents to Switzerland, where he still lives and works today.

He studied at ETH Zurich, where he was a student of the Italian architect and theorist Prof. Aldo Rossi, one of the most significant architects of the second half of the 20th century. After graduating from this school, he remained there, exploring Swiss architecture during World War II and assisting the prominent Swiss architect Prof. Fabio Reinhart. In the early 1980s, he founded his own architectural office in Zurich. By the end of the 1980s, he formulated his own theory of so-called analogical architecture, which is based on local context, in harmony with its surroundings, without external effects, using common materials, and striving to connect the old with the new. This theory gradually gained significant attention and respect, bringing him worldwide recognition. From 1990 to 1992, he taught at the Faculty of Architecture of CTU and influenced a generation of young Czech architects (the group New Czech Work - M. Kuzemenský, M. Chalupa, D. Kraus, J. Šépka, J. Matula, and others). At the same time, his office won three architectural competitions and he could not continue teaching when the projects moved into realization. After Prague, he worked at the EPF Lausanne and in 1999 he obtained a professorship at the prestigious ETH university in Zurich. Besides numerous projects in Switzerland and a summer house in Bohemia (Třeboň), he has had several exhibitions across European metropolises and in the Czech Republic (Prague 1991, České Budějovice 2013). He has published his theories and opinions in countless international architectural magazines, released several books, and on the occasion of the Venice Biennale 2012, he published his own monograph Miroslav Šik. Architektur 1988-2012.