85 years ago, architect Miroslav Baše was born

Prague - Architect Miroslav Baše, born on September 16, 1933, was an internationally recognized expert in historical and landscape urbanism. He also intensely engaged in architectural theory, worked in committees for the protection of cultural heritage, and served as an educator.

Baše was born in the Slovak city of Michalovce and studied architecture at the Czech Technical University in Prague. He worked in various design institutes and from the 1960s until the early 1990s at the State Institute for the Reconstruction of Historical Towns and Buildings SURPMO, where he focused on historical urbanism and heritage conservation. In the 1990s, he established his own design office. Later, he taught at the Department of Urbanism at the Faculty of Architecture of the Czech Technical University, obtained the title of professor in 2001, and was appointed vice-dean for science and research in 2003.

Baše developed many urban plans and a number of urban programs. He also worked for the UN, participated in the regional development plan for Karachi in Pakistan and Colombo in Sri Lanka, and contributed to the concept for the center of Kuwait. The Czech Chamber of Architects (ČKA) identified Baše's most important work as the Urban Prognosis of the Prague Heritage Reservation (1980) and a study on Prague's historical core for the EU.

Among other roles, Baše was the vice-chairman of the Association for the Renewal of the Rural Area in the Czech Republic and sought to implement an ideological platform for rural renewal. He served on the expert committee for heritage conservation, which assessed the suitability of the design for the new National Library building by architect Jan Kaplický from an urbanism perspective. "He was an exceptionally balanced, educated, respected architect, and an honorable man," stated his colleague architect Jiří Merger after his death on February 2, 2008.