The London Design Museum has prepared a tribute to Kaplický

London - Czech architect Jan Kaplický caused a stir with his first blob, which he designed nearly a quarter-century ago for Trafalgar Square and whose model is part of an exhibition at the London Design Museum. The prestigious museum today opened a retrospective titled A Memory of Jan Kaplický, Architect of the Future.
    "Usually we try to plan exhibitions two or three years in advance. But his death in January was so sad that we felt we should find a way to pay him a small tribute. And I thought it was very important to prepare it quickly so that his friends could come to the museum and remember him," said Deyan Sudjic, director of the museum and curator of the exhibition, to ČTK.
    The London museum presents several photographs and film records, but primarily models of Kaplický's buildings placed on a long table by the window overlooking the Thames. "It’s very informal. I tried to capture the atmosphere of his studio, where the models were also on a long table... So it looks like he just left the room," said Sudjic.
    The exhibits capture only a snippet of Kaplický's work, including a model of a floating bridge in London’s Canary Wharf district, a design for a harbor in Yokohama, houses in Kent or Brno, and a model of a concert hall planned for České Budějovice. "When I came to the exhibition, I was completely shocked by how much work those few models represent," said architect Eva Jiřičná, who has also lived in London since the 60s and was Kaplický's partner. "Many projects are only in the model phase. But how much he built in the short time he started realizing things, and what he built, is truly incredible," she added. "He had a unique ability to see things differently than anyone else... the exhibition shows that he was truly born with something that is hard to capture in words."
    Sudjic recalled that Kaplický, who left communist Czechoslovakia in 1968, worked for famous architects Richard Rogers and Norman Foster. In 1979, he founded the practice Future Systems with David Nixon, which primarily produced theoretical studies. In 1989, Kaplický's former wife Amanda Levete joined Future Systems, and together they began to realize the most famous works of the practice, including the Selfridges department store in Birmingham and the media tribune at the cricket stadium in London.
    "Future Systems and Kaplický managed to turn dreams into physical reality. He allowed British architects to dream about what life could be, not what it must be," believes Sudjic.
    According to Jiřičná, a turning point in Kaplický's work was in 1985, the design for the completion of the corner of Trafalgar Square in London, where he wanted to build his first blob. "The reaction was terrible; it really left no one calm. It was the first competition where Johan made an object that everyone really noticed. It was in all the newspapers, everyone talked about it, but no one liked it," said the renowned architect.
    In the end, a building was erected on that site, copying the façade from the 19th century. "No one had the courage to build something modern there afterward, so as not to upset Prince Charles," Jiřičná smiled. "But in all of his work, it was a turning point. He broke free and then went in a completely different direction. He found a shape that then recurs in his designs. And people began to call that project a blob."
    The London exhibition also features three models of the National Library in Prague at various stages of project development, which is also nicknamed blob. "When he had to leave his homeland in 1968 and now that he had another chance to succeed in Prague, it was very important for him. He showed me the first designs of the library, talked about the difficult road to this project," added Sudjic.
    According to him, other key designs in Kaplický's work that were not realized include the building of another national library, this time in Paris. In this competition at the end of the 80s, he almost won, but the then French president Francois Mitterrand decided otherwise, Sudjic said.
    "Jan was a modest man in London, and for me as a person from London, it was surprising to see that he became a national personality at home," said Sudjic. "When I went to Jan's funeral in Prague... it resembled almost a state funeral."
    Eva Jiřičná admits that after Kaplický's sudden death this January, it is difficult for her to look at his projects today. "Each of those projects has its own history, means something in my memories. We always debated and discussed different aspects of the projects. That now goes out of the way, and you see only the extraordinary talent," she added.
    The exhibition at the London museum will be open until November 1.

> www.designmuseum.org/exhibitions/2009/kaplicky