Školka SIAL, Liberec

SIAL (Sdružení inženýrů a architektů v Liberci, or the Association of Engineers and Architects in Liberec), an architecture studio led by Karel Hubáček (1924–2011), achieved unexpected success in the field of high-tech architecture. His Ještěd Tower, an internationally renowned television transmitter with hotel, was awarded the Auguste Perret Prize by the International Union of Architects in 1969. It not only fulfilled the futurological ideas of the time, but also used patented technological solutions developed in cooperation with specialists. Hubáček likened the SIAL studio to a laboratory in which architectural and technical experiments were mutually interdependent. Together with Miroslav Masák (b. 1932), he founded Školka SIAL (SIAL ‘nursery’), an incubator of new ideas in the spirit of machinism and advanced technicism. Postgraduate architecture students worked together as an interdisciplinary team involving artists, architects, and humanities scholars.