The Jesuit College was first the seat of a male religious order, then barracks for the Austrian and Austro-Hungarian armies, later barracks for the Czechoslovak Army, and finally barracks for the Czechoslovak People's Army. Only today, after three centuries, can women and children also step into this space. The complex now houses the Gallery of the Central Bohemian Region (GASK), showcasing modern visual art. Thanks to this union, people can perceive historical spaces within a unity of opposites—bridging modern and historical, current and slowly vanishing layers.

Through this work, we touched not only upon the legacy of Giovanni Domenico Orsi, a prominent architect of his time, but also upon our own ignorance. We often found ourselves asking: "What do we actually know about the Jesuits?" At school, we were taught that Koniáš burned books. Yet the Order is also bound to the deeds of Ignatius of Loyola and Francis Xavier, the life of the Czech missionary and botanist Georg Joseph Kamel (discoverer of the Camellia genus of flowers), and missionaries such as Simon Boruhradský, Karel Slavíček, Joseph Neumann, Jiří Hostinský, Wenceslaus Kirwitzer, František Antonín Boryně of Lhota, Samuel Fritz, Jan Kraus, and Ignác Tirsch. It is linked to the achievements of scientists and inventors like Bartolomeu de Gusmão, Athanasius Kircher, Francesco Lana de Terzi, Valentin Stansel, and Jakub Kresa, as well as the works of artists tied to Kutná Hora, including Bedřich Bridel, Jan Kořínek, and František Baugut (the mentor of Matthias Braun). Even national revivalists Bohuslav Balbín and Josef Dobrovský were Jesuits. Above all, the Jesuits were skilled managers, founders of pharmacies, and pioneers of education. Teachers who raised the generation of the Enlightenment—the very ones who would ultimately destroy their masters…