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Lord's 'UFO' architect Jan Kaplicky dies
Rowan Moore, Architecture Critic16 Jan 2009
JAN KAPLICKY, one of the most original and inventive London architects, has died aged 71.
Kaplicky emigrated from his native Prague in 1968 and worked for both Norman Foster and Richard Rogers before setting up his own practice, Future Systems, in 1979. He was fascinated by the technology of cars, planes and of the US space programme, and wanted to apply it to buildings.
In partnership with his first wife Amanda Levete, he designed the Media Centre at Lord's Cricket Ground, a curvaceous white structure often compared to a UFO. It won the 1999 Stirling Prize. Future Systems' design for a new Selfridges in Birmingham also won plaudits.
Kaplicky had been battling to build his design for a national library in Prague, derided by critics as "an octopus". He died there from a suspected heart failure hours after the birth of his daughter by second wife Eliska Kaplicky Fuchsova.
Reader views (2)
With sadness in my heart I see Jan Kaplicky gone. In the sixties he was part of the antibolshevik "avant-garde" in Prague, with singer Pavel Bobek and others, way before president Havel! When I visited him in 1976 in London, he already complained about communistic ideas in Britain. I still remember his supermodern apartment and the aluminum dining table full of holes through which my dining silver fell to the floor, to my embarrassment. As we are all growing old, the obituaries of friends are sad. Condolences to his family and may he rest in peace.
- Milan Alexander, Fairbanks, Alaska, USA., 19/01/2009 04:13
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What an understated man, so talented yet receiving such little appreciation in his home country. My condolences to his family and his young children R.I.P.
I silently waited your table on numerous occasions at Kensington Place in London and didn’t dare to share the language we both spoke, and frankly didn’t have an idea about who you were and what gracious work you delivered to the world architecture. If I only had the courage ...
- lucie, london, UK, 17/01/2009 01:13
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