Photo: Lousy Auber.

(M) Martin Smerek, (P) Peter Kuklica

Where are you from?
M: From Bratislava.
P: From Bratislava.

Where did you study?
M: At FAD STU in Bratislava.
P: At FAD STU.

Who was your best teacher?
M: Prof. Pavel Gregor.
P: Márius Žitňanský.

Who were/are your parents?
M: Chemists.
P: Dad is a machinist and has a spare parts shop. Mum teaches in a kindergarten.

What don’t you enjoy in design?
M: Drawing up budgets.
P: Excessive creativity.

And on the contrary, what do you?
M: Architectural studies.
P: The initial stages of designing, talking in the studio about individual problems and finding solutions to them, when slowly that light at the end of the tunnel appears. And competitions.

What do you listen to?
M: Various, music from the hip-hop sphere at work.
P: At the moment Moderat, Kerala Dust, HVOB, IDLES and Sleaford Mods.

Your favourite film, cartoon, series?
M: Recently watched a very good older film called Groundhog Day.
P: The Fauda series.

Who do you respect as an authority in and out of your field?
M: Architects with projects in complicated conditions, especially in city centres.
P: Rem Koolhaas, as I have been to see several of his buildings live and it has always been memorable. Apart from the fact that the OMA studio is extremely conceptual, even in person the houses work perfectly and not just on paper or in schemes.

What thing did you last buy?
M: A car stereo.
P: Coffee.

Do you buy professional literature? What was the latest book?
M: El Croquis.
P: I buy. Most recently LAN. Architecture, from TC Cuadernos.

Do you vote?
M: Yes.
P: Always.

Who throws the best parties?
M: Andrej Šošoka.
P: I don’t go much anymore. So I don’t know.

Your favourite dome?
M: Duomo di Firenze.
P: I don’t have any.

Party dress. Made by…?
M: Oh, you have to change :)?
P: I still wear the same thing.

Your hero from the past?
M: Hawkeye.
P: Grandpa and Dad.

Best/nicest house?
M: There are undoubtedly more. But the High Line in NYC resonated with me.
P: Casa da Música Porto, Fondazione Prada Milano, Louisiana Museum.

Do you have any stereotypes when you work? How do they show?
M: Stereotypical is probably the material palette.
P: Sometimes I visualize a design in my head before I analyze the brief in detail, which is too bad. But I’m pretty much able to work with that now, and I try to approach the design analytically without getting stuck on one solution/vision.

What’s on your desktop?
M: A bit of a mess.
P: It’s all white at the moment, but if we have a nice photo from a project, I’ll put it in the middle of the desktop, a small one.

Best exhibition, work of art?
M: Most recently BIB 2023.
P: I don’t have any.

What do you respect both from the local and foreign design scene? And why?
M: On the local scene most of all BKPŠ and from abroad Peter Zumthor, Herzog de Meuron, COBE,…
P: From the local Plural, who for me are authentically conceptual and their projects are on a European level. Sadovsky & Architects, who are definitely the best in the country at the moment in large scales, but they also do small commissions nicely. For inspiration, however, we always go outside the borders, especially to Benelux and France, for example Lacaton & Vassal, Bruther, LAN, XDGA, NP2F, SO-IL, Atelier Kempe Thill, Muoto, Karamuk Kuo. But basically I am mainly interested in city-forming studios, which have a larger scale of objects with an overlap to a more complex solution of public space and urbanism.

Ethics or money?
M: Both.
P: Ethics and money.

Extraordinary book?
M: In terms of humanity, certainly the Bible.
P: The Incorrigible Optimists Club, by Jean-Michel Guenassia.

Optimist, pessimist, nihilist?
M: Optimist with occasional pessimism.
P: An optimist, for the time being.

Do you have any hobby?
M: Bicycle, skiing.
P: Bike, music and architecture.

Solo or in a collective?
M: Rather individually.
P: In a collective.

Slovakia as the Promised Land?
M: No, but it’s home.
P: That’s where my optimism starts to wane.