The Olomouc Museum presents the ecclesiastical buildings of Josip Plečnik

Olomouc - The ecclesiastical buildings of Josip Plečnik, one of the most distinctive European architects of the first half of the 20th century, are presented in the exhibition Churches at the Archdiocesan Museum in Olomouc. Visitors can familiarize themselves with the work of the Slovenian architect starting Thursday through photographs taken by the prominent Slovenian art historian and foremost expert on Plečnik's work, Damjan Prelovšek.
    "The exhibition is dedicated to Plečnik's sacred creations. Here, Plečnik's buildings are showcased, for example, in Vienna, Slovenia, and Prague. There are about 20 buildings on display. In addition to the photographs of churches, there are exhibited liturgical items that Plečnik designed for the churches," said the museum's director Pavel Zatloukal today to ČTK. The exhibition is complemented by two models of the Church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in Prague.
    "What is characteristic of Plečnik is the multitude of different ideas. His ideal was the early Christian basilica, which he always redesigned and made something modern. He said that a church is a place where a person needs to have certainty and a connection to God. For this reason, he rejected the expressive or conversely very transparent ecclesiastical architecture of his contemporaries," said Prelovšek. According to him, each of Plečnik's ecclesiastical buildings is distinctive. "The whole testifies that he was one of the best ecclesiastical architects of the 20th century," stated Prelovšek, who also served as the ambassador of Slovenia to the Czech Republic.
    The exhibition in the arcade of the Archdiocesan Museum includes, for example, the Vienna Church of the Holy Spirit, the Ljubljana Church of St. Francis of Assisi, churches in Bogojina, and Belgrade.
    Josip Plečnik (1872 - 1957) was a member of the artistic generation that studied at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts in the 1890s and significantly influenced Central European art at the beginning of the 20th century. He also taught at the Prague School of Applied Arts, became the court architect of T.G. Masaryk, and built the Church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in Vinohrady, Prague.
    According to Prelovšek, the architect sought to reform ecclesiastical architecture and bring it closer to the beginnings of Christianity. Historians agree that Plečnik, through experimenting with the typology of ecclesiastical spaces, was ahead of his time.
    The exhibition, which premiered last year at the Atrium gallery in Prague, will run in Olomouc until September 30.