Borek Sipek

1949 Prag



Borek Sipek is a furniture designer, architect, and glass artist, who was born in Prague in 1949. Borek Sipek studied furniture design from 1964 until 1968 at the Prague School for the Applied Arts. In 1969 he began to study architecture at the "Hochschule for bildende Künste" in Hamburg but switched to philosophy at Stuttgart University in 1973. Borek Sipek was an academic assistant at the Hannover University Institute of Industrial Design from 1977-79. In 1979 Borek Sipek took his diploma in architecture at Delft Technical University.
Between 1979 and 1983, Borek Sipek taught design theory at Essen University. In 1983 Borek Sipek moved to Amsterdam, where he opened an architectural and design practice. Later he and David Palterer opened Alterego, a design firm, there.
In 1990 Borek Sipek became a professor of architecture at the Prague Academy for the Applied Arts, teaching there until 1998. He subsequently taught at the Universität for angewandte Kunst in Vienna.
In the 1980s, Borek Sipek became famous worldwide for his Postmodernist furniture designs and glass objects. He describes his sumptuous formal language as Neo-Baroque. Rejecting the functionalist approach to design, Borek Sipek feels that the striving for technical perfection in industrial mass production should not lead to disregard of the individual personality.
Borek Sipek designs are formally very distinctive and the combinations of materials he uses are unconventional. In 1983 he designed "Bambi", a fragile-looking tubular steel chair with brass mounts and a back with silk stretched across it. In 1991 Borek Sipek designed the "PCSS" table with blue glass legs and metal fittings. Borek Sipek has his exquisite glass objects executed by master glassblowers in Murano and Novy Bor.
Borek Sipek has also achieved worldwide recognition as an architect. The Het Kruithuis Museum in 's Hertogenbosch, the Netherlands, was built after Borek Sipek's plans between 1993 and 2002. In 1994 the Kyoto Opera House Borek Sipek designed was finished. In 1995 Borek Sipek designed a Paris boutique for Karl Lagerfeld. In addition, Borek Sipek has designed numerous private houses and other public buildings as well as interiors.