Jan Aulík

Architect Jan Aulík studied at the Secondary Technical School in Prague (Střední průmyslová škola) from 1974–1978. From there, he went on to the Faculty of Architecture at the Czech Technical University in Professor Hlaváček’s studio. He finished his studies in 1983 with a diploma project for an insulin production plant in Mladá Boleslav. Later, he also linked his name with the Faculty of Architecture as a lecturer. Between 2004 and 2008, he worked externally with the Institute of Design, and from 2008 to 2014, he headed the studio of institute 15127. After graduating, he spent seven years at the Project Institute of the Capital City of Prague (Projektový ústav Hlavního města Prahy). Between 1990 and 1991, he gained experience in the Alfa architectural office under the guidance of Věra Machoninová. In 1991, he founded Studio A, which he transformed into the new studio Aulík Fišer Architekti (AFA) in 2007. In this way, he confirmed the importance of his collaboration with the architect Jakub Fišer (*1972), with whom he has been working ever since. Among other things, Jan Aulík has long been involved in the non-design field of contemporary Czech architecture – for example, he sat on the Supervisory Board of the Czech Architecture Foundation (Nadace české architektury) between 2002 and 2009, and since 2008, he has been a member of the Academy of Architecture of the Architects' Association (Akademie architektury Obce architektů) and the Czech Chamber of Architects (Česká komora architektů).

Since about the mid-1990s, Jan Aulík's work has most often been associated with property development and large office buildings. The architect won a major contract in this area in 1993 in an urban planning and architectural tender to design a spatial plan for a fifty-hectare area around Baarova Street in Prague's Michle district. This was the beginning of the complex of administrative and residential buildings now known as Brumlovka (formerly BB Centrum). Since the construction of the first administrative building in 1998, nearly twenty other buildings have been built on this site, all of them connected with Jan Aulík and the AFA studio. Although the buildings are diverse in style and material, they are united by their monumentality and ability to complement the public space with confidence, as well as by their simplicity, sobriety, and sense of the context of the locality and the city as a place to live. The studio has also applied similar approaches in the development of other office, administrative, and commercial buildings in different locations, for example in Prague's Palmovka and Bořislavka. Apart from property development, the list of projects implemented by Jan Aulík and AFA also includes a variety of villas with strict geometric forms, apartment blocks developing the idea of housing estates in a creative way, as well as commissions for the church, and gallery installations.

AB