JOZE PLECNIK ARCHITECT: 1872 -1957
François Burkhardt, Claude Eveno and Boris Podrecca

8.5 x 10.75 hardcover book with 204 pages and many plates/photographs and plans in color and b/w. Includes Essays by a dozen scholars, Bibliography, Notes, Index of Names, Index of Places. English-language translation of a 1986 Centre Pompidou Exhibition catalogue on the art, designs, and architecture of one of the most important Yugoslav architects of the 20th century. Describes Plecnik¹s life and work, analyzing his buildings and his relationships with other architects and patrons, and places his work in the perspective of current architectural ideas and practices.

Josef Plecnik (1872-1957) was an architect who created a highly original architectural language, which drew on the architecture of antiquity, the theories of Gottfried Semper and the teachings of Otto Wagner. Plecnik began his architectural training in the Vienna Academy in 1895 under the direction of Otto Wagner (1841-1918). Plecnik's thesis project won him the Rome Scholarship, allowing him to travel in Italy and France in 1898-99. He continued to work for Wagner, as well as on his own projects, until 1911, when he moved to Prague, where he taught at the School of Applied Arts. An example of his work in Vienna is the Church of the Holy Spirit (1910-1913). In 1919 Plecnik was offered a full professorship in the Department of Architecture of the Faculty of Engineering at the newly founded University of Ljubljana, and the following year the President of the new Czechoslovak Republic asked him to work as the architect in charge of the restoration of Prague Castle, Hradcany. Among Plecnik's work on the many gardens at Hradcany is that of the Garden of the Bastion (1927-1932). One of his best known works in Ljubljana is the National University Library (1936-1941).

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