Where are you from?
From the Sudetenland.
From Podkrkonoší.
From Trutnov.

Where did you study?
In Prague.

Who was your best teacher?
Emil Přikryl and Zdislava Holomíčková.

Who were/ are your parents?
Father the teacher, mother the teacher.

What don’t you enjoy in design?
Design.

And on the contrary, what do you?
Architecture.

What do you listen to?
Songs, mostly.
When I’m working, it’s 90s… grunge, heavy metal… stuff I know from when I was a teenager…
Other than that, The National, Neil Young, Joy Division, Holy Fuck, Battles, The Dillinger Escape Plan, Fugazi, BadBadNotGood, OTK, The Neil Cowley Trio, Vložte kočku, Priessnitz, Otis Taylor, Gogo Penguin …
When I dance, it’s actually Max.
Used to be Psí Vojáky.
And now when I write Sonic Youth.

Your favourite film or cartoon?
Aliens, basically all the episodes, even the most recent ones.

Who do you respect as an authority in and out of your field?
Emil Přikryl. He told me the most important things in architecture.
In other fields I don’t know, but every once in a while in front of/inside the house, reading, watching a movie, listening to music, in front of a painting, when I get a tickle in the back of my head… I think, this must have been a real dude. That’s what I’d like to be someday…

What thing did you last buy?
It’s really just food now… there’s a plague outside… and the shops are closed…

Do you buy professional literature? What was the latest book?
But yeah, I’m trying.
Most recently Cutting Matt-Clark by Mark Wigley, Louis I. Kahn – Conversations with Students, Tajemné dálky – Symbolismus v českých zemích 1880-1914 by Otto M. Urban.

Do you vote?
Always.

Who throws the best parties?
I do, but very rarely now.
And then there’s Max.
And I think my older son, Andrew, will be very good at it one day.

Your favourite dome?
Not hard, Pantheon.

Party dress. Made by…?
The last time, black pants, black shirt, black sweater, black shoes. All plain clothes.

Your hero from the past?
Old Shatterhand.
That was, like, a long time ago.
Jozef Gabčík and Jan Kubiš.
And then everyone who helped them.

Best/nicest house?
The last one was The Rotunda of Peter and Paul in Budeč near Zákolany.
I had no idea that the walls converge upwards and that they are slightly convex. And the low entrance…
I haven’t been moved so much by a house in a long time…

Do you have any stereotypes when you work? How do they show?
I have achieved a certain manner in drawing. But that’s probably gone now …

What’s on your desktop?
Blue-Grey.
I really can’t stand the background pictures.
But I notice when someone has a picture on their desktop… I’m always ecstatic.

Best exhibition, work of art?
Exhibition of Lukáš Prokůpek.
Always.
Otherwise I have Gombrich opened on my desk, on the page with Snow Storm – Steam-Boat off a Harbour’s Mouth by J. M. Turner…. I am helping Ondřej with the preparation for the talent exams…

What do you respect both from the local and foreign design scene? And why?
David Kopecký. He did not distinguish between work and life. Something I’d like to do, but I know I can’t.
I admire Peter Märkli because he makes houses that are stripped to the bone, yet full of atmosphere. I also like his drawings.
I have a soft spot for Peter Zumthor. I would like to reach the quality of his models. And the beauty of his houses. I think what they both do can be called art.

Ethics or money?
Simple honesty.

Extraordinary book?
Harvard lectures by Italo Calvino.

Optimist, pessimist, nihilist?
An optimist, I guess. But Max says otherwise.

Do you have any hobby?
Architecture.
Even though it’s hard to keep up the enthusiasm, I still do.
Then the drums.
But I haven’t played in a year.
So running.
But it really hurts.

Solo or in a collective?
Rather alone

Slovakia as the Promised Land?
Well, Tomas would say yes, but I like being in the Czech Republic.