Academician Ivan Štraus, architect and chronicler, holds a central place in the development of contemporary architectural scene of Bosnia and Herzegovina and former Yugoslavia. His design work is based on searching for the new architectural challenges and questioning his own ideas that are valued through a significant series of awarded competitions. Pure geometric forms, strong proportions, the sincerity of the materials and the always present rhythm are all features of the universal architectural language which Štraus uses to modernise the space, first and foremost by his own activity. In this quest for the new aesthetics, he discards any interpretation of tradition, unless it can be clearly featured in the structural idea of the object. Štraus’s expression is iconic and enriched by the marriage of thought-out functionalism and visual-metaphoric language.