Speed Date / TOMÁŠ TOKARČÍK, architect
Where are you from?
From a small town.
Where did you study?
In the capital.
Who was your best teacher?
Practice.
Who were/ are your parents?
A pharmacist and a railwayman .
What don’t you enjoy in design?
Picking out sofas, tiles and carpets.
And on the contrary, what do you?
Structure and detail.
What do you listen to?
Quiet now.
Your favourite film, cartoon, series?
m.a.s.h.
Who do you respect as an authority in and out of your field?
André Kempe and Oliver Thill – architects from Dresden, I recognise them for their expertise, diligence, consistency, pragmatism, honesty and humanity.
What thing did you last buy?
Disinfectant solution.
Do you buy professional literature? What was the latest book?
El Croquis – Caruso St. John, Bernardo Bader and H arquitectes.
Do you vote?
I do.
Who throws the best parties?
I don’t know.
Your favourite dome?
Dome over Manhattan, Richard Buckminster Fuller.
Party dress. Made by…?
Mine.
Your hero from the past?
Richard Feynman.
Best/nicest house?
E.g. Summer House by Wenche Selmer – for its pragmatic romanticism.
Do you have any stereotypes when you work? How do they show?
I try to think things through in detail and consistently. It takes a lot of time, which is then missing somewhere else.
What’s on your desktop?
White on black.
Best exhibition, work of art?
Biennale architettura di Venezia.
What do you respect both from the local and foreign design scene? And why?
I admire and respect pioneers, innovators, navigators, adventurers and responsible leaders.
Ethics or money?
Ethical money.
Extraordinary book?
Operating manual for spaceship earth, Buckminster Fuller.
Optimist, pessimist, nihilist?
33.3 : 33.3 : 33.3.
Do you have any hobby?
I have quite a few, no time for some, no weather for others.
Solo or in a collective?
Now more individually than in a collective.
Slovakia as the Promised Land?
Yeah.