This lecture will be hybrid. Please book your ticket for attendance in person or online. You will receive access to the online event via email the day before the event.

Abstract

This lecture reframes ministries of public works as central yet overlooked actors in the making of modern architecture in Central Europe. In our current research project Invisible Agents in Architecture, we investigate how bureaucratic structures, administrative procedures, and state expertise shaped architectural production in Central Europe between 1908 and 1938. Rather than treating architecture as the outcome of individual authorship, it foregrounds institutional decision-making as the generative force in design, planning and urban policy. Through case studies from former Habsburg territories and successor states, the lecture traces transnational exchanges within state administrations and highlights the role of ministries in standardising, regulating, and disseminating architectural modernity across the region.

About Vendula Hnídková

Vendula Hnídková is a Research Fellow at the Institute of Art History of the Czech Academy of Sciences in Prague. Her research examines architecture as a site of political imagination with particular attention to the relationship between the built environment, state institutions, and social reform.

About Richard Kurdiovsky

Richard Kurdiovsky is an architectural historian specialising in the architecture and urban culture of Central Europe in the long nineteenth century. A researcher at the Austrian Academy of Sciences, he leads projects on topics such as Vienna’s building regulations and public architecture.

Access

Please let us know if you require any support accessing this event by emailing eca.events@ed.ac.uk.

Please see ECA's privacy notice for more information on how your personal details provided will be used and stored.