JEMS Architects is an architecture studio founded in 1988 in Warsaw by architects Jerzy Szczepanik-Dzikowski (1945), Olgierd Jagiełło (1947), and Maciej Miłobędzki (1959), together with economist Wojciech Zych (1950). Its origins, however, date back to the early 1980s, when the founders began collaborating continuously on projects that questioned the prevailing formal language of late-modernist Poland. The establishment of JEMS coincided with the country’s political and economic transformation, and since then the studio’s work has developed as a reflection on how to project within a context of transition—seeking a rational, restrained architecture committed to the quality of urban space.
Over more than three decades, JEMS has consolidated an architectural language distinguished by constructive precision, geometric rigor, and a contemporary reading of traditional materiality. Their work is marked by attention to detail and by a pursuit of coherence between structure, form, and use, avoiding unnecessary expressive gestures. This attitude has positioned the office among the most influential in Europe, especially recognized for projects such as the International Business Center, the Embassy Complex in Berlin, and the Polish History Museum in Warsaw.
The studio maintains a collegial structure in which collective work plays a central role, continuing its collaboration with a younger generation of architects, including Maciej Rydz (1979), who joined the team in 2006. JEMS’s practice relies on a reflective design process that combines research, technical discipline, and urban sensitivity—understanding architecture as a critical form of thought about the contemporary city. Its legacy lies not only in the quality of its buildings but also in the intellectual coherence of its trajectory.
