“I understand tradition in terms of colour. Very concretely and never abstractly. And certainly not patriotically.”
“I think of the ensemble as an orchestra with many sounds that more or less fit together. But only more or less. Not harmoniously. Or like a preserved monument. Just more or less.”
“But the main thing is you approach the job with the intention of letting people participate, by taking account of their traditions and their places.”
At the ETH in Zurich in the 1980s, Miroslav Šik (b. 1953 in Prague) developed a consequential movement with the catchy yet combative label Analogue Architecture which was to influence Swiss architecture and some of its leading practitioners for years to come. It espoused a deliberate rejection of classical modernism, but was also a counter-movement to the intellectual and often ironic postmodern. It worked with influences from the immediate environment, local atmospheres and traditions. Its large-format, gloomy drawings of designs that are difficult to categorise and provocatively amodern in nature have etched themselves into the collective memory of Swiss architects. In pamphlet-like writings and in interviews, Miroslav Šik formulated the theoretical background to the movement and contributed to the extensive media coverage it attracted.
In the early 1990s, after his academic activities at the ETH ended, Šik moved into architectural practice. He created his first widely admired constructions and rebuilds, including the Catholic Centre in Egg (ZH), the La Longeraie congress centre in Morges (VD), and the musicians’ residence in Zurich.
Following stints lecturing in Prague and at the EPFL in Lausanne, Šik was appointed full professor at the ETH in Zurich at the start of the 2000s. He taught a practically oriented and conciliatory architectural language that blended regionalism, traditionalism, and modernism and was dubbed old-new architecture. Over almost 20 years lecturing on the subject at the ETH, Šik influenced further generations of architects.
Alongside his teaching work, Šik put his ideas of an old-new reformist architecture into practice, designing numerous residential buildings, retirement homes, educational institutions and ecclesiastical constructions. Conversions and sensitive redesigns of interiors, many of them listed, also became important areas of his work. In 2012, Šik designed the Swiss Pavilion at the International Architecture Exhibition in Venice.
He has been a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague since 2018, and continues to run the architecture firm Šik Partner, now together with Daniela Frei and Marc Mayor.
Šik’s teachings and constructions have been extensively reviewed and published. Two monographs on his work have appeared – Altneu (Lucerne, 2000) and Miroslav Šik. Architektur 1988–2012 (Lucerne, 2012) – along with a book on his teachings, Analoge Altneue Architektur (Lucerne, 2018).
Šik was honoured with the Heinrich Tessenow Medal in 2005. He received the State Award from the Czech Ministry of Culture in 2024.