The architect and teacher Zdeněk Fránek graduated in 1985 after studying architecture at the University of Technology in Brno. He worked in the department of the town architect in Blansko and, in 1989, founded his own design studio Fránek Architects. From the very beginning, he was interested in the plasticity of objects, in creating some kind of parallel forms of nature. For him, the experience of the interior space is important, with the exterior being basically an outer skin. Echoes of interwar Modernism, and even Post-Modernism, for which Brno is so well known, are for him immaterial. Fránek seeks entirely new forms of his own, he experiments with morphology and technologies and identifies with the sculptural concept of architecture. Light and its transformation in the interior through the day and night is a strong motivation for his work.
In the 1990s, he experimented with vaulting but did not apply it to any of his designs. However, the aspect of vaulted spaces featured in his design for a multi-purpose hall, dominated by massive, hollow columns and an exposed wooden roof truss, built into the courtyard of the chateau in Velké Optatovice. The atmosphere of this monumental space resembles a medieval church. A detached house in Hodonín, built in 1998 to his design, is of a distinctive organic form, with its main section reminiscent of an opening flower bud. However, typically for Fránek, three years later, he came up with an entirely different building style – a stark building of exposed concrete on the outskirts of Prague resembling the Brutalist buildings of the late 1960s. A rational layout, simplicity and economic frugality together with a subtle distribution of its mass, rounded edges and well thought out details are all characteristics of the building of the primary school gym hall in Jaroměřice near Jevíčko (2004). The same goes for the poly-functional building Eucon in Prague Žižkov (2005), primarily serving as an apartment block and, within its austere form hiding a surprise in the form of a subdivided courtyard, dominated by the investor's flat in a separate unit on high stilts.
In 2005, Zdeněk Fránek carried out designs for two buildings at the foot of Červený kopec in Brno. He situated a generously proportioned, organically shaped villa for his sister on the slope and, lower down, a poly-functional home whose lower storeys contain Fránek's studio, with the other storeys designated for living quarters. Two sacred buildings for the Church of the Brethren were built in 2010 – the New Church in Litomyšl and the chapel in the newly created upper centre of Černošice. In spite of its robustly symbolic form, the church in Litomyšl is basically of civilian character, whereas the smaller chapel in Černošice is, with its plastic form, a distinctive feature in the suburban jungle. Fránek ventured into monumental style architecture with his design for a private gallery built in Peking and features a domineering concave front wall of grey engineering brick with a single circular aperture. One of Fránek's recent, noteworthy design projects is that of the Sky Walk view tower in Dolní Morava.
Curator Rostislav Koryčánek attempted to echo Zdeněk Fránek's architectonic approach with an exhibition Útroby architektury (The Bowels of Architecture) which was held towards the end of 2011 in the Brno House of Arts. One of the exhibits was a wooden view tower clad with mirrors and called the Invisible (Persian) Tower (also the Invisible Periscope) which, after the exhibition, was transported to Litomyšl and erected in front of the House of the Knights and subsequently, in the Orlice Fort in Letohrad.
1992
Multi-purpose hall, Velké Opatovice (remained unfinished, in 2007 modified for the Moravian Cartographic Centre)
1998
Detached house, Hodonín
2001
Concrete detached house
2004
Primary school gym hall, Jaroměřice near Jevíčko
2005
House with studio, Brno-Štýřice
Detached house, Červený Kopec, Brno-Štýřice
2005
Poly-functional house Eucon, Prague 3
2010
Church of Brethren Chapel, Černošice-Vráž
2011
Private gallery, Peking
2014
Detached house, Zadar
2015
Development centre LIKO-S, Slavkov u Brna
2015
Sky Walk, Dolní Morava
- www.franekarchitects.cz.
- Antonín Novák (ed.), Česká architektura 2015–2016 / Czech architecture. Yearbook 2015–2016, Praha 2017, s. 42–45.
- Jitka Ressová (ed.), Česká architektura 2014–2015 / Czech architecture. Yearbook 2014–2015, Praha 2016., s. 128–131.
- Zdeněk Fránek (ed.), Česká architektura 2013–2014 / Czech architecture. Yearbook 2013–2014, Praha 2015.
- Petr Volf, Litomyšl. Renesanční město moderní architektury, Litomyšl 2014, s. 256.
- Neuveden, Nový kostel, Praha 2013.
- Petr Všetečka (ed.), Česká architektura 2010–2011 / Czech architecture. Yearbook 2010–2011, Praha 2012, s. 114–119, 120–123, 130–135, 154–165.
- Rostislav Švácha (ed.), Naprej!, Praha 2012, s. 288–291.
- Alexandr Skalický (ed.), Česká architektura 2005–2006 / Czech architecture. Yearbook 2005–2006, Praha 2007, s. 48–51, 52–55, 56–59.
- Zdeněk Fránek, Perspektivy, Brno 2007.
- Zdeněk Fránek, Stavby/Buildings, Brno 2007.
