The Jaroslav Fragner Gallery in Prague will be led by urban planner Karolína Plášková

Prague – The Prague Gallery of Jaroslav Fragner, focused on presenting architecture, will be led by a new director, Karolína Plášková, starting January 2023. In a press release today, Kateřina Veselá, spokesperson for the Czech Technical University (ČVUT) in Prague, which owns the gallery building on Bethlehem Square, announced this. Plášková promises that the projects in the gallery will have a more long-term character and will serve as a thematic framework for accompanying programs and building an entire community interested in architecture.

The gallery has operated in the premises of the Bethlehem Chapel since the 1950s. In 2020, the building with the gallery was purchased by ČVUT from the Czech Architecture Foundation (NČA). In mid-2022, a selection procedure was held for a new gallery director, and the committee composed of representatives of ČVUT and independent experts selected Plášková. In the last two years, she has contributed to the exhibition program in the Brno Architecture Gallery under the auspices of the Faculty of Architecture of the Brno University of Technology, among other activities.

"Given the system of cultural funding and personnel and ecological sustainability, it doesn't make sense to create pressure for quantitative production. The gallery will present four to five conceptual exhibitions each year, with a varied accompanying program in various formats – lectures, discussions, symposiums, workshops, film screenings, and possibly publications," stated Plášková.

For 2023, the presentation of the significance and transformations of the Bethlehem Chapel area is planned, along with discussions about exhibiting architecture, an exhibition titled Architecture as Work on Working Conditions, a project on housing in Prague, an exhibition on the preservation of Prague's post-war architecture in collaboration with the National Heritage Institute, and finally, an exhibition selected by an international jury based on an open call.

The new gallery director is an urbanist and curator. She studied architecture in Brno, Vaduz, and Vienna, as well as Social Design – Arts as Urban Innovation in Vienna. She has participated in the organization of numerous cultural events related to architecture and urbanism, such as Architecture Day as part of the European Capital of Culture in Pilsen (2015), the urbanize! festival in Vienna (2016), or the international conference Plan for Brno (2017).

As part of the project Dear Architects…, she opened a discussion in the Czech Republic on the topic of ethics and working conditions in architecture. In 2019 and 2020, she collaborated with the Brno Faculty of Architecture and Architecture Gallery on an international lecture series – on education in architecture and on degrowth.

With the purchase of the gallery building in 2020, the complex was unified under ČVUT, with the main goal of creating a cultural space in the historic center of Prague. In addition to the architecture gallery, there are plans for an information center for ČVUT with a café, and a gastronomic establishment in the historic cellar. At the turn of the year, the current tenant will vacate the space, and a renovation will follow, which will require a brief closure of the gallery to the public, the university stated.