Václav Šedý

Born in Český Těšín, Czech Republic. After completing his studies at the FAMU Czech Republic National Academy of Cinema and Television in Prague, he devoted himself to architectural photography. At the beginning of the nineteen eighties he moved to Italy, where he still lives and works.

Since 1980, he has published in architecture and design magazines including "AU", "Domus", "Casabella", "Abitare" and "Ottagono", focusing on modern and contemporary architecture. He has provided photographic services for monographs related to the work of Benedetto Alfieri in Asti, The Twentieth Century architecture in Tuscany, the Glass House by Philip Johnson in New Canaan, the Town Hall in Prague, the architectural work of Vincenzo Scamozzi in Vicenza, sculptures by Arnaldo Pomodoro and the Casa Museo Boschi di Stefano in Milan. He also participated in the CISA Andrea Palladio project, undertaking extensive photographic documentation of the architecture of the Venetian master’s work in Italy and abroad. He collaborated with the Michelucci Foundation, the Milan Triennale, CISA Andrea Palladio, the G. Credito Valtellinese Foundation and the Boschi di Stefano Foundation in Milan.

From 2011 to 2013, he was Director of the Czech Cultural Centre in Milan. In this role, he developed cultural projects promoting Italian-Czech Republic cooperation in the fields of art, architecture, publishing, music, education and pedagogy, politics and the humanities. He organized exhibitions of architecture, photography, prints and design, as well as conferences, concerts, debates, presentations of books and magazines. These were held at the Milan headquarters of the Centre, and at other institutional locations in Milan, Rome and Trieste. As director of the Czech Centre of Culture in Milan, he was involved in the project to the plant trees in Milan to commemorate the writer and statesman Vaclav Havel, and in Brescia in memory of philosopher Jan Patocka.

Since his early work with the Regional Geographic Museum of Český Těšín, he has been a connoisseur of the history of Italian and international architecture. His research has specialized on the historical evolution of architectural forms in photography. The critical reading of the architectural structure prevails through the perception of the spatial elements composed in the frame of the photograph. The historical aspect is the common thread that ties his early works to more recent ones, which have been developed using the digital image.
His traditional photographic works in black and white and color have documented the visual conservation of a temporary event ("Christopher Dresser" exhibition, Triennale di Milano, exhibition "The treasures of the Milan State University", Rotonda della Besana in Milan). He worked with designers and curators in the preparation of architecture and design exhibitions at the Milan Triennale, the CISA in Vicenza, the Rotonda della Besana in Milan, the Rissiera Museum in San Sabba (Trieste).
The close ties between the Alps architectural form and its interpretation in photography found in his recent work, pave the way for a reconsideration of aesthetic and cultural values through an immediate aesthetic, visual and emotive approach to the rural mountain architecture of Masi in South Tirol and urban architecture in Valtellina.

Since 2015, he has collaborated with the Faculty of Architecture of the Prague Polytechnic, where he researches the relationship between the representation of the architectural forms and photography of architecture. For his theoretical work he was awarded a Ph.D degree.