Mgr. Vendula Hnídková, Ph.D.

Research Fellow at the Department of Art of the 19th-21st Centuries.

Vendula Hnídková is an architectural historian, curator and lecturer who obtained her Ph.D. from UMPRUM Praha in 2011. Her research explores architecture as a product of transnational cultural exchange and institutional, political, and technological networks. Focusing primarily on Central and Eastern Europe, she investigates modern architecture and urbanism through questions of social transformation, housing, infrastructure, environmental change, state-building, and national and ideological representation. A particular concern is the role of actors beyond the canonical architect—administrators, engineers, policymakers, artists, manufacturers, and users—in shaping the modern built environment.

She has received research funding from the European Commission's Horizon 2020 programme (MSCA, University of Birmingham), the Fonds zur Förderung der wissenschaftlichen Forschung, the University of Brighton, the Leibniz Institute (GWZO), the AKTION Czech Republic – Austria programme, the Österreich Stipendium, and the Czech Science Foundation, among others. Since 2023, she has been the Czech Principal Investigator (PI) of the bilateral project “Invisible Agents” in Architecture (1908–38). Policies, Principles, and Projects in Central European Ministries of Public Works (FWF).

Research outputs (selection):

Garden Cities Movement in Motion. The Czech Lands as Transformer and Transmitter of the Urban Reform Vision, in: Angela Gigliotti, Chiara Monterumisi, Monica Prencipe (eds.), Canons and Icons: Re-wondering a Transcultural Contamination, Analecta Romana Instituti Danici. Supplementa 2025, s. 269-280.

Vendula Hnídková, Richard Kurdiovsky, Anna Stuhlpfarrer, When the State Builds. The Architectural Agenda of the k. k. Ministerium für öffentliche Arbeiten (1908-1918), the Bundesministerium für Handel und Verkehr and the Ministerstvo veřejných prací (1918–1938), in: Josipa Alviž, Dragan Damjanović, Jasmina Nestić, Jeremy F. Walton (eds.), Art and the State in Modern Central Europe (18th – 21st Century), Zagreb 2024, 481-496.

Vendula Hnídková, The Zenger Transformer Station. Electricity in the City, Electricity in Architecture, Prague 2022.

Vendula Hnídková, Lost in Translation? The Idea of the Garden City and its Migration to the Czech Lands, 1900–1938, Art East Central 1, 2021, č. 1, s. 77–104.

Vendula Hnídková, The Obecní dům (Municipal Building), Prague, in: Richard Kurdiovsky, Stefan Schmidl (Hg.), Das Wiener Konzerthaus 1913–2013 im typologischen, stilistischen, ikonographischen und performativen Kontext Mitteleuropas, Wien 2020, s. 125–140.

Vendula Hnídková, The Clementinum. A Baroque Monument in the Capital of Socialist Czechoslovakia, in: Michaela Marek (†) and Eva Pluhařová-Grigienė (eds.), „Prekäre Vergangenheit? Barockforschung im östlichen Mitteleuropa unter den Bedingungen des Sozialismus“, RIHA Journal Special Issue, 0214 (June 5 2019).

Vendula Hnídková, Jan Šépka. Inspirace, Praha 2019.

Vendula Hnídková, Temple of Croatian Artists in the Context of Hard Times, in: Barbara Vujanović (ed.), The Sign of Meštrović in Zagreb. The 80 Years of Meštrović Pavilion, Zagreb 2019, pp. 6–45.

Vendula Hnídková, Moskva 1937 — architektura a propaganda v západní perspektivě, Praha 2018.

Vendula Hnídková – Jindřich Vybíral, Architektura a politická moc, in: Milena Bartlová, Jindřich Vybíral a kol., Budování státu. Reprezentace Československa v umění, architektuře a designu, Praha 2015, pp. 106–114.

Vendula Hnídková, Národní styl. Kultura a politika, Praha 2013.

Vendula Hnídková, Rondocubism versus National Style, RIHA Journal 0011 (08 November 2010).

Vendula Hnídková, Pavel Janák. Obrys doby, Praha 2009.

Current projects:

2026 – 2028 General Chair, EAHN 2028 Annual Conference, Prague

2026 – 2030 Co-investigator of Terra Atomica (COST Actions)

2027 Visiting Research Fellow at the Leibniz Insitute (GWZO) in Leipzig, Co-editor of a Special Issue RIHA Journal entitled Acting Institutions. Agents, Actors, and Authorities in Modern Architecture

Co-editor of a book Architecture and the Power of Bureaucracy (with Jensen van der Maele a Richard Kurdiovsky)

Co-editor of a Special Issue RIHA Journal entitled Acting Institutions. Agents, Actors, and Authorities in Modern Architecture

Publication editing Architecture and the Power of Bureaucracy (with Jensen van der Maele a Richard Kurdiovský)