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May 17th, 2008
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Architect to the stars

Petr Slavíček adds a personal touch to Czech designs

April 16th, 2008 issue

By Chris McMorrow

VLADIMÍR WEISS/THE PRAGUE POST
Czech architect Petr Slavíček started his own business right out of university.
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COURTESY PHOTO
Slavíček spends a lot of time with his clients during the design process in order to add personal touches to his creations.
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Atelier Slavíček


Korunní Dvůr
Korunní 104, Prague 10
Tel.: 267 204 400
E-mail: info@atelierslavicek.cz
Web: www.atelierslavicek.cz

FOR THE POST
A bold fusion of both substance and style is immediately apparent upon entering Atelier Slavíček. Playful and polished, brightly colored animal figurines jump out from light open spaces, clean lines and a provocative cocktail of modern and antique furnishings. The effect is at once spirited yet wholly professional. It’s no surprise to discover the firm’s owner, Petr Slavíček, possesses a keen sense of both business and artistic expression.  
The majority of people ready to redesign their home or construct a new one provide professionals with a general template of color and style. Slavíček, however, takes this process quite a few steps further, choosing instead to work closely with his clients over an extended period of time. The process, Slavíček says, helps him to design more intimate living spaces that reflect a client’s own personal tastes.
His style has helped gain Slavíček a lot of fans. The Czech film director Jaroslav Brabec, for example, sought out Slavíček to design and decorate his dream home, an eclectic mix of modern and antique. A retro look in one room features such personal touches as an antique parasol hanging on a curtain rod, from which drapes a traditional Czech white lace curtain. And a view into a sitting room reveals a more contemporary parquet wooden floor, skylights set within the sloped ceiling and a chandelier so old it was found only after an exhaustive search that included scouring the back alleyways of Prague, Slavíček recalls.
“This practice of tailoring should be a given,” the architect explains. “When you move, you want to be in your ideal, self-concerned space.” This close partnership between architect and client has developed into many tight, long-lasting friendships over the last two decades with Slavíček and his staff often finding themselves invited to former clients’ weddings and other celebrations.
The past five years, in particular, have brought a steady influx of customers looking for a look that is fresh, different and tailored to their preferences. “It has been a long process of change. Before, people didn’t know what to request ... especially people in their 30s like this concept of reflecting their personality and style.”
In an effort to stay competitive, Slavíček’s firm has also begun to focus on commercial spaces, providing the interior designs for large scale projects around the city. These new ventures add to the current total of 20 onsite and 32 offsite employees, as various services are needed for projects on a temporary basis, the architect explains. However, considering that 60 percent of his business is with individual, private clients, it’s clear Slavíček’s dedication to developing a rapport with people and taking the time to find out exactly what they want is key to his continuing success.
Based on what folks are saying, Slavíček hasn’t lost his touch.
Vladimír Šmicer, a famous Czech soccer player, recently hired Slavíček to renovate his flat. The collaboration so far has gone smoothly. “It is a mutual process,” Šmicer says. “The main ideas come from [Slavíček]. Then we discuss it. ... So far it’s been all OK. I think that we have made a good choice. We will see.”
Self-reliant from the start, the only thing Slavíček can be accused of following is the steady drumbeat of change and progress that has swept through the country since the Velvet Revolution in 1989. Slavíček struck out on his own while still attending the Czech Technical University in Prague in 1991, a period he characterizes fondly as a “wild” and “unstable” time.
“I was full of dreams and saw no obstacles, only possibilities,” he says. Slavíček quickly made a name for himself following his graduation in 1995, choosing from the onset to work for himself and not someone else’s firm.
A natural solution for clients who desire a completely original home, Atelier Slavíček is also known for finding pre-existing spaces that are not typical for housing. Adventurous at heart, Slavíček says he relishes the challenges that come along with renovating what he refers to as “built-in” structures — like, for instance, an abandoned mill or old movie theater — and finding creative ways to insert arches, niches and partition walls where there were once none. In one converted attic he worked on, a deliberate intent to bring the outdoors in is evidenced by a generous sprinkling of plants and untreated exposed beams complete with scars and knotholes. The rustic features are made even more prevalent by a slick wooden staircase the cuts diagonally through the space, satisfying the eye with a healthy balance of country cottage and urban dwelling styles.
Slavíček has essentially built his career on a steady diet of creativity contradictions and collaboration. His own home in the city is not unlike his offices, having a familiar mix of old and new, with a standing sculpture from Asia thrown in for good measure. When asked how he arrives at the ideas that have made him so popular, he responds that “it depends on how I feel when I wake up.”
— Naďa Černá contributed to this report.
Chris McMorrow can be reached at realestate@praguepost.com


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