The architect outside his Future Systems studio. Photograph: Getty Images
Jan Kaplický's death leaves the world of architecture a far duller place. Kaplický's commitment to radical futuristic design meant that his buildings were too ahead of their time for all but the most far-sighted clients.
How tragic that architect Jan Kaplický should die on the streets of Prague within hours of the birth of his daughter. And within a few years of what would have been, and hopefully still will be, his greatest architectural achievement, the new national library in Prague. The project, which has yet to begin construction, is typical of the architect – radical, exciting and far enough ahead of its time to provoke a fair degree of controversy. It represents a triumphant return to his homeland for the Czech-born émigré, a vindication of his uncompromisingly forward-looking philosophy and a tragically poetic ending to his remarkable career.
Not for nothing was Kaplický's practice called Future Systems. He was as much a trailblazer of the high-tech movement as his better-known contemporaries, Norman Foster, Richard Rogers and Renzo Piano, and the most futuristic of the bunch. Kaplický worked alongside all of them at one time or another, having fled to Britain in the wake of the Prague Spring of 1968. He was instrumental in the design development of the Pompidou Centre, for example. But when he set up on his own, in 1979, his highly individual style became apparent.
Where Rogers, Foster and Piano tempered high-tech to the demands of the commercial market, Kaplický arguably remained "out there", dreaming up wonderfully fanciful projects that were closer to science fiction than dreary 1970s Britain: movable houses that perched on slender steel legs like insects, or rose out of the ground like giant sandworms, not to mention concept cars and homeware that wouldn't have looked out of place on the set of Kubrick's 2001. Where Rogers and Foster were hard-edged and pragmatic, Kaplický was fluid and organic, curvaceous and sensual. His designs might have been more wildly unfeasible than the others, but they were equally influential, and usually more interesting.
It was only in recent decades that big clients began to actually trust him, even if he was still slightly too far ahead of reality. His Lord's media centre in 1994 was a typical breath of fresh air: a smooth white aluminium alien peering over the cricket ground. Inside, it was less successful – the building was plagued by overheating problems – but it still won him the Stirling prize in 1999. Better known and loved is his Selfridges store in Birmingham, a studded space-age blob that has gone beyond simply enlivening its surroundings to represent the regeneration of an entire city.
He might yet do the same for Prague. Winning the prestigious competition for the national library was the most important project of his career, he said. He called his design "a celebration of democracy" for his homeland, and a personal "closing of the circle". Whether the design will survive without him in the face of local opposition remains to be seen, but let's hope he gets away with it one last time. Even if he doesn't, he has at least left his mark here and elsewhere. Britain would be - and architecture as a whole will be - a more boring place without him.
Steve Rose
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 15 January 2009
