Doc. Ing. arch. Ivo Oberstein was born on 18 May 1935. In 1959 he graduated from the Faculty of Architecture and Civil Engineering of the Czech Technical University, after two years at the Design Institute in Karlovy Vary he moved to Prague to the Chief Architect's Office and then to the Design Institute of Construction of the City of Prague, where he led Atelier 7 (1976–1989).
His most famous project is Jihozápadní Město – a new urban district for 65,000 inhabitants. In 1968, he won an urban planning competition for this large housing estate. "My team and I have done our best to humanize the prefabricated buildings and to solve the public environment of the streets, squares and quiet residential areas inside the blocks. We took it as a huge challenge, we walked around other housing estates that were under construction, we observed the technology of rapid, but very rough construction. We wanted to avoid as much as possible the mistakes we saw there. We were pleased with everything that we managed to solve better – even if it was sometimes only apparent little things," he said in an interview in 2016.
After 1989, he continued to participate in the development of the Jihozápadní Město, he is the author of the urban design of the Sun Square and the Prague 13 Town Hall. After the revolution, he became the chief architect of the town (1990–1994). Under his leadership, work began on, among other things, the new Prague Zoning Plan and urban studies of the Prague Conservation Area, Smíchov and the Vltava River Master Plan. During 1994–2007 he lectured at the FA CTU on the problems of urban ensembles and headed the studio of urbanism. In 1995 he was appointed associate professor of urban planning. He was engaged in research on the degree of urban regulation and the nomenclature of urbanism and spatial planning.
In 2013, the Architects' Society awarded him the Grand Prix for Lifetime Achievement and nominated him (2023) for the UIA (International Union of Architects) Patrick Abercrombie Prize for Urban Planning and Design. In 2018, he received the Jože Plečnik Award for Lifetime Contribution to Architecture. In recent years, he has continued to actively enter the public debate, most recently, for example, on the plan to build a skyscraper in Prague's Nové Butovice.
Ivo Oberstein died on Saturday 6 January 2024, he was 88 years old.
