Public mass for architect Jan Kaplický

A public mass for architect Jan Kaplický, 71, who died in Prague last week is to be held at the Church of St. Anne in Prague’s Old Town next Tuesday. The actual funeral is to be a private affair for family and friends. Mr. Kaplický died of heart failure last Wednesday, just hours after the birth of his daughter Johanka. In 2007 Kaplický’s design consultancy, Future Systems, won an international design competition for a new building of the Czech National Library in Prague, which would have been Kaplický's first building in his homeland. However the project sparked enormous controversy and its future remains uncertain. Since his death 15,000 people have signed a petition for the so-called Octopus or Blob to be built.