Quick Bio

Having escaped his native Czechoslovakia in 1968 after the Soviet invasion, Jan Kaplický (1937 – 2009) became a world-renowned architect who spent a major part of his life in the United Kingdom. He was the leading architect behind the innovative Future Systems design studio which received two awards for architecture from the Royal Institute of British Architects, a World Architecture Award, and many other accolades. Among their iconic projects were the New Media Center at Lord’s Cricket Ground and the Selfridges Building in Birmingham. After the Velvet Revolution, Kaplický won a competition for the new building of the National Library in Prague, but the project was subsequently cancelled for political reasons.