Cyril Říha is a philosopher and architectural theorist. He studied philosophy at the Faculty of Arts at Charles University, then spent several months as a research fellow of the Institut für Wissenschaften vom Menschen in Vienna. At present, he is an associate professor at the Department of the Theory and History of Art at UMPRUM and a researcher with the Center for Theoretical Study of Charles University. He is a member of many professional and evaluating commissions, e.g., the Artistic and Scientific Council of the Faculty of Art and Architecture at the Liberec Technical University, the Expert Evaluation Commission of the TAČR SIGMA program, or the Board of the Dagmar and Václav Havel Foundation VIZE 97 Prize. In previous research projects, he has investigated specifically questions of prefabrication in 20th-century architecture and urbanism, the mutual relations between Czech architecture and politics, spontaneous unplanned processes in contemporary cities, or the regulation of construction activity in protected landscape areas. He was co-editor of the book Husákovo 3+1. Bytová kultura 70. let [Husák’s Three-Room Apartment. Residential Culture of the 1970s], 2007, collaborated on the project 2×100 mil. m2 for the exposition and catalogue of the Czechoslovak Pavilion at the 14th Biennale of Architecture in Venice (2014), or the major exhibition “Building the State” at the National Gallery in Prague (2015). He is also co-author of the book Město naruby. Vágní terén, vnitřní periferie a místa mezi místy (The City Reversed. Terrain Vague, Inner Periphery and Places between Places, 2020). In the framework of the project NAKI II, where he was chief supervisor, he prepared the exhibition and critical catalogue The Rule over Your Affairs Once Lost Will Return to You. Architecture and Czech Politics after 1989 (2022).
