UMPRUM will celebrate the 150th anniversary of the birth of Jan Kotěra

This year, on December 18th, the cultural public will commemorate the 150th anniversary of the birth of the significant architect and educator Jan Kotěra. The University of Applied Arts in Prague, where he worked for 12 years and significantly influenced the direction of not only the school but also the young generation of architects, will also celebrate this important anniversary.
Jan Kotěra studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna in Otto Wagner's architecture school. His time at this school was a defining experience for Kotěra. He gained knowledge on how to design contemporary residential buildings, hotels, and industrial structures while being inspired by the modernist doctrine regarding the dependency of architectural poetics on the factors of function and construction.
In 1898, he started his teaching career at the then Arts and Crafts School, in a special school for architecture. Thus, he became a crucial strength in promoting the "new spirit." His arrival is regarded in the school's history as the start of a new developmental stage. Kotěra's main merit was the programmatic promotion of a new style and the emphasis on rationalist constructive principles, which were fully integrated into architecture only in the interwar period. His free pedagogical principles were also beneficial. He primarily sought to "awaken the student's individuality and support the development and refinement of his individuality with all his strength". From his school emerged significant architects such as Josef Gočár, Adolf Benš, and Otakar Novotný. Kotěra also proved to be a skilled manager, positively influencing not only the operation of the school but also managing to present the Arts and Crafts School as a practically oriented, stylistically unified, and artistically dynamic institution.
He ended his tenure here in 1910 when he took over the management of the newly established School of Architecture under the Academy of Fine Arts.
Jan Kotěra is an irreplaceable figure in the history of the University of Applied Arts in Prague. Therefore, his significant anniversary will be commemorated in several ways. His bust on the school's facade at Jan Palach Square will be adorned with a wreath and ribbon during a ceremonial memorial act. In January 2022, an exhibition titled Jan Kotěra and His Students at the Arts and Crafts School will be opened at the UM Gallery, and the UMPRUM Publishing House is preparing to release the publication The Myth of the Architect: Jan Kotěra 150, compiled by Ladislav Zikmund-Lender and Helena Čapková.

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