Universum Plečnik: Between Workshop and Myth

The book elaborates on the architect’s approaches to designing public space and focuses on the complex relationship between the teacher and his students to reflect on certain aspects of Plečnik’s rich legacy that were previously only rarely discussed. Archival plans, sketches, and photographs reveal the architect’s legacy of communal spaces that unfolds as a complex and holistic vision of a connected world.

Universum Plečnik expands on the articulation of Plečnik’s heritage and highlights the lasting relevance of his designs, thereby opening the doors for further exploration of new sources. The book presents essays by members of the editorial board and exhibition designers. In their reflections, the authors discuss different aspects of public space, the course of the collective process that led to the creation of Plečnik’s designs after World War I, Plečnik’s school, and the translation of the architect’s urban approaches into the exhibition medium.

The chapter The Common Roof presents Plečnik’s and his students’ materials from the MAO collection. More or less previously unseen plans reveal a world full of loyalty, dissent, adherence, and explorations of generations of students who evolved into architects by their teacher’s side. The selection also reveals the vitality of Plečnik’s school in the teacher’s late period – during and after World War II – which has long wrongly been considered the time of his waning creative power.