Blue Lecture Series - Jan Šépka

The lecture series BLUE LECTURE SERIES continues with a lecture by architect and educator Jan Šépka.
Prof. Ing. akad. arch. JAN ŠÉPKA (born 1969 in Prague) graduated from the Faculty of Architecture at Czech Technical University in 1995 and completed the School of Architecture at the Academy of Art, Architecture and Design in Prague two years later. In 1994, he, together with Michal Kuzemenský, initiated the association Nová česká práce. From 1998 to 2009, he was a partner at the studio HŠH architekti. He then founded his own office Šépka architekti. From 2004 to 2014, he served as an educator at the Faculty of Architecture at Czech Technical University in Prague. From 2014 to 2016, he was the head of the Project and Competition Office at IPR in Prague and since 2014 has led the A1 studio at UMPRUM, where he was appointed associate professor in the field of Architecture in 2015 and became a professor in the same field in 2019. In 2006, he was the editor of the yearbook Czech Architecture and published the book “How to Make a City” in 2015. In 2019, the first publication focusing monographically on the work of architect Jan Šépka was released, titled Inspiration. Many of the projects he participated in received awards in the Czech Republic and abroad. Among the most well-known are the modifications of Horní náměstí in Olomouc, the modifications of Jiřské náměstí at Prague Castle, the Archdiocesan Museum in Olomouc, a villa in Beroun, Villa Hermína, the modifications of the castle hill in Litomyšl, the design of the national library in Prague, Room in the Landscape in Modrava, House in the Orchard, or the installation Perception in České Budějovice.

The theme of the lecture series BLUE LECTURE SERIES is house-concepts. (configurations - processes - compositions - positions - transformations - edges - figures - concealments - anarchitecture - models)
Models are conceptual designs and solutions where through one project as an example, we address a broader scope, often directly not included in the assignment. They reveal new positions of architecture, which arises on commission but is not exclusively intended for itself.
A model is an object that mediates our understanding of complex phenomena through their simplification. It is, at one position, both abstract and concrete, an idea, and an object. It represents reality in an indirect way. Certain situations can be understood as model cases, manifesting a slice of reality and becoming an opportunity for the emergence of a precedent.