As tributes poured in today for Jan Kaplický, architect of the futuristic Selfridges Building in Birmingham, a family friend revealed he died hours after his wife, Eliska, gave birth to their daughter Johanka.
The 71-year-old Czech designer, who also created the media centre at Lord’s Cricket Ground in London, collapsed in a street in Prague yesterday. He was also survived by a son, Josef.
Former Architecture Review editor Paul Finch, described Mr Kaplický as an architect of immense integrity who “brought to British architecture a kind of imaginative modernism which stemmed form the brilliant Czech modernist tradition.”