Invitation to the lecture by James P. Williamson on the monument to Jan Palach

We invite you to a lecture by James P. Williamson, co-author of the statue of Jan Palach, which will be unveiled in January in the park at Palach Square. The lecture will take place on Tuesday, November 24, 2015, at 5:45 PM at the Faculty of Architecture, Czech Technical University in Prague, in room No. 111. Admission is free. The lecture will be conducted in English.
In January 2016, a pair of sculptures “House for the Suicide and House for the Mother of the Suicide” will be unveiled at Alšovo nábřeží. The author of the unique statue of Jan Palach is the American architect of Czech descent John Hejduk; the work was created in 1986 in Atlanta with a group of students led by John Williamson. The sculptures were dedicated to Václav Havel after 1991 and were installed in the Royal Garden until 2000. They will now be ceremoniously installed in the park at Palach Square.
The story of the sculptures, the circumstances of their creation, their placement in the city's space, and the relationship between the artwork and architecture will be the topic of the lecture by Cornell University professor James Williamson from New York State. There will also be a discussion about the place of “House for the Suicide” in John Hejduk's work, as well as the imprint of the Palach events in the poetry of American poet David Shapiro.