To the lecture of Miroslav Šik in České Budějovice

Autumn evenings are inextricably linked to an endless series of architectural events. From Architectureweek to Designblok and the Day of Architecture. It's as if everyone is trying to catch up on summer and accomplish everything before the holiday parties begin. However, one endeavor stands out among the packed calendar of architectural events: Michal Škoda's achievement in persuading Swiss architect Miroslav Šik, who has Czech roots, to transfer his successful exhibition And now the Ensemble!!! from the Swiss pavilion at the XIII. Venice Architecture Biennale to his Gallery of Contemporary Art and Architecture, where he exhibited together with his students: the Zurich couple Kaschka Knapkiewicz and Axel Fickert and the Basel duo Quintus Miller and Paola Maranta.
Šik's exhibition And now the Ensemble!!! was created for the intimate environment of the České Budějovice gallery, utilizing similar elements (a white circular table, a room with warmly lit inspirational photographs, and a long collage wall) as in the Venetian exhibition.
Even after more than forty years in exile, Miroslav Šik has not lost contact with the Czechs. He maintains a healthy distance from architectural events in our country. After two years at the Faculty of Architecture at ČVUT in Prague in the early 1990s, where he nurtured a remarkable generation around the publication 'New Czech Work', he reintroduced himself to the Czech audience at the invitation of the Circle only in November 2001. I don't know how many people were able to appreciate his lecture 'Altneu' in the euphoria of the new millennium and the massive onset of digital technologies. In April 2004, he returned to Prague's NoD to present his two students Peter Joose and Christoph Mathys. We had to wait another decade for Šik's next public appearance.
The originally planned venue, the club Horká vana, had to be moved to KD Slavie, where four hundred viewers from across the country and Slovakia gathered on Thursday, October 17, 2013.
After the fall of the Iron Curtain, Miroslav Šik set off towards the Czech borders in January 1990 but found the courage to cross it only later. In the early 1990s, two cohorts of students at ČVUT had a unique opportunity to study under his guidance, and most of these names not only did not fade in the Czech architectural scene but are, on the contrary, a guarantee of honest 'New Czech Work'. In 1993, Šik managed to win three architectural competitions in Switzerland and start his own office. His approach to building 'weak forms' has proven to be one of the best ways to place an object in context, and designs that relate to their surroundings automatically gain strength.
Although Miroslav Šik can be considered one of the most successful architects with Czech roots, at the very beginning of his lecture, he admits that he has lost his battle with globalization (and did not even tend to fight it). He works only with what is generally known and makes slight modifications. Besides 'Altneu', he developed a method called 'Mischung', where the new arises from an empathetic mixing of the old, choosing the old only after a critical interpretation of historical development.
Šik's professional path is difficult to replicate in today's fast-paced world, as he was involved in the academic environment in his forties, clarifying the relationship between contemporary architecture and the historical legacy, to secure all subsequent commissions exclusively from architectural competitions (out of 140 competitions, he won 20). At the same time, he successfully creates social 'Durchmischung' with a limited budget without the scent of social housing.
In his houses, comfort is always a priority. In his designs, he proves that affordable housing does not have to end up with cheap mass production and endless repetition like with modernists. He does not offer outright luxury but provides residents with the spatial comfort of Italian 'palazzo'.
Comparing the Czech architectural environment with that of Switzerland would be foolish; however, one can hope that in ten years since Šik's last public appearance, the situation in the Czech Republic has at least shifted slightly for the better and that in the future, there will be at least a small fraction of clients who will wish to live in buildings designed maybe not directly by Šik, but by his students and followers.

The exhibition And now the Ensemble!!! at the Gallery of Contemporary Art and Architecture in České Budějovice will last until November 17, 2013.