In the lecture Oliver Tessmann will present and discuss the research of the Digital Design Unit (DDU) from the TU Darmstadt. The group explores novel digital strategies of designing and materializing architecture. DDU uses global networks for crowdsourcing design, digital fabrication and robotics for innovative and resource-efficient concrete element production and develops software to design for re-assembly. The research seeks to address our global challenges of scarce resources and co-creates the ongoing digitalization of our lives in a responsible way.

SAC hosts the theorist Donald Kunze for a salon-style seminar that focuses on the Kunze’s notions of the “virtual" and the “Fourth Wall” or “framing” - the latter conventionally understood as a quintessential function of architecture.

Kunze holds an MA and PhD from Penn State University where he has also taught in the Department of Integrative Arts and the Department of Architecture till he retired. His dissertation was on the philosophy of imagination of Giambattista Vico.

Goethe Institut, München

SAC’s Architecture and Aesthetic Practice was invited to exhibit VR projects at Goethe Institut in München. The exhibition was a part of the event Perpetual Beta Brot und Spiele Postdigital.

At the Goethe Institut, Spatial Fabulations and Other Tales of Representation in Virtual Reality comprised of five projects that explore various architectural themes spanning from urban narratives to active participation in architectural design in Virtual Reality. The projects engage with personal and poetic narratives from foreign cities, the work of select architects - such as Bernard Tschumi and Oswald Mathias Ungers, to machine-driven processes as part of architectural design. In the projects, the visitors are invited on journeys that explore insides and outsides of buildings and cities, or to interactively explore and produce forms that are made possible by computers and their algorithms. Subjective experience and creative participation are fused with machinic processes that underlie the contemporary production of architectural forms and our spatial experience.

SAC closes its academic year with the End-of-Year Reviews. The Master Thesis Group presents its work on June 26-27. 

External Jury Guests 

Daniel Norell

Mirco Becker
(External Master Thesis Examiner)

Sophie-Charlotte Grell Prix

Thom Mayne

SAC Faculty Jury

Beatriz Colomina

Hélène Frichot

Johan Bettum

Mark Wigley

Peter Trummer

Theodore Spyropoulos

Yara Fegahli

The Städelschule Architecture Class proudly presents Thom Mayne for its Dean’s Honorary Lecture 2019. Thom Mayne is the founding principal of Morphosis whose research and projects in architecture and urban planning have world-wide recognition and critical acclaim. Mayne's distinguished honours include the Pritzker Prize (2005) and the American Institute of Architects Gold Medal (2013). From 2009 till 2016, he served on the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities under President Obama.

Since its founding in 1972, Morphosis has grown to have offices in Los Angeles, New York, and Shanghai. Its work spans across a wide variety of scales and typologies, from civic projects, schools, and museums to commercial towers and city planning. Under Mayne’s leadership, Morphosis’ X-Tech group pursues technology and fabrication research, working with industry partners to arrive at new solutions for constructability and performance. Mayne also leads The Now Institute, a graduate studio dedicated to applying design thinking to real-world issues facing cities today.  

With Morphosis, Thom Mayne has been the recipient of 29 Progressive Architecture Awards, over 120 American Institute of Architecture Awards and numerous other design recognitions. The work of Morphosis has been the subject of numerous exhibitions and over 30 monographs. 

Among Thom Mayne’s many academic appointments is his position as Distinguished Professor at University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA); he is also a Founding Board Member of the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc).

Having accepted the invitation to give the thirteenth Dean’s Honorary Lecture, Thom Mayne joins a distinguished roster of previous lecturers. The annual Dean’s Honorary Lecture was introduced in 2006 in conjunction with Städelschule Architecture Class’ End-of-Year Review and sees Städelschule's dean invite an honorary guest to give a lecture on the basis of his/her merits and contribution to architecture.

Thom Mayne’s lecture is part of Städelschule Architecture Class’ End-of-Year Programme at the German Architecture Museum. The two-day programme includes the Master Thesis Review on June 26 -27 from 10:00-18:00 each day. 

Link for the lecture here

SAC proudly hosts a double book presentation on May 24 at 18:00 in I9 in Städelschule’s main building. The presentations are made by, respectively, Beatriz Colomina and Jesse Reiser and Nanako Umemoto of RUR Architecture.

Beatriz Colomina presents her new book, X-Ray Architecture (Lars Müller Publishers). Colomina is Professor of the History of Architecture at Princeton School of Architecture and the founding director of its Media and Modernity Program. She is currently also Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin Fellow and teaches history and theory at the Städelschule Architecture Class. X-Ray Architecture explores the enormous impact of medical discourse and imaging technologies on the formation, representation and reception of twentieth-century architecture.

Jesse Reiser and Nanako Umemoto of RUR Architecture, New York, present their monograph, Projects and Their Consequences (Princeton Architectural Press). Reiser is Professor of Architecture at Princeton School of Architecture and Umemoto is visiting professor at University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University. Their book presents fifteen key projects and traces thirty years of innovative, multidisciplinary investigations of form, structure, technique, and planning. Projects and Their Consequences attests to Reiser and Umemoto being among the leading contemporary architectural thinkers, and their book is a necessary volume for everyone interested in the intersection of architecture, art, and culture.

The presentations will be followed by a book signing and copies will be available for purchase. 

Architectural design is influenced and restricted by several different fields like program, function, politics, client, software, construction process, climate, sustainability and last but not least budget. To transform an idea into a building is a lengthy procedure with several drawbacks and obstacles. But also the process of designing is changing through the introduction of digital tools, ways of teaching and impacts from other fields like movie, advertising, media and art. It uncovers both possibilities and vulnerability to the ownership of the design process and its outcome. 

For example parametric design based on pure algorithmic thinking without clear relationship between design intend and design response is mostly used to justify complex geometries and structures without challenging the question of the actual quality of the work. It should not replace or dis-empower the designer’s creative freedom and make the architect loose the ownership of the work (Werk). It should only act as another tool to enhance and open up the designer’s creative ingenuity. The same applies to other fields like structural engineering, MEP and construction. The architect always has to keep ahead of the design process and challenge its fellow consultants to achieve the best in aesthetics for the final project. The lecture “Design to build” will review the design process and its impact on recent work completed by the firm studioGA.

StudioGA is an award-winning architectural firm based in Munich, Germany. It has won numerous competitions in places like Düsseldorf, Bremen, Austria and Lithuania and has implemented over 20 projects. Over the past fifteen years, studioGA’s project portfolio has been expanding internationally both within and outside of Central Europe, including locations in Russia and China. The firm’s highly competent and experienced staff from across the globe provide holistic and high-quality design services, including but not limited to the initial planning assessment, conceptual design, construction documentation, and administration, as well as interior, furniture and landscape design. With its strength in large-scale facilities, studioGA strives to maximize “added architectural values” to each project that might otherwise be merely an “efficient-but-boring box.” 

studioGA creates dynamic, awe-inspiring spaces through complex geometries or through simple logic. The company skillfully optimizes details and construction strategies to achieve these complexities and to successfully carry through on the initial design intents. Unlike large, corporate architectural firms, studioGA is dedicated to ensuring that all clients receive personal care while also achieving one-of-a-kind architecture.
StudioGA believes that a strong owner-architect relationship is equally essential to our competencies in order for long-lasting benefits for investors and operators.

The Städelschule Rundgang is the school's annual open house exhibition. SAC will exhibit the work and installations of its students and host events. 

Michael Young is a founding partner of the architectural design studio Young & Ayata and Assistant Professor at the Cooper Union in New York. On his return visit to Städelschule, Young will speak about our contemporary image culture:

‘As we bluntly evaluate our digital image culture and its ceaseless flow through Internet dissemination, it becomes more and more difficult to divide the production of architectural representation into two clear cut species. The images formerly known as drawings are behaving socially more and more like the images formerly known as photographs. It is apparent that the way architecture has used to value certain genres of representation over others will no longer be sufficient for our current situation. In order to have some modicum of hope for architectural discourse and pedagogy within this image deluge, it may be necessary to question several of our disciplinary assumptions regarding the fear of the image. Specifically, when considering images, we may need to look a little closer at photography's relation to realism, at digital vs. mechanical reproduction, and at the ties between aesthetics and politics.’

Young & Ayata were awarded a Design Vanguard Award from Architectural Record for 2016 and received a first place prize to design the new Bauhaus Museum in Dessau, Germany, in 2015. Their work has been widely exhibited internationally, and Michael Young is with his writing on image culture, geometry and sensation in relation to aesthetic discourse a frequent contributor a various publications. Young has taught at numerous universities and been a Visiting Assistant Professor at Princeton University, and the Louis I. Kahn Visiting Assistant Professor at Yale University, as well as a visiting professor at Shih Chien University in Taipei, Taiwan, and the Crete Technical University in Greece. Michael received his Master's Degree from Princeton University and a Bachelor of Architecture from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.

WE REGRET TO INFORM THAT THE LECTURE IS CANCELLED! 

Since 2015 Hernan Diaz Alonso is the director of SCI-Arc, currently one of the leading schools in architecture worldwide. He is widely credited with spearheading SCI-Arc’s transition to digital technologies, and he played a key role in shaping the school’s graduate curriculum over the last decade.

In parallel to his role at SCI-Arc, Diaz Alonso is principal of the Los Angeles–based HAD-x (Hernan Diaz Alonso creative agency). His multi-disciplinary practice is praised for its work at the intersection of design, animation, interactive environments, fashion and speculative architectural explorations. 

Over the course of his career as an architect and educator, Diaz Alonso has earned accolades for his leadership and innovation, as well as his ability to build partnerships among varied constituencies. In 2005 he was the winner of MoMA PS1’s Young Architects Program (YAP) competition, and in 2012 he received the Educator of the Year award from the American Institute of Architects (AIA). He won the 2013 AR+D Award for Emerging Architecture and a 2013 Progressive Architecture Award for his design of the Thyssen-Bornemisza Pavilion/Museum in Patagonia, Argentina.

Diaz Alonso’s architectural designs have been featured in exhibitions at the Venice Architecture Biennale, the London Architecture Biennale, and ArchiLab in Orleans, France, as well as included in exhibitions at such leading museums as the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA); the Art Institute of Chicago; and MAK Centre, Vienna. The work has been widely published in magazines, journals, and books, including the Excessive monograph of Xefirotarch. The office is currently working on a new monograph to be published by Thames and Hudson. Diaz Alonso’s work is in the permanent collections of the FRAC Centre, Orleans, France; SFMOMA; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Thyssen-Bornemisza, the MAK Museum, Vienna; and the Art Institute of Chicago.

Diaz Alonso has held a series of prestigious academic appointments; these include Yale University’s Louis I. Kahn Visiting Assistant Professorship of Architectural Design (2010), Visiting Design Studio Faculty at the GSAPP at Columbia University (2004–10), an ongoing appointment as architectural design professor in the Urban Strategies Postgraduate Program at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, and as a Distinguished Faculty Member at SCI-Arc. In spring 2015 he served as Yale University’s Eero Saarinen Professor of Architectural Design, and in 2018 he was chosen as one of the 25th most admired educators in USA.

In his lecture Diaz Alonso will speak about the work of his office for the last 15 years.

A group of SAC’s alumni and students of the arts department are inviting to Katakombe, inspired by Die Gesellschaft in den Katakomben which, according to Günter Bock, was a group of enthusiastic illustrated people who got together to have 'their literary or other works discussed and assessed by knowledgeable acquaintances in a convivial atmosphere.' Founded in 1849 in Frankfurt by artists, scholars and friends, the group was co-lead by Friedrich Maximilian Hessemer, teacher at the Städelschule.
Inspired by the mood of a Salon, the group of SAC's alumni reinforce this tradition at Städelschule and organised the event to amuse the senses through the presentation of drawings, the exchange of ideas, the offer of food and drinks and ideally critically access and discuss new work and ideas among scholars, professionals, students and friends.  As Horace would define Poetry, 'either to please or to educate', the evening intends to do both.

SAC welcomes Hélène Frichot as she joins to offer students in the Master Thesis Studios a series of seminars during the winter semester. The series will focus on problems related to technology and architecture. In addition, Frichot will guide the Master Thesis students in the process of meeting with their written submission in theory for their Master degree. During each visit at SAC, Frichot will also spend some time with the First Semester Group to contribute to the ongoing seminar discussions for these students.

Frichot is an architect and philosopher, writer and critic, and Professor of Architecture in Critical Studies and Gender Theory, as well as Director of Critical Studies in Architecture at the KTH School of Architecture in Stockholm. She is the author of several books and many essays that focuses on her theoretical interests, often in the context of Deleuzian theory, and her forthcoming book on Bloomsbury is titled, Creative Ecologies.

Photo: Mikael Olsson

SAC First Semester Group is working with Sebastian Stöhrer and Stefan Wieland, experimenting with clay in the first part of the workshop, while the second part is dedicated to material-experimentation. 

SAC welcomes back David Ruy at the annual End of Year Reviews. Ruy is an architect, theorist and director of Ruy Klein in New York City. Ruy Klein examines contemporary problems at the intersection of architecture, nature, and technology.

David Ruy joined SAC in 2016 as a Guest Tutor. Ruy is an architect, theorist, and director of Ruy Klein in New York City. Ruy Klein examines contemporary problems at the intersection of architecture, nature, and technology. Encompassing a wide array of experimentation, projects study the mutual imbrications of artificial and natural regimes that are shaping an ever more synthetic world. Widely published and exhibited, Ruy Klein has been the recipient of numerous awards recognising the firm as one of the leading experimental practices in architecture today. Ruy received his M.Arch. from Columbia University and his BA from St. John’s College with a concentration in philosophy and mathematics. He is currently an Associate Professor at the Graduate School of Architecture and Urban Design at Pratt Institute, New York and an Advisor at the Southern California Institute of Architecture, Los Angeles.

GEFÖRDERT DURCH DEN DAAD AUS MITTELN DES BUNDESMINISTERIUMS FÜR BILDUNG UND FORSCHUNG / SUPPORTED BY THE DAAD WITH FUNDINGS FROM THE GERMAN FEDERAL MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND RESEARCH.

SAC proudly announces that Wolf D. Prix of COOP HIMMELB(L)AU will give this year’s Dean’s Honorary Lecture.
Prix is co-founder, Design Principal and CEO of COOP HIMMELB(L)AU. He studied architecture at the Vienna University of Technology, the Architectural Association of London as well as at the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc) in Los Angeles. Wolf D. Prix received numerous awards including the Great Austrian State Award and the Austrian Decoration of Honor for Science and Art. He is permanent member of the Austrian Art Senate and the European Academy of Sciences and Arts as well as chairman of the Curia for Art since autumn 2014. Wolf D. Prix is counted among the originators of the deconstructivist architecture movement. COOP HIMMELB(L)AU had its international breakthrough with the invitation to the exhibition "Deconstructivist Architecture" at MoMA New York in 1988. Over the years Wolf D. Prix/ COOP HIMMELB(L)AU was awarded with numerous international architecture awards.

The Dean’s Honorary Lecture was introduced in 2006 in conjunction with SAC’s End-of-Year Reviews. Each year, Städelschule's dean invites an honorary guest to give a lecture on the basis of the merits and influence the person has had on architecture. The series presents distinguished persona in architecture and seeks to honour the guest for her/his contributions to the field. ​

(Photo by: Manfred Klimek)

SAC is presenting its lecture series for the summer semester 2018.

SAC’s winter semester closes with End-of-Semester Reviews. The First Semester Group presents its work on February 20-21 and the Master Thesis Studios follow on February 22-23. 

The Städelschule Rundgang is the school's annual open house exhibition. This year it takes place from February 8-11. SAC will exhibit the work and installations of its students and host events.

The Mid-Term Reviews for SAC students will take place on 18-21 December.

The Städelschule Rundgang is the school's annual open house exhibition. This year, on occasion of Städelschule’s 200-year jubilee, it takes place from June 1 to 5. SAC will exhibit the work and installations of its students and host events. 

Hélène Frichot will conduct a seminar with the students of the FYG. The seminar will be dedicated to a discussion of objects and things; a discussion that can be situated in contemporary theoretical discourse under headings such as among others (feminist) new materialism, speculative realism, speculative materialism, object oriented ontology, process philosophy, affect theory.

The First Year Group will present their speculations on space resulting from Platform Sandbox, a software designed by Damjan Jovanovic and customized by each student. 

HOSTED BY STÄDELSCHULE STIFTUNG FÜR BAUKUNST

Together with the SAC Faculty Dave Pigram and Theodore Spyropoulos joined for the reviews of the Master Thesis Group. 

The First Year Group traveled to Athens from April 4 until April 11. Among historical and cultural activities, the excursion included a visit and topical engagement with the documenta 14, which will take place in Athens and in Kassel this year.

The next lecture takes place on the 27th of March 2017 at 18:00 in STÄDELSCHULE AULA. The following videos are part of a special Lecture Series catered for the First Year Group.

A project by the Japanese theatre artist Akira Takayama and his ensemble Port B. The 'site-specific performance’ is the first station of Takayama's “European Thinkbelt” project series - an utopian plan for a decentralised, mobile university, freely adapted from Cedric Price’s ”Potteries Thinkbelt.” During the current academic year, SAC’s AAP and Takayama are collaborating around the theme, ‘Spaces of Learning.’ Takayama is currently a faculty member at the Graduate School of Film and New Media, Tokyo University of Arts. For more information please visit: www.mru.global

AAP visits the Moderna Museet in Stockholm to map out Marcel Duchamp's 'Large Glass' ('The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even'). The mapping included extensive use of photography and scanning devices. The students and Damjan Jovanovic were hosted at the museum by its director and Städelschule professor, Daniel Birnbaum.

The Master Thesis Group had its End-of-Semester Review featuring a wonderful review panel. The panel included the return of Mirco Becker to SAC, Benjamin Reynolds and Tobias Nolte.

Joining SAC Faculty to review the work of the First Year Group at the end of the winter semester were: Dave Pigram, Adil Bokhari and David Ruy. The students showed a solid and accomplished body of work.

David Ruy, the coordinator of SCI-Arc postgraduate programme, EDGE - Center for Advanced Studies in Architecture, returns to SAC to engage students in critical discussions about their work. Ruy brings a massive amount of expertise and critical insight and is a SAC faculty member this academic year.

AAP visits Centre for Art and Media (ZKM) in Karlsruhe. AAP's host, Bernd Lintermann, is the centre's expert on virtual and augmented reality and introduced AAP to the history of the of these technologies before presenting a series of projects that he has co-authored. Amongst these is, for instance, the current 'Karlsruhe Maptory,' which uses AR to introduce select histories to specific sites in the city.

Culinary Lessons - Istanbul is a salon-style talk about Turkish culinary traditions and contemporary practices in relation to the arts, architecture and design. The talk is part of a series hosted by the Städelschule Architecture Class and presented within the programme of the 2016 Istanbul Design Biennial.

The studio programmes of the second-year specialisations are presented to SAC's students. The studios are: Advanced Architectural Design led by Cristina Moreno and Efrén Grinda; Architecture and Aesthetic Practice with Johan Bettum and Damjan Jovanovic with Daniel Birnbaum; and Architecture and Urban Design, led by Peter Trummer.

A conversation between SAC Specialisation Leaders: Mirco Becker, Johan Bettum, Holger Hoffmann, Peter Trummer

The FYG present their research in typology and character in buildings, technically grounded within custom-built software produced by each student.

The Master Thesis Students present the results from their engagements with their respective specialisations, developing their own take on the brief and producing preliminary project proposals.

The First Year Students presented the results from the first semester of the programme. The studio was titled, "Games: Interfaces" and the students speculated on the multiple media that architecture employs; models, drawings, renders and animations, which were in turn analysed by the jury for their architectural possibilities.

SAC’s Architecture and Aesthetic Practice (AAP) invites to THE FEAST - a culinary experiment delivering a unique experience that will be showcased during RUNDGANG, the Städelschule art academy’s annual open house exhibition. THE FEAST comprises an experiential sequence of food and beverage offered within a performative, social-aesthetic setting. In this spatially choreographed event, the dialogue between the guests, the hosts and the chefs accompanies the culinary and ambient experience. (Photo: Jacob Jordaens, Fest des Bohnenkönigs (1640 - 1645) © Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien)

The Städelschule Rundgang is the school's 'Open House Exhibition'. Rundgang is the major upcoming event in the Städelschule in 2016. SAC will exhibit the work of its students and host events.

SAC and its second year group, Architecture and Aesthetic Practice, in collaboration with AtelierSlice (Stockholm/New York) and Genießerakademie (Frankfurt), invites to The Feast. The Feast is a year-long experimental investigation into the relations between architecture, art and culinary practice. The project explores opportunities for innovation in the making of tomorrow. Its Prolegomenon - From Peelings to Core was an introductory, public event at the Städelschule.

Graduation Ceremony 2015 will be held in the Deutsche Architekturmuseum (DAM) where all the graduates received their diplomas; a dinner and an after party was organized at the Städelschule Lichthalle.

For the Architecture Summer, Staedelschule Architecture Class First Year Group has worked on developing a critical understanding of the border between Frankfurt and Offenbach.

First Year Group visit Basel with Guest Professors Beatriz Colomina and Mark Wigley

FIRST YEAR GROUP: JUNE 25-26 MASTER THESIS GROUP: JUNE 29-30

RUNDGANG is the annual exhibition of students work of Städelschule Arts Department and the Architecture Class. SAC' programme includes exhibition of student work and installations as well as guided tours and more.

Presentation of a collaborative project between the Institute for Applied Theatre Studies (ATW) Justus-Liebig University, Gießen (Prof. Heiner Goebbels) and the Städelschule Architecture Class (SAC), Frankfurt (Prof. Daniel Birnbaum and Prof. Johan Bettum). ON LIGHT presents the results that span from choreographic works to installations that deform our perception of irradiated spaces. Each performance and installation presents its own pulse, reflecting the physics of light and the existential drama that its presence or absence implies.

Karsten Schmidt (Postspectacular) gave a five day Processing workshop in January 2014.

FIRST YEAR GROUP: JULY 1-2 MASTER THESIS GROUP: JULY 3-4

In collaboration with the Goethe Institute, SAC will be the host of a salon on June 5 at 2.30 pm during the Preview the Architecture Biennial in Venice 2014. Sanford Kwinter, Mark Wigley, William Forsythe, Daniel Birnbaum and Johan Bettum will speak about the topic of "Cinematic Space and Choreographic Time". The event is generously supported by the Fritz Thyssen Stiftung.

SAC is participating at this year's LIGHT+BUILDING at Messe Frankfurt. The stand is exhibiting a couple of prototypes built for Orkhēstra, which is shown as part of the LUMINALE 2014 on Roßmarkt, Frankfurt. As well the upcoming lecture series is presented and a preview of the SAC Journal that will be announced soon. We like to welcome you to visit us at fair hall 5.1, stand A42!

The installation Orkhēstra, at the Luminale 2014 (30.3-4.4), was opened at Roßmarkt in central Frankfurt yesterday evening and is the result of SAC teaming up with the Media Architecture Institute (Vienna/Sydney), the Ludwig Maximillian University (Munich), AHL LED Shenzhen and Bollinger+Grohmann Ingenieure for an experimental and architectural design odyssey.

The Städelschule Rundgang is the school's 'Open House Exhibition'. Rundgang is the major upcoming event in the Städelschule in 2014. SAC will exhibit the work of its students and host events.

'Garden State' was a 4-day long choreographic event and installation in the Mousonturm, Frankfurt. It was a collaboration between the dance group, Mamaza, and SAC's second-year specialisation, 'Architecture and Aesthetic Practice.'

FIRST YEAR GROUP: JULY 1-2 MASTER THESIS GROUP: JULY 3-4

The Städelschule Rundgang is the school's 'Open House Exhibition'. Rundgang is a major event held in The Städelschule. SAC exhibits the work of its students and host events.

FIRST YEAR GROUP: JULY 3-4 MASTER THESIS GROUP: JULY 5-6

The Städelschule Rundgang is the school's 'Open House Exhibition'. Rundgang is a major event held in The Städelschule. SAC exhibits the work of its students and host events.

FIRST YEAR GROUP: JULY 6-8 MASTER THESIS GROUP: JULY 8

FIRST YEAR GROUP: JUNE 7 MASTER THESIS GROUP: 8-9