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Sir David Chipperfield is decidedly one of the most globally recognized personalities in architecture and design. His award-winning work has been recognized many times over for its simplicity and clarity of vision, and recently, he was appointed as artistic director of Driade, the iconic Italian design house.
David Chipperfield Architects:
Since its foundation in 1985, David Chipperfield Architects has developed a diverse international body of work including cultural, residential, commercial, leiure and civic projects as well as masterplanning exercises. Within the portfolio of museums and galleries, projects range from private collections such as the Museo Jumex in Mexico City to public institutions such as the revitalised Neues Museum in Berlin. Practices in London, Berlin, Milan and Shanghai contribute to DCA’s wide range of projects and typologies.
Ongoing current projects include the Nobel Center in Stockholm; a new building for the Kunsthaus Zurich in Switzerland; the restoration of the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin; a mixed-use tower overlooking Bryant Park in New York; a luxury resort in Doha, Qatar; the James Simon Gallery, a new entrance building to Berlin’s Museum Island; Elizabeth House, a major new office and residential development near Waterloo in London; the Palace of Justice in Salerno, Italy; and a headquarters building for Korean cosmetics company Amorepacific in Seoul.
The practice has won more than 100 international awards and citations for design excellence, including Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), Royal Fine Art Commission (RFAC) and American Institute of Architects (AIA) awards, as well as the RIBA Stirling Prize in 2007, and the European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture – Mies van der Rohe Award in 2011. David Chipperfield received the 2011 RIBA Royal Gold Medal and the Japan Art Association’s Praemium Imperiale in 2013, in recognition of a lifetime’s work. The reputation of the office is established by both a commitment to the collaborative aspect of creating architecture and a strong focus on refining design ideas to arrive at a solution which is architecturally, socially and intellectually coherent.
Biography: The man before the myth
Sir David Alan Chipperfield (born 18 December 1953) is a British architect. David Chipperfield has been recognised for his work with an array of honours and awards including membership of the Royal Academy of Arts, the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, a knighthood for services to architecture, and the Praemium Imperiale from the Japan Art Association in 2013.
David Chipperfield Architects is a global architectural practice with offices in London, Berlin, Milan, and Shanghai, and projects in more than 20 countries on 4 continents. The practice’s projects have received more than 100 architecture and design awards, including the 2007 RIBA Stirling Prize (for the Museum of Modern Literature, Marbach), the 2011 European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture (Mies van der Rohe Award), and the 2011 Deutscher Architekturpreis.
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Background & Realizations: the Projects
A student of Kingston School of Art, the predecessor to today’s Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture, Chipperfield graduated in 1976. In 2008, the University awarded him an honorary doctorate. From 1978-1984 Chipperfield worked at a succession of architectural practices – Douglas Stephen, Richard Rogers, and Norman Foster – before establishing David Chipperfield Architects in 1985. As a young architect Chipperfield championed the historically-attuned, place-specific work of continental architects such as Moneo, Snozzi and Siza through the 9H Gallery situated in the front room of his London office.
Chipperfield has taught architecture in Europe and the United States, and has lectured extensively on the work of the practice, including as Professor of Architecture at the Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste, Stuttgart from 1995 to 2001.[6] In addition Chipperfield held the Mies van der Rohe Chair at the Escola Técnica, in Barcelona, Spain, and the Norman R. Foster Professorship of Architectural Design at the Yale School of Architecture. He is a visiting professor at the University of the Arts London (formerly London Institute). He has been on the Board of Trustees of The Architecture Foundation and is currently a trustee of the Sir John Soane’s Museum in London.
In 2012 Chipperfield became the first British architect to curate the Venice Biennale of Architecture. The biennale, entitled ‘Common Ground’, sought to foreground the collaborative and interconnected nature of architectural practice.
The Most Iconic Projects
Villa Eden, Gardone, 2008-2015
The western shore of Lake Garda is characterised by its mild climate and richly cultivated landscape. David Chipperfield Architects has built two villas on the hillside looking over the resort town of Gardone Riviera. Both buildings are carefully inserted into the landscape with its olive groves and cypress trees. Their volumes are divided into individual one or two storey structures, which are offset to one another following the topography of the hillside.
Valentino Rome Flagship Store, Rome, 2015
The new Rome Flagship Store is situated on Piazza di Spagna, in the former American Express building. It is next to the Palazzo Gabrielli-Mignanelli (1575), which historically has been the creative nerve center and principal headquarters of Valentino Maison.
Museo Jumex, Mexico, 2009-2013
Located on a triangular site within the Polanco area of Mexico City, this new museum building exhibits part of one of the largest private collections of contemporary art in Latin America – Colección Jumex – and is part of a wider urban redevelopment. Overlooked by large commercial buildings, the constrained site is delineated by the major street Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, the Ferrocarril de Cuernavaca railway line and an adjacent property to the east. The extremely individual quality of the neighbouring buildings overrides any attempt to integrate the new museum within this particular urban context. The absence of a discernible streetscape or coherent aesthetic into which the project could be comfortably inscribed therefore offered a rare opportunity to create a distinct building that simultaneously contributes to the larger context. Heading the triangular park, the building can be described as a freestanding pavilion that corresponds to the eclectic nature of the neighbouring buildings, which include the Museo Soumaya and the underground Teatro Cervantes. The mass of the building responds to the non-orthogonal plan of the site, which it exploits to provide the maximum footprint while delivering the programme within the constraints of local planning requirements
Inspirational quotes by David Chipperfield
“ I like to read articles and theory but I’m not very interested in architectural gossip and I’m very nervous about how the new generation of architects are especially focused on images. most architecture magazines place an emphasis on presentation and that’s only a small part of architecture.”
“ look at buildings, study them. go and see as many places as you can and develop your own values, opinions. judge things for yourself, don’t just look at touched-up images in magazines or online, that’s a kind of beauty parade, that’s completely shallow.”
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The Creator’s Choice
In 1999, David Chipperfield was awarded the Tessenow Gold Medal, what was followed by a comprehensive exhibition of his work together with the work of the Tessenow Stipendiat and Spanish architect Andrés Jaque, held in the Hellerau Festspielhaus. In 2004 he was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for services to architecture, and was made Honorary Member of the Florence Academy of Art and Design in 2003. In 2009 he was awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, the highest tribute the Federal Republic of Germany can pay to individuals for services to the nation. In the New Year Honours 2010, Chipperfield was appointed as a Knight Bachelor for services to architecture in the UK and Germany. He was awarded the Wolf Prize in Arts in 2010 and the Royal Gold Medal of the Royal Institute of British Architects in 2011.
“Form Matters”, an exhibition looking back over Chipperfield’s career, was mounted by London’s Design Museum in 2009. His Tonale range of ceramics for Alessi received the Compassod’Oro in 2011, and the Piana folding chair has recently been acquired for the permanent collection at MoMA.
Top Projects Gallery