Few local architects can work with site context and a design brief as originally as Svatopluk Sládeček. For the informed public, his “figures”—houses of unusual shapes and characteristics—are very well known even with their idiosyncratic nicknames. Our conversation with Sládeček covered his playfully figurative architecture as well as his inspiration in modernism, his view of architecture as a fundamental part of culture, and his search for the origin of joy, which some buildings inadvertently tend to emanate. When the interview was finished, we immediately set off to Kroměříž, to satisfy ourselves to the degree of which these ideas factored into the design of Sládeček’s early project of the Villa on the Barbořina hill.

Due to a major shift in the climatic conditions of our planet, the wood industry has been going through turbulent changes recently. The new headquarters of the Kloboucká lesní wood processing company was therefore designed as a flexible shell with ample spatial reserves, which would allow the building to accommodate unexpected expansion. The new building occupies a prominent spot in the factory complex. Its north side turned to face the village and all approaching visitors; it blocks the rest of the regular manufacturing halls from view. The modular structure of the building combines a heavy timber frame, concrete core and steel reinforcements. The modules are then filled with different types of facade according to interior layout. Most of the timber frame is made of glulam, a material produced only a hundred meters away, from spruce wood harvested in local forests.

 A reinforced-concrete modular crystal is planted on the side of the hill in Černošice near Prague. This unusual home design raises the living area above the neighbour’s roofs to provide an undisturbed view of the Berounka river valley. Even though the house may appear somewhat extravagant initially, it blended in naturally, over time, with its forest-like garden.

This single-story home with an egg-shaped inner courtyard can be found near Chmelnice in Prague’s Žižkov, where modernist housing projects meet garden city urban structure. Just across the street from a towering eight-story apartment block, the privacy of the supposedly tranquil garden was often questioned. But walking down the street, there’s almost no sign suggesting the presence of any kind of family home. The overgrown perimeter wall might get the attention of passersby, but the house by itself stays hidden completely.