SIPRAL CELEBRATES 30 YEARS OF ITS EXISTENCE AND 320 PROJECTS IMPLEMENTED IN THE CZECH REPUBLIC AND ACROSS EUROPE
The Czech company Sipral, a premier supplier of light curtain wallings by another name glazed façades, celebrates this year the 30th anniversary of its foundation. It was established in 1991 by Leopold Bareš together with Ivan Baláš and Jiří Broukal. Leopold Bareš still presides over the company’s board of directors. Sipral has completed a total of 320 projects in 8 European countries, working with 97 architects for 160 clients. Wardian, one of the tallest buildings in London, is dressed in Sipral brand as well as Amager Bakke waste-to-energy plant in Copenhagen with a ski slope on the roof designed by BIG architects or Louis Vuitton Foundation in the form of a ship with sails made of glass standing in the middle of the Bois de Boulogne in Paris by architect Frank Gehry. Important Prague projects include the Quadrio department store, the Main Point Karlín office building, Bořislavka and the Flow Building.
The company’s name is inspired by its original business in silicone products and applications. Sipral’s first projects included sophisticated skylights and the Forum Hotel taxi dispatch building in Prague. Opportunities to work at the right time with the right people, the courage to do things differently, precision and expertise are among the critical factors behind the company’s success. To this day, the company has completed more than 320 façades for commercial, residential and industrial buildings across Europe, notably in France, Copenhagen and the UK. Sipral is headquartered in Prague and has a British daughter company based in London. It has been operating a production and logistics facility west of Prague, in the municipality of Jirny, since 2008. The current production and warehouse area covers nearly 38,000 m² and includes 6 production lines.
“We are in a tough business where one mistake can mean a complete failure. We work on our own account, with our own money, without an investor or a parent company to prop us up if there is a downturn. That is why we must not slacken off, we cannot lose our smartness. We must keep looking for new challenges to survive. What drives us is that we leave something real behind us, we create lasting value in the form of useful buildings that will serve people for many years to come. In this we are kind of going against current trends – our approach helps us a lot because even though we are already a relatively large company, we remain flexible enough to step out of our usual processes and solutions. On top of all that we have always been proactive and that gave us an advantage and a head start. We have invested in IT, learned to design our own management software, deploy upgrades and solutions to work alongside the existing ones. We have combined everything with 3D software that allowed us to design and implement complex spatial project constructions, but also thanks to them we could present our results in a quite effective way,” Leopold Bareš said on the occasion of the company’s anniversary. “I am most pleased that we still have around employees with serial number 3 and that some of our colleagues have been working for Sipral since 1992. I see loyalty to the company and long-term co-operation as key for our success. It is good to mix in some younger blood, too. We employ many young people who were born after Sipral came into being,” he added.
The company’s turnover is approximately from 47MEUR to 59MEUR. Currently, 80-90% of the turnover is made up of exports to the United Kingdom. Sipral wants to continue to be a good partner for its clients, transforming their ideas into reality with an innovative, creatively technical and economical approach. Sipral’s ambition is also to build on its success in countries where the company already has an established track record, especially in France and Scandinavia.
About Sipral a. s.
Founded in 1991, Sipral is now a leading Czech supplier of light curtain wallings with over 240 employees in the Czech Republic and the UK. Since 2006, Sipral has a British subsidiary, Sipral UK Ltd, based in London, with offices in Paris and Copenhagen. The company’s most renowned projects include the Fondation Louis Vuitton by architect Frank Gehry, Copenhagen’s Amager Bakke waste-to-energy plant by BIG architects, and Paris’ Arena Nanterre, designed by Atelier Christian de Portzamparc. The Wardian building by Glenn Howell Architects is one of the most important projects implemented in London. In the Czech Republic, Sipral supplied sophisticated cladding for developments such as Quadrio multifunctional building by architect Jakub Cigler, Zlatý Anděl building in Prague by architect Jean Nouvel, and the City Tower in Pankrác by Richard Meier.
