Jiri JIROUTEK

This series prompted Jiroutek and, later, Interier Praha to focus primarily on large-scale production of modular furniture. Jiroutek is best known for the simplicity of its sideboards and cabinets in oak veneer, with sliding doors and drawers in elegant colors. Biography Jiroutek spent his teenage years in the town of Chrudim, where he attended secondary school. Like the famous Czech industrial designer Jindřich Halabala, Jiroutek completed his professional studies at the Academy of Applied Arts in Prague (today, the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design). In 1951, Jiroutek began his career at the newly founded Interier Praha. Unlike Halabala and other mid-century Czech modernists, Jiroutek never worked for other major national furniture manufacturers such as TON and UP Závody. After his initial success, Jiroutek became design director at Interier Praha in 1958, and soon afterwards began work on the U-450 series. These designs were strongly inspired by Expo 58 in Brussels, which moved post-war Czech design towards a "softer" modernism, characterized by pastel colors, new geometries and the use of modern materials such as composites, glass and concrete. In the 1970s, even after the Prague Spring of 1968, which marked the beginning of design, Jiroutek continued to add new editions to his already robust oeuvre, adding opal glass tables and armchairs, as well as complete kitchen sets (his KU-550 series) and living-room sets (his U-550 series) to the Interier Praha catalog.