Thrilled to be part of Project 1949, initiated by Štěpán Laichter—heir to the renowned Jan Laichter publishing house—which seeks to document vanished Czech publishers and their former buildings by marking their headquarters with Burning Book installations and commemorative flaming plaques.
In 1949, Act No. 94/1949 Coll. enabled the Communist regime to dismantle private publishing houses in Czechoslovakia. Nearly 300 publishers were shut down or nationalized, and more than a thousand tons of politically “undesirable” books were systematically destroyed—consumed by fire. This largely overlooked chapter of cultural loss remains insufficiently mapped, with no complete record of all affected publishers, even though its political and cultural consequences still resonate today.
We wanted to create a symbolic artifact that would celebrate the beauty of bookmaking while evoking the violence of its destruction. Each piece is hand-crafted and annealed by real fire until it reaches its deep golden tone. Two artworks emerged from this process: a commemorative flaming plaque for each publisher’s former facade, and an interactive Burning Book featuring a QR code that leads to the Project 1949 website, where visitors can explore an interactive map and the stories of the affected publishing houses. Explore the full story there.
We launched Project 1949 and it’s interactive website at Laichter House’s Písárna in February 2025. Since then, we’ve identified all 300 vanished publishing houses, and five have already been commemorated with burning plaques.
Help us find more publishers!
Help us continue mapping and reconnecting the stories that remain undiscovered. Are you a graphic designer, publisher, heir, or someone who knows a former publishing house that deserves to be recognized again? Join us in restoring this lost cultural memory—and help place a commemorative flaming plaque on the facade where history once stood. Simply use project website contacts.
We used the same flames from Jaroslav Benda’s iconic cover design for Glossy by Emil Sobota—one of Jan Laichter’s books. Benda collaborated with Laichter for decades and became one of the defining figures of Czech book design. Read more about his work for Jan Laichter in Jaroslav Benda 1882–1970: Typographic Designs and Letterforms: Jaroslav Benda 1882–1970
František Topič’s memorial wall
As we continue to collaborate individually with each former publishing house, we’re extending the design & implementation of the plaques and books. In this special case, we’ve been assigned to create also an interactive installation – a memorial wall – with a centerpiece of the Burning Books, for one of the most known houses – František Topič Publishing House on Národní Avenue in Prague, whose publishing house is inseparably linked with Czech cultural history.
Conceived as a dynamic grid of over ninety individual panels, the plaque commemorates the exceptional role of Topič House as a national cultural monument, the significance of the Stránský family, the victims of Nazi persecution, and Project 1949, which documents the fate of Czech publishing houses destroyed by communist censorship. We chose the same technique and material because it possesses a symbolic depth that no paint or surface finish could ever replicate—the literal trace of a flame.
