Jiří Jiroutek was born on January 30, 1928 in Pardubice. He was totally deployed in a chemical factory in nearby Semtín during the war. Until then, he was also very passionate about football. After a leg injury in 1945, he joined his uncle’s carpentry workshop and later found a similar place in Prague. However, the private trade for which he previously worked was nationalized and incorporated into the company Interiér Praha meanwhile he was in the military service. Jiří took up the position of designer here. In 1954, he was at the birth of one of the first sector kitchens in our country, and in the early 1960s he also drew a U-453 chest of drawers, which soon became very popular. In the autumn of 1968, he met Ingvar Kamprad, who was on a business trip in Czechoslovakia. He offered him a place in the center of his Swedish company IKEA. Jiří accepted the position abroad and for the next three years he worked on the proper introduction of the so-called project documentation, which would enable the transport of furniture in boxes and its subsequent assembly directly in the living room of consumers. Upon his return, he was unable to continue working as a designer. He therefore took up the position of a clerk at Ligna. He later moved to the Foreign Trade Department and began organizing exhibitions throughout Europe. In 1992, he founded his own Atelier Jiroutek, specializing in the interiors of banks and insurance companies.
