Jan Palach Memorial
John Hill
29. März 2017
All photographs by John Hill/World-Architects
As part of an exhibition highlighting the work of architect John Hejduk, The Cooper Union has reconstructed his Jan Palach Memorial in the adjacent Cooper Square Park, done in conjunction with the New York City Department of Transportation's Art Program.
Hejduk, who was founding dean of Cooper Union's Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture, built very little before his death in 2000. The exhibition celebrates seven built works, some of them realized posthumously, with photos by Hélène Binet. John Hejduk Works is on display from this evening until 29 April 2017, though Jan Palach Memorial is in place longer, until 11 June 2017.
World-Architects stopped by Cooper Square this afternoon to photograph the two memorial structures.
The two structures – "House of the Suicide" and "House of the Mother of the Suicide" – are installed in front of the Cooper Union's Foundation Building, which was renovated by Hejduk and is where the exhibition is located.
The 23-foot-tall structures were first built in 1990 by students at Georgia Tech; the new iteration uses the same materials.
The first NYC exhibition of "Jan Palach Memorial" was in 2002, when the Whitney Museum of American Art displayed it as part of "Sanctuaries: The Last Works of John Hejduk."
A permanent version of the memorial was unveiled in January 2016 in Prague. The structures honor Czech dissident Jan Palach.
According to The Cooper Union, Palach's "self-immolation in protest of the Soviet invasion of 1968 served as a galvanizing force against the communist government in Czechoslovakia."
Current dean, NADAAA's Nader Tehrani, said "This exhibition offers a lens into that impact with a historical perspective as we begin to see his work in both architecture and pedagogy not only in terms of the seeds he planted, but the forms they have taken on since."
