ABOUT THE PROJECT

Plečnik Projects: Public Experience and the Section of Water is a research project of Kerry O'Connor. O'Connor studied Mechanical Engineering at the University of Notre Dame, where he received a Bachelor of Science, and graduated from Washington University in St. Louis with a Master of Architecture.  He currently works as an architect in New York and in 2014 was awarded the Deborah D. Norden Prize by the Architectural League of New York for his proposal to study and document Jože Plečnik's waterfront projects in Ljubljana, Slovenia.  

ABOUT PLEČNIK

Plečnik's work in Ljubljana constitute an experiential infrastructure, where a minimally-constructed site serves as a neutral element against which measurements of the landscape with respect to time, history, distance, and the water may be made,  leveraging an under-utilized site into a zone for pedagogy and phenomenological experience.  Through the lens of new cultural and ecological imperatives, engineers, architects, landscape architects, ecologists, and urban planners have been charged with understanding how spatial and material variations in the vertical section affect the primarily horizontal behavior of water: Jože Plečnik's projects demonstrate methodologies that capture the spatial, programmatic, and viscerally experiential nature of waterfront sites even as they address the pragmatic and quantitative requirements of water management.  Now almost a century old, Plečnik's work constitutes and under-explored contribution to the urban edge discussion; this research project will explore the contextual, topographical, and situational provocations of the site and document the projects in their current condition.