Rudiš-Rudiš architekti

Immediately after November 1989 the architects Viktor Rudiš and his son Martin Rudiš, together with their colleagues from Brno Stavoprojekt, Aleš Jenček and Zdeňka Vydrová, set up their own design studio. Since 1993, the studio has been run purely as a family business – Rudiš-Rudiš architekti. The studio's core activities are a continuation of Viktor Rudiš's previous practice and deal with projects for the Brno Exhibition Centre, and to a lesser extent, small housing projects.

The architect Viktor Rudiš was born in 1927 into the family of a diplomat. After graduating from a building construction college, he started to study architecture at the Brno University of Technology in 1947. He graduated in 1952 in a class lead by Professor Bedřich Rozehnal. From 1953 to 1957, he worked at the Výzkumný ústav výstavby a architektury in Brno and, from 1958, at Stavoprojekt, also in Brno. The first design by him that was carried out was that of the housing estate in Lesná (1961-1968) on the northern outskirts of Brno which he designed together with František Zounek and other colleagues. The designers worked according to the Garden City concept, making full use of the prized locality of the Čertovo rokle (Devil's Gorge). Today, the Lesná housing estate is regarded as one of the most accomplished panel-built estates in the Czech Republic. Rudiš undertook a three-month work experience in 1967 at Candilis, Josic and Woods design studio in Paris, but by this time, the 1960s were coming to an end. The Czechoslovak Pavilion at EXPO '70 in Osaka Japan, designed by Rudiš together with Aleš Jenček and Vladimír Palla (the libretto was created by Jan Skácel), was the symbolic full stop to the so-called Prague Spring. The basis of the design was an open structure composed of repetitive components forming the roof of the pavilion, with the seamless continuation of the interior to the exterior via a delicate glazed skin. The pavilion won the Japanese Institute of Architecture's Special Prize for architectonic solutions.

From 1969, Viktor Rudiš led one of the Stavoprojekt Brno design studios – creating a free-thinking workplace where a group of architects of the future Obecní dům association came together (Petr Hrůša, Petr Pelčák, Tomáš Rusín Ivan Wahla and Zdeňka Vydrová). For several years, his design studio also organized exhibitions of work by artists viewed unfavourably by the regime at the new Stavoprojekt building in Kounicova Street, which was built between 1980 and 1983 to a design by Viktor Rudiš and Aleš Jenček. At this time, Rudiš and his colleagues had designed the rather uninspiring Líšeň housing estate and carried out designs for the gradual renovation of the Brno Exhibition Centre.

Martin Rudiš was born in Brno in 1955. After completing his studies at the Brno Faculty of Architecture, he found employment with BVV Trade Fairs in Brno (BVV) and, three years later, started to work in his father's studio at Brno Stavoprojekt. After 1989, together with his colleagues, they set up an independent design studio. The most significant designs carried out by the studio are the Holiday Inn hotel in Brno (1991-1992), taking its cues from the aesthetics of late Modernism, the civilian concept of apartment blocks A1 (1996-1997) and A4 (2001) in Litomyšl, or the reconstruction of the Museum of Applied Arts in Brno (in cooperation with Ivan Koleček, 1999-2001). The Rudiš-Rudiš studio also renewed their previous cooperation with the Brno Exhibition Centre – in 1996, the reconstruction of the G Pavilion and, in 2003 Martin Rudiš designed the new F Pavilion.

Viktor Rudiš ceased working in 2003 and his son Martin continues to lead the Rudiš-Rudiš studio successfully. A clear sign of success are designs such as the five detached houses in the Prague residential area Na Krutci (2007) or the accomplished reconstruction and additional building work of the observatory and planetarium in Kraví Hora in Brno (2010-2011). One of the biggest design tasks for the studio so far is the Orion apartment complex on the outskirts of Brno Lesná (2007-2009), made up of three fourteen-storey tower blocks set on a common ground floor containing garages and a children's playground.

Viktor Rudiš:

1956
Experimental apartment block, Vinařská, Brno-City (in cooperation with František Zounek)

1961–1968
Lesná housing estate, Brno-Lesná (in cooperation with František Zounek, Miroslav Dufek and Ladislav Volák)

1969–1970
Czechoslovak pavilion at EXPO ʼ70 v Ósace (in cooperation with Aleš Jenček and Vladimír Palla)

1973
TJ Tesla Sports hall in Lesná, Brno (in cooperation with Dagmar Glosová and Zdeněk Musil)

1977–1982
Housing estate in Líšeň, Brno (in cooperation with František Zounek, Vladimír Palla and Aleš Jenček)

1978
Stavoprojekt building, Kounicova, Brno-City (in cooperation with Aleš Jenček)

1981
Housing colony Homs, Syria

1983–1985
Workshop building and reconstruction of A1 Pavilion at the Exhibition Centre, Brno-City

1988
Reconstruction of B Pavilion, Exhibition Centre, Brno-City

Rudiš-Rudiš:

1991–1992
Hotel Holiday Inn, Brno (in cooperation with Alešem Jenčekem)

1995–1996
Reconstruction of B Pavilion, Exhibition Centre, Brno-City (in cooperation with Zdeňka Vydrová)

1999–2001
Reconstruction of Museum of Fine Arts in Brno (in cooperation with Ivan Koleček and Zdeňka Vydrová)

2003
New Pavilion F, Exhibition Centre, Brno-City

2007
Five detached houses, Na Krutci, Prague 6

2007–2009
Orion apartment complex, Brno-Lesná

2010–2011
Reconstruction and additional building work of observatory and planetarium in Kraví Hora, Brno-City