UMPRUM awarded an honorary doctorate to Prof. Emil Přikryl
The Academy of Art, Architecture, and Design in Prague has awarded honorary doctorates after eight years. The title of doctor honoris causa was awarded to personalities from various fields whose work has significantly influenced societal awareness and relates closely to the disciplines associated with UMPRUM. The laureates are Kurt Gebauer, Charlotta Kotíková, Emil Přikryl, Helena Třeštíková, Rostislav Vaněk, and Jana Zielinski.
Diplomas were handed out on Friday, May 11, in the newly renovated Applied Arts Museum.
The ceremony for awarding honorary doctorates from UMPRUM is the sixth since 2000. In the past, this title was awarded to Stanislav Libenský (2001), Josef Svoboda (2002), Adriena Šimotová and Jan Kaplický (2007), Damjan Prelovšek (2008), and Jitka Válová (2010).
In 2018, this title was awarded to six personalities at once. "These are people who have significantly contributed to the societal resonance in the fields that UMPRUM directly engages with or draws from. They are personalities whose activities resonate not only in the Czech Republic but also internationally," says the rector of UMPRUM, prof. ak. arch. Jindřich Smetana, regarding the choice of laureates.
Emil Přikryl – architect and teacher of architecture – without adjectives! – perhaps just a note: “...from God”
When I started studying at UMPRUM, Emil Přikryl had just completed the house of Věra Chytilová, which soon became a phenomenon. Long before we, as unversed architecture students, learned to associate the house with the name of its author. However, it later came to be that the name Emil Přikryl became a fundamental concept for the architectural community, behind which there might not be an overwhelming number of realizations, but those that do exist are usually spot on, sharing a common denominator – indisputable quality and an unmistakable signature. Therefore, I do not consider it essential to provide a list of his work here and I welcome that even the previous visual medallion sufficed with only a single representative reminder, namely the conversion of the brewery in Louny into the Benedikt Rejt Gallery, which as an archetype speaks for all others. And why wouldn’t it?
One example for all: When I got to know Emil personally – this was already during his time at the Academy – over the course of several years I couldn’t help but notice that on his drawing board the very same window was being increasingly detailed! Throughout that time, a sort of spiritual meditation was taking place at the board over the correct perception of a single circular window, with various architrave variations.
And so it is with all components of Emil’s architectural thinking, from which one can sense a depth of inquiry into the fundamental questions: what?, why?, where?, how?, for what reason? Emil has been granted from a higher power that the answers are absolutely precise. In that, Emil Přikryl is unique and truly irreplaceable in the Czech context.
There is also another example that shows that the essence of architectural thinking is not represented solely by considerations of houses and windows. I personally have always been keen to emphasize that both art and architecture are to a large extent social disciplines that transcend the boundaries of humanitarian knowledge. From this perspective, the design of the monument to Jan Amos Comenius, which the Ministry of Education agreed with Emil Přikryl eight years ago, is characteristic for me.
It is an established fact that Emil Přikryl has an admirable sense for public space, and the same applies to Emil’s understanding of monuments in general. In the visions of the then Minister, however, it was really only about a pedestal for the well-known statue by Jan Štursa, to be placed in the first courtyard of the ministry. To everyone’s surprise, however, Emil placed the statue of the teacher of nations on a bronze two-wheeler – with primitive wheels filled across the surface like from the distant past, withered from endless journeys. Comenius stands before us with drooping arms, at the rear edge of the cart, but he is resignedly turned away from the imaginary direction of travel. The shaft of the cart is propped against tipping over by a pointed support that acts as a peg to tie up a goat, to keep it in place for a while before being moved elsewhere.
This is how the fate of the most famous Czech refugee – the eternal exile even in the courtyard of the Czech Ministry of Education – is conceived – but so far only in the imagination of Emil Přikryl. Such is the deeply and uniquely thoughtful Emil Přikryl. And ultimately, such is the ministry of education, perplexed even after eight ministerial changes, eight years since the order was placed. However, I hope that their perception of the monument will also change!
Together with AVU, we will do everything to ensure that Comenius is firmly anchored here permanently. And it will be one of the best monuments that Europe has.
The Academy of Art, Architecture, and Design values the opportunity to award an honorary doctorate to the professor at AVU.
Diplomas were handed out on Friday, May 11, in the newly renovated Applied Arts Museum.
The ceremony for awarding honorary doctorates from UMPRUM is the sixth since 2000. In the past, this title was awarded to Stanislav Libenský (2001), Josef Svoboda (2002), Adriena Šimotová and Jan Kaplický (2007), Damjan Prelovšek (2008), and Jitka Válová (2010).
In 2018, this title was awarded to six personalities at once. "These are people who have significantly contributed to the societal resonance in the fields that UMPRUM directly engages with or draws from. They are personalities whose activities resonate not only in the Czech Republic but also internationally," says the rector of UMPRUM, prof. ak. arch. Jindřich Smetana, regarding the choice of laureates.
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Emil Přikryl – architect and teacher of architecture – without adjectives! – perhaps just a note: “...from God”
When I started studying at UMPRUM, Emil Přikryl had just completed the house of Věra Chytilová, which soon became a phenomenon. Long before we, as unversed architecture students, learned to associate the house with the name of its author. However, it later came to be that the name Emil Přikryl became a fundamental concept for the architectural community, behind which there might not be an overwhelming number of realizations, but those that do exist are usually spot on, sharing a common denominator – indisputable quality and an unmistakable signature. Therefore, I do not consider it essential to provide a list of his work here and I welcome that even the previous visual medallion sufficed with only a single representative reminder, namely the conversion of the brewery in Louny into the Benedikt Rejt Gallery, which as an archetype speaks for all others. And why wouldn’t it?
One example for all: When I got to know Emil personally – this was already during his time at the Academy – over the course of several years I couldn’t help but notice that on his drawing board the very same window was being increasingly detailed! Throughout that time, a sort of spiritual meditation was taking place at the board over the correct perception of a single circular window, with various architrave variations.
And so it is with all components of Emil’s architectural thinking, from which one can sense a depth of inquiry into the fundamental questions: what?, why?, where?, how?, for what reason? Emil has been granted from a higher power that the answers are absolutely precise. In that, Emil Přikryl is unique and truly irreplaceable in the Czech context.
There is also another example that shows that the essence of architectural thinking is not represented solely by considerations of houses and windows. I personally have always been keen to emphasize that both art and architecture are to a large extent social disciplines that transcend the boundaries of humanitarian knowledge. From this perspective, the design of the monument to Jan Amos Comenius, which the Ministry of Education agreed with Emil Přikryl eight years ago, is characteristic for me.
It is an established fact that Emil Přikryl has an admirable sense for public space, and the same applies to Emil’s understanding of monuments in general. In the visions of the then Minister, however, it was really only about a pedestal for the well-known statue by Jan Štursa, to be placed in the first courtyard of the ministry. To everyone’s surprise, however, Emil placed the statue of the teacher of nations on a bronze two-wheeler – with primitive wheels filled across the surface like from the distant past, withered from endless journeys. Comenius stands before us with drooping arms, at the rear edge of the cart, but he is resignedly turned away from the imaginary direction of travel. The shaft of the cart is propped against tipping over by a pointed support that acts as a peg to tie up a goat, to keep it in place for a while before being moved elsewhere.
This is how the fate of the most famous Czech refugee – the eternal exile even in the courtyard of the Czech Ministry of Education – is conceived – but so far only in the imagination of Emil Přikryl. Such is the deeply and uniquely thoughtful Emil Přikryl. And ultimately, such is the ministry of education, perplexed even after eight ministerial changes, eight years since the order was placed. However, I hope that their perception of the monument will also change!
Together with AVU, we will do everything to ensure that Comenius is firmly anchored here permanently. And it will be one of the best monuments that Europe has.
The Academy of Art, Architecture, and Design values the opportunity to award an honorary doctorate to the professor at AVU.
The laudation was given by prof. Jindřich Smetana
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