Jan Kaplický’s name is associated with unmistakably bold futuristic architecture, courage to experiment with new shapes and materials, endless imagination finding its source in nature, and a gaze fixed on the future. Some of his works have already become icons of modern architecture.

With his architectural company Future Systems, Jan Kaplický has won a number of prestigious international awards and recognition. In the Czech Republic, he is known to the majority of the public mainly thanks to his project for the new National Library in Prague Letná. Few architectural works have managed to arouse such a wave of emotions and debates.

The aim of the National Technical Museum was to create a space in the Centre of Building Heritage in Plasy for those who want to get to know Jan Kaplický’s work more comprehensively. It offers visitors a kind of “study cabinet” in which they can walk among the models of Kaplický’s projects, perceive their development over time, the transformations and possibilities of individual buildings, notice their details and the effect of the whole.

The first part of the exhibition devoted to the life and work of architect Jan Kaplický was opened on the top floor of the former brewery in 2015 together with the exhibition of architecture. In the following two years, a collection of more than fifty original models was presented at exhibitions at the German Museum of Architecture in Frankfurt am Main (“Yesterday’s Future”) and at the Dancing House in Prague (“Jan Kaplicky’s Infinity”). From there, the models were transported to Plasy, where from September 2017 they became part of the long-term exhibition “The Story of a Visionary: Jan Kaplický”.

The models, which are now on display in the “study cabinet”, trace the work of Kaplicky’s architectural studio Future Systems from its beginnings to the latest models. As well as the world’s most famous works, such as the Tate Modern art gallery in London, the media centre at Lord’s Cricket Ground in London and the Selfridges department store in Birmingham, there are a number of lesser-known buildings. There is also a representation of models of buildings that were to be realised in the Czech Republic. A separate room is devoted to the design of the National Library in Letná, Prague.

The updated and supplemented exhibition will be open to the public from 13 September 2017 in the Valečka Gallery on the top floor of the exhibition of architecture.