Between the materiality of politics and the politics of materiality: Czechoslovak/Czech parliamentary architecture in the 1960s-1990s
The research contributes to a broader interdisciplinary debate on the interaction between materiality and politics. This debate could take different paths, such as exploring the capacity of materiality to structure our thinking and organise the world hierarchically, reinterpreting historical eras, political regimes and ideologies in terms of material and technological innovations, and analysing social and technical phenomena within environmental and ethical contexts.
The study itself focuses on Czechoslovak and Czech parliamentary buildings from the 1970s to the 1990s, including the controversial Federal Assembly from 1968–1973. Besides characterising the buildings’ place in European architecture at the time and addressing the technical and political challenges involved in completing them, the study will explore their position in the physical, symbolic, and political topographies of Prague and the country's political system. The fellowship will also be used to edit a comparative international volume on parliamentary architecture and its interaction with political processes and cultures.
PhDr. Adéla Gjuričová, Ph.D. is Director of the Institute of Contemporary History of the Czech Academy of Sciences. During her stay in Potsdam she is ZZF-International Guest in the directorate. / PhDr. Adéla Gjuričová, Ph.D. ist Direktorin des Instituts für Zeitgeschichte der Tschechischen Akademie in Prag. Sie arbeitet zur Transformation der 1990er Jahre, insbesondere zu Parlamenten und zur Europäisierung. Während ihres Aufenthalts in Potsdam ist sie ZZF-International Guest in der Direktion.
Am 26. Juni 2026 referiert sie im Institutskolloquium des ZZF.