M. arch. Ing. arch. Maria Topolčanská, PhD.

She is collaborating on exploring the conditions for artistic research in international projects (Towards a Manifesto for Critical Openness in Artistic Research, 2024–2025; Advancing Supervision in Artistic Doctorates, 2019–2021). Since 2018 she has been involved in the leadership of the ELIA League of European Art Schools (Representative Board, 2019–2021; Artistic Research Working Group, from 2021). She has a long-standing research interest in 20th century architecture, conditions of architectural practice and housing theory. She worked as a researcher at the Department of Architecture at the Institute of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Slovak Academy of Sciences in Bratislava (2002–2013). In practice, she specialized in municipal collective housing and civic building projects realized in Catalonia (2000–2004), and is an authorized architect of the Slovak Chamber of Architects. She has been involved in the European network of young female architects Wonderland and was editor of the magazine of the same name (2004–2007). She has been teaching briefly at Archip in Prague (2015–2017) and especially at the Faculty of Architecture of the Slovak Technical University in Bratislava (2002–2013). Since 2012 she has been leading the independent platform Fake Cities True Stories.