Alena Šrámková

20 June 1929, Prague

Alena Šrámková, née Cafourková, grew up in Slovakia and graduated from the Faculty of Architecture of the Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava, supervised by Vladimír Karfík. After several years of working as an architect (Chemoprojekt in Bratislava and Stavoprojekt in Ústí nad Labem), she enrolled in the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague, in Jaroslav Fragner’s studio. She worked in different institutions in Prague and sine 1992 she has had her own atelier Šrámková architekti, s.r.o. (now Ehl & Koumar architekti, s.r.o.). She is a professor at Czech Technical University in Prague. She was vice-president and president of the council of the Society of Czech Architects. In 1994, she received the prize Personality of Czech Architecture from the Society of Czech Architects (2010). She has participated in many exhibitions, including the Belgrade Trienale (1988), exhibitions in Munich (1991) and in Barcelona, the Venice Biennale (2004).

Šrámková was strongly influenced by postmodernism, although as an advocate of austerity and minimalism in architecture she created her own style, characterised by archetypally free formal speech. Her work is very extensive and diverse, consisting of several dozen projects. Her best known works are projects done with her husband Jan Šrámek (died in 1978). These include the underground hall of the Central Railway Station and the Českomoravská-Kolben-Daněk building in Prague’s Wenceslas Square. The latter, also called “building at Můstek”, is now listed as a cultural monument of the Czech Republic. Her other notable works are the Šerák meteorological station in Cheb, the new building of the Czech Technical University in the Dejvice district of Prague and the residential complex CORSO in Řevnice. She designed the cultural and commercial centre Lužiny with Ladislav Lábus. As a university teacher, a professor, she has influenced many young architects.