Eva Jiřičná will celebrate her eighty-fifth birthday

Prague – Simple lines, steel, glass, and sober modernity. And spiral staircases seemingly floating in space. The projects of architect Eva Jiřičná bear a stamp of originality, and her illuminated interiors fill luxury stores, apartments, and offices around the world. The jurors who awarded her the Honorary Award of the Czech Chamber of Architects for 2021 highlighted that she has "an amazing sense for the construction of buildings, thanks to her superior knowledge of technologies she comes up with the most efficient solutions." This year, on March 3rd, this possibly most famous Czech architect of today will celebrate her eighty-fifth birthday.

Jiřičná harmonizes glass and steel in her interiors to perfect harmony. Also part of her signature are tension cables for her famous glass staircases, which over the years have been refined to perfection as a celebratory jewel: "I am fascinated by light and working with it inside objects. I seek ways to bring it into the space. 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 such as Hugo Boss, Kenzo, Joseph, Vidal Sassoon, and also for many significant cafés 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 home country, people were long unaware of her work. A native of Zlín with a British passport became an emigrant against her will in 1968 and only returned to Czechoslovakia for the first time in 1990.

Her work in the Czech Republic includes the modern Orangerie (a greenhouse with a steel skeleton) by the Deer Moat in the Prague Castle area, the interiors of the Dancing House on Rašín's Embankment in Prague, the Černá labuť café above the Bílá labuť department store, a pedestrian bridge in Brno, or the renovation of the Prague Church of St. Anne for the Vize 97 Foundation of Václav and Dagmar Havlová. She also designed the Prague hotels Josef and Maximilian, the Sky Barrandov residential complex, and for her hometown of Zlín, the Congress Center, University Center, and the Faculty of Humanities of Tomas Bata University. According to her design, a new tallest skyscraper in the country, the 117-meter Palace Heršpická, is expected to arise in Brno in the future.

She entered the world of architecture with a quality education. Her father was an architect and worked for Tomáš Baťa. She studied this field at the Czech Technical University in Prague and further at the Academy of Art, Architecture, and Design in Prague with Jaroslav Fragner. After her studies, she was offered an internship in England, and she left for there on August 1, 1968. Then came a letter from the embassy stating: "Your visa has been revoked and return to your homeland is undesirable for reasons of public interest."

At the studio of Louis de Soissons, who designed the new harbor in Brighton, she learned to use materials from industrial design, later collaborating with architect Richard Rogers and then securing contracts for several shops in central London and in the United States. This is how she became independent and founded her studio in 1976. She worked for Lloyd's insurance, Lord Rothschild, and others. She designed the Canada Water bus station in London and the extension of the library in Leicester. She became a significant representative of the high-tech style, but her work also echoes organic or minimalist architecture.

Currently, Jiřičná has an architectural studio in Prague (AI Design Prague; with Petr Vágner) and in London (Eva Jiricna Architects). She also taught at the AAAD in Prague, where she was the head of one of the architecture studios. The renowned architect herself claims that she does not have much of a sense for business and feels stronger in creation: "Creation is a constant search, a multitude of work, and a sea of sweat. It rarely happens that one reaches the final destination. But it doesn't matter if you don't get there. The meaning is precisely the process and the journey."

Jiřičná has been awarded the Order of the British Empire by the British Queen and has received a number of other prestigious awards. In September 2018, for example, she received a lifetime achievement medal at the London Design Festival. She has also received several Grand Prix awards from the Architects' Association, and in 2021, she was given the Honorary Award of the Czech Chamber of Architects. She is a member of the Royal Academy of Arts and the American Institute of Architects, and holds honorary doctorates from several universities. She speaks English, Russian, French, and Italian. Furthermore, the men in her life have always been architects, including Jan Kaplický.