Kuehn Malvezzi

The architects Simona Malvezzi, Wilfried Kuehnand Johannes Kuehn founded Kuehn Malvezzi in Berlin in 2001.

Public spaces and exhibitions are the main focus of their work as architects, designers and curators. They transform architecture into a medium of expression in itself. Their work brings together the forms and lines of their architectural installations with collections of contemporary art and historical monuments. Their proposals raise issues of questioning cultural heritage. Kuehn Malvezzi thinks architecture as a reflection of the perpetual questioning of our society, the meaning that we give to the constructions of humankind in the same way that a work of art challenges us.

Among their projects, they realized the architectural design for Documenta 11, the Flick Collection in the Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin as well as the Julia Stoschek Collection in Dusseldorf. The firm has designed the reorganization of a number of contemporary and historical art collections and dealt as well with sensitive preservation issues for listed buildings such as the Belvedere in Vienna, the Liebieghaus in Frankfurt, the Berggruen Collection in Berlin as well as the Kunstgewerbemuseum, also in Berlin.

Kuehn Malvezzi won the international competition for the interreligious House of One in the historic foundations of Berlin’s earliest churches at Petriplatz in 2012 and for the Insectarium in Montreal in 2014. The architects are currently working in the new presentation of the collections of the Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum in Baunschweig and a new venue for the Moderne Galerie at the Saarlandmuseum. A number of nuildings for private clients have been completed in recent years, including both residential and commercial projects.

When it won the Humboldt-Forum contest special prize in Berlin, Kuehn Malvezzi’s attracted a great deal of attention. Their Critical Approach to Reconstruction in this Design is also awarded with the 2009 German Critics’ Prize in the Architecture Category. They were nominated for the international Mies van der Rohe Award for the Julia Stoschek Collection in 2009 and for the Joseph Pschorr Haus in 2015. Their projects have been shown in international solo and group exhibitions, including the 10th, 13th and 14th Biennial Architecture in Venice and Manifesta 7 in Trento. Kuehn Malvezzi participated in the 1st Chicago Architecture Biennial in 2015.