Hotel under Kilimanjaro

ZDENĚK SENDLER

I have a relationship with Jura that is difficult to describe...

We didn't need to explain or justify anything complicated to each other.
The last years of Jura's work in the field of landscape architecture were, in this regard, a peak work of a mixture of knowledge, emotion, love, creativity, a clear authorial perspective, but also humility...
I am beginning to learn to live with the fact that this wound will remain forever open.
An amazing guy, the term "Renaissance" is fulfilled by no one more. A visionary for whom no boundaries apply, or rather, none exist.
Playful, big kid, a lover of beauty with a refined sense.
…as he would say: “Hey man, Zdenále, this will be awesome”…

…Hey man, Jura, you will be greatly missed here.

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RADKO KVĚT

“That's bullshit, that's ME…” or… “Now listen carefully, that's ME…” And some unbelievable nonsense would follow… This introduction, with which Jura began his babble, ultimately became so familiar within our "Brno crew" that it became the most used sentence of our joint parties, skiing, water, seas… And not only those. Of course, this babble had an ironic undertone, and whoever came out as the biggest fool won... And Jura liked to win.

A village boy, fisherman, Cvek, skier, friend, builder, doctor, joker, pain in the neck, snowboarder, husband, lover, easy-going guy, choleric, fighter, inventor, rascal, reliable, unreliable, cleverness, elusiveness, curiosity, disorganized protector of nature and monuments, fish pond keeper, hypochondriac, generosity, donator, kiter, philosopher, friend, entrepreneur, also a jerk, partner… Dude, dude, cigarette, excellent architect.

And of course the work...
Our discussions about architecture in recent years focused on completely fundamental issues like – a wooden footbridge over a stream made from one piece of oak that mustn't be slippery!... Or the solution for a dormer on the cottage.
But I do not want to trivialize it. We didn't talk much about architecture, we tried to do it… We reacted to each other... As if we were playing hockey.
Occasionally some cooperation with Atelier 8000 on projects (Hanspaulka, Rohanský peninsula, Raiffeisenka), but mainly several large competitions – Janáček Cultural Center, National Library in Prague, National Museum in Cairo, JAMU Theater building… The atmosphere was like in youth, slumber parties, working at the cottage, red wine, quick discussions and surprisingly we never argued, mutual respect, we both knew that we did it for each other. And that we wouldn't win, that didn't matter at all.

The last event also characterizes Jura's relationship to work and creativity. Dáša and I came to one of the last visits to Žluťák (Masaryk Memorial Cancer Institute on Žlutý Hill in Brno). Jura jumped out of bed, turned on the PC, his eyes shone in a trance, full of morphine, he presented to us the idea of a hotel project on Kilimanjaro… And on the last visit two or three days later, I witnessed him seriously assuring and begging the doctor that he needed about three and a half years to design and build that hotel… I had to leave as I was getting soft.

Brno, skiing, Věrka, Dobčice, kids, Corsica, red wine, České Budějovice, sea, ponds, girls, carp, plum brandy, sausages, yacht, Řevnice, Jana, Sardinia, latitude 41°13.944N, longitude 009°16.533E, Captain Střítecký declares a state of emergency in international waters and without our consent marries me and Dáša…

I hope I don't offend anyone by printing a photo of Jura (I don't know who or what stands on that pedestal today) – we were messing around in České Budějovice, discussing “Monuments” and “Bird Actors” (cycles of paintings that painter B. Matal created in the 70s, where he took aim at the “puffing their feathers” of the then powerful figures. Today it's the same). I told Jura about this. He immediately reacted…

When I see the photo years later, I immediately wonder if we shouldn't build him a monument near his “water houses” after all. Rawly solemn or solemnly raw? (for clarification: J. S. in recent years built ponds and in them built houses on stilts for his children).

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JOSEF PLESKOT

The death of Jirka Střítecký affected me deeply, and that right twice.

Primarily because a great person with a broad and sincere smile and an equally widely open heart has left us. An unmistakable person who loved life. A person to whom intrigue and envy were foreign properties. He could tell the truth to anyone's face. A friend.

And also because an architect has departed, of which there are few. A loner with a distinctive opinion. It was always an honor for me to be in a competition where Atelier 8000 was also involved, where I knew Jirka was present. I always like to measure my strength against the strong. He was very strong, losing to the strong is no disgrace. Jirka Střítecký will be greatly missed on the Czech architectural scene.

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MARTIN KRUPAUER

Confession

a few notes on our friendship in the years 1974 - 2012

Hello Jirka,
I would like to say a few words about the second half of your life, the one in which I had the honor to be.
The first half, about which you occasionally told me, was compelling: your high school period spent with parents in Tunisia, with your emerging true inner freedom, expressed as a huge relationship to the sea, your lifelong love, but also by participating in the student revolt there at the end of the 60s, ending with the burning of the school library of the French lycée. And primarily, a decisive parental decision regarding your swift transfer back to home. Here, in Jindřichův Hradec, you met the amazing artist Pepík Muller and subsequently in Brno, Professor Kurial, personalities to whom you were indebted for the initial direction of your artistic self-discovery.

After you came with your Brno classmates to České Budějovice and found yourself at the design firm Drupos, this company, along with this city and this republic, soon was too small for you. Immediately, as you did throughout your life, you began thinking and searching for solutions to truly global problems. This approach you declared with your friends in your still timeless contribution to the UNESCO competition – housing of the future. Already there you essentially formulated your artistic and architectural credo, but also your approach to our craft.
In this period, at the beginning of the second half of the 80s, we also met. I, an ear after military service, you already incredibly dreaming, immersed in architecture, art, thinking about living. And it is true that from our first evening, we both knew that something new had occurred in our lives; that although 1+1=2, 2/2 makes four. That we are absolutely different in most things, but in the few important ones … we resonate completely.
It was a time when we believed, just like many times afterward, not only in ourselves but also in the coming era and its challenges. Our pre-revolutionary effort to establish a production cooperative for architecture ended with a forced departure from Drupos, but also with a perfect preparation for all the changes and opportunities that were coming at us, which we felt, realized, and essentially enjoyed.

To this day I get chills and at the same time burst out laughing at the memory of the October demonstration at Václavák then, of a situation so characteristic for us both. Everyone was already retreating before the advancing police cordon, but you were shouting at us that we could not retreat. Then I lifted you so you could see over the crowd and we both happily began to back away. Simply, you always were more about emotions, I about reason. Even in height we complemented each other.
And then it came and we added throttle. With design authorization No. 1, issued for private entities in the Czech Republic, we founded our Atelier 8000 and set off to change not just the architectural world.

People from Jean Nouvel's architectural office still remember how you had our portfolio cast in a foundry in České Budějovice and they could not carry it; they didn’t let it on the plane and Jean essentially never saw it. Which did not result in the fiasco I was once again afraid of, but in a victory and the possibility of cooperation with a world architectural office. In Paris, in a country you loved so much.
We got wings and broke rocks. Young republic, our enthusiasm, desire, emotions, an overload of everything, immense need to express ourselves! A whirlwind of beautiful projects and buildings is coming… Bank on Lannovka, Bar Association on Národní Street, Old Customs House on Republic Square, and more. You live all of this along with your life. Always at full speed.

You bring Paly, a divine painter, to paint our bank, and I recognize another reflection of your soul, sensitive and helpful. Your apartment becomes a hostel for young people literally from all over the world, longing to walk with you through the depth of your living, often complemented with the explosive form of your self.
Like a comet, you fly through Brno’s architecture and Prague’s Umprum not to achieve any life milestone, but to help young people in your studios open their eyes, unleash their own creative potential, and teach them the craft properly.
With the new millennium come new challenges, but also greater caution and lesser courage from the surrounding society. Perhaps with age comes, along with persistent dedication, the need for broader self-expression. The times calm down and we with them. Perhaps for this reason, you can start returning to your original thoughts: not only through architecture for others but primarily through creation fully expressing yourself. You begin to shape the landscape according to your early theories and your view of the world. In this shaping, I meet you for the first time as an investor, who in realization does not deviate from the dreams of their creator, but on the contrary, goes further, beyond the original intent.
The fact that all this is happening in your beloved Dobčice, that is, on your and for your people, is just right. That in every detail of this doing you project your love for your children, is amazing.

Jirko! There’s no point in listing everything you’ve experienced, created, or in which we others could be with you. Far more important is to try to tell you what we two have not yet needed to say to each other, because we already knew it; and when we did, we didn’t have time or nature for such nonsense as pondering.
That’s what I wanted to say to you for the first time in my life when you cleared part of the hospital in the oncological center at Brno's Žluťák, had material from our studio brought in, invited all the patients including the doctors, because of course … we must and will create! To create a building for your Africa, a hotel under Kilimanjaro. And how else, to create at full throttle and to the breaking point! This time literally. But at the moment when I dared to finally say it to you after twenty-seven years of our cooperation and coexistence, you again beat me to it with the words…“Dude! They give me morphine every morning and buildings like this, I’ve never thought of before. They will all be stunned!”
And because it was necessary to work, I still didn’t say it to you. That we had, I and everyone who met you, an amazing opportunity to know a guy, an artist, an architect, a dreamer, with whom and next to whom it was a joy to work. And a joy to live. A guy, a bit furious, but captivating, who always held on and primarily knew how to share his self with everyone around him.

But I don’t want to get too sentimental here. We both didn’t like that. When one Saturday I walked past your not quite finished system of ponds and stood at Vysoká Běta, the spot where you planned a statue-observatory, I realized that everything is as it should be. And honestly Jirko… it is quite typical for you. We have a lot of your ideas left to be realized here and you are again one step ahead, preparing for us all up there. As always… So that when we go there, we don’t come to some, in your words, “shit”, but to the real heaven!

So it’s still the same in your current life, as well as in ours!
Thank you, Martin.