Josef Pleskot: Rozhovory 1989–2019

I don't care much for forms. Actually, I do, but always in the second step. I'm interested in relationships and concrete physical presence on earth. So I'm not a person of definite aesthetics. Heterogeneity shouldn't be feared, it's about learning to live with it.
(Josef Pleskot)

The architect Josef Pleskot (* 1952) is known to the wider public for a number of buildings such as the Powder Bridge embankment passage at Prague Castle, the ČSOB bank in Radlice, the reconstruction of the Brewery and the redevelopment of the Castle Hill in Litomyšl, the reconversion of the industrial complex in Dolní Vítkovice in Ostrava or the footbridge in Písek. Since 1989, Josef Pleskot has also often been involved in various public debates, invited to the media and interviewed. Architecture is a public matter for him, and he points out that it is not just aesthetics that should be at the forefront, but the setting of social relations.

A comprehensive collection of interviews with Josef Pleskot from 1989-2019 gives insight into the development of the thought of the prominent Czech architect and at the same time opens a broader view into the history of Czech architecture after 1989. All of the themes that emerge and gradually develop in the interviews - the context of building, the relationship between the built environment and urban space, public space, the intermingling of home and nature, the memory of place and landscape, the meaning of conservation, the ability of contemporary architecture to adequately shape and develop its historical heritage - have had to be dealt with anew since the fall of the communist regime. Josef Pleskot's fundamental theme is the social and societal role of architecture and the resulting responsibility of the architect not only for his work, but also for the totality of relationships and relations in which it is grasped. It is no exaggeration to say that Josef Pleskot is a kind of crystallizing figure of the Czech architectural debate. His image and reflection is captured in the book of interviews. The publication was financially supported by the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic and the City of Prague.