Jacek Antoni Michalski (1947–2016) was one of those Polish architects who managed to make a successful mark on the European design scene. A 1971 graduate of the Faculty of Architecture at the Warsaw University of Technology and a member of the Warsaw branch of SARP, he began his career in domestic urban planning practices, including the Institute of Spatial Planning. In the 1970s, he took part in numerous prestigious competitions, co-creating award-winning concepts for residential estates and sports centres in Poznań, Lublin and Kostrzyn. He was distinguished by his consistent pursuit of functional simplicity and spatial harmony. Indeed, these characteristics later became the hallmark of his work.

Towards the end of the 1970s, Michalski moved abroad. In Algeria, where he worked as an architect-consultant at the firms BEAO and BEWO between 1982 and 1988, he co-designed, amongst other projects, the conversion of Oran Cathedral into a municipal library and the monumental, though never completed, Châteauneuf Hotel .

In 1989, he moved to Luxembourg. This small European country became his second home, as well as the setting for his greatest professional successes. Working for over two decades with the firm Georges Reuter Architectes , he created a series of projects that have shaped the modern face of Luxembourg.
His portfolio includes, amongst others, care homes in Pfaffenthal and Remich, the Eurocontrol Training Institute in Kirchberg, the extension of the CEGEDEL headquarters in Strassen, and elegant residential developments such as Buddleia and the corner building on Place de Paris. The famous water tower in Rehberg ( 1998–2004) – minimalist, sculptural and technically precise – earned him the 2004 Prix Luxembourgeois d’Architecture and a nomination for the Mies van der Rohe Award .

Michalski designed with the cool elegance of a modernist. He emphasised structural clarity, light and the nobility of materials. His buildings were, above all, functional. This does not, however, mean that the architect deprived them of poetry or discretion. An important element of his designs was the harmony between the building and the landscape in which it was to be built.

In 2006, Jacek Michalski was awarded the title of ‘Ambassador of Polish Architecture’. This honour only served to cement his status as one of the most interesting Polish architects working abroad. In his private life, he was in a relationship with the architect Małgorzata Serwińska-Michalska.

He died on 28 December 2016.