Archive: IBA Berlin 2020

Kees Christiaanse was born in Amsterdam in 1953 und studied architecture and urban planning at Delft University of Technology. He worked for the Office of Metropolitan Architecture (OmA) in Rotterdam from 1980 to 1989, where be became a partner in 1983.
In 1989, Kees Christiaanse set up his own company, ir. Kees Christiaanse Architects & Planners in Rotterdam, which has been known as KCAP since 2002. Between 1996 and 2003, he taught architecture and urban planning at the Technical University of Berlin. He has been a professor at ETH Zurich (Switzerland) since 2003. In 2009, Kees Christiaanse curated the International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam (IABR), which was dedicated to the topic of "Open City - Designing Coexistence".
Apart from his activities as an architect, he deals with complex urban design settings and guidance of urban processes. He also works as a consultant for several airports and is a renowned expert for the development of university campuses and the revitalisation of former industrial, railway and port areas. This is reflected in particular in KCAP's work being done in the port areas of Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Hamburg and London.

Nathalie de Vries was born in Appingedam, in the northeast of the Netherlands, in 1965. She completed her architecture degree (with honours) at Delft University of Technology in 1990 and, together with Jacob van Rijs and Winy Maas, set up the MVRDV architectural office one year later, which reached international acclaim with its early projects, such as the headquarters for the Public Broadcasting Company VPRO in Hilversum and the WoZoCo housing project for the elderly in Amsterdam. Other landmark projects were the Dutch Pavilion for the World EXPO 2000 in Hanover, the Flight Forum in Eindhoven, the Matsudai Cultural Centre and the Gyre boutique shopping building in Japan, the Mirador housing project in Madrid and the Silodam housing complex and the Lloyd Hotel in Amsterdam.
Nathalie de Vries gives worldwide lectures and is a regular member of international expert juries. She was a visiting professor at the Division of Building Construction and Design of Berlin's Technical University from 2002 to 2004 and also taught at Berlage Institute Rotterdam, at ABK in Arnhem and at Delft University of Technology. In 2005, she held the Morgenstern Visiting Chair at IIT College of Architecture in Chicago. She has been a board member at the Museum Of The Image in Breda since 2008 and the Netherlands Architecture Institute in Rotterdam since 2010, and since 2012, also at the Stichting Niadec Institute for Dutch Creative Industry.

Stefanie Frensch is an architect and real estate economist (ebs) and has been the chief executive of the Howoge housing association since 2011. Having completed her degree in architecture, she started working as an assistant at the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems in 1995. She then took on a job as architect and project manager at ARCHIS, an architectural firm in Karlsruhe, and became a project manager at Prof. Weiss + Partner Projekt-Steuerungsgesellschaft mbH in 1997 (since 2008 a part of the Ernst & Young Real Estate GmbH). She was a partner at the Ernst & Young Real Estate GmbH from 2007 to 2011 with a focus on asset management, project controlling and sustainability before she became the chief executive of HOWOGE in 2011. Stefanie Frensch is a member of the Chamber of Architects and the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (MRICS).

Erhart Pfotenhauer is an architect and urban planner. Having finished his studies, he founded the "Studiengruppe Wohnungs- und Stadtplanung GmbH" in Frankfurt. Between 1977 and 1984, he was a professor of urban planning at Oldenburg University. From 1984 to 1986, he worked as scientific adviser to IBA Berlin GmbH and afterwards for its successor company, S.T.E.R.N. GmbH. Together with Hardt-Waltherr Hämer and later C. van Geisten, he was a member of its executive board from 1993 to 2003.
In 2003, he founded planungsgruppe proUrban in Berlin and has been its chief executive ever since. This office manages projects in the field of urban development, urban construction and urban renewal as well as participatory and discursive planning processes.
Since 2000, Erhart Pfotenhauer has been a full member of the German Academy for Urban and Regional Spatial Planning. He is also a member of the Salzburg Congress on Urban Planning and Development (SCUPAD), the German Association for Urban and Regional Planning (SRL) and the German Association for Housing, Urban Development and Spatial Planning (DV e.V.). He is the author of several publications and has given lectures in Germany and abroad.

Matthias Lilienthal was born and grew up in Berlin. He is the programme director of the festival "Theater der Welt 2014" in Mannheim and also teaches as a resident professor in the Home Workspace Program of Ashkal Alwan Beirut.
From 1992 to 1999, he worked as the chief dramaturg under Frank Castorf at the Volksbühne theatre. He then became the programme director of "Theater der Welt 2002" in Bonn, Düsseldorf, Cologne and Duisburg and developed the theatre format "X Wohnungen" ("X Homes") for the festival, which has since taken place in three different Berlin neighbourhoods and which has also been adapted for various cities abroad.
From 2003 to 2012, he was the artistic and managing director of the "Hebbel am Ufer" (HAU) theatre. Lilienthal's initiative to look into the particular features of Berlin's Kreuzberg/Neukölln neighbourhood led to the creation of the "Beyond Belonging" programme series with which HAU took the topic of migration onto the theatre stage. His two final projects at HAU, "Unendlicher Spass" (Endless Fun), a 24-hour tour of the utopian West, and "Die grosse Weltausstellung" (The Great World's Fair), a collaborative project with raumlaborberlin on the former Tempelhof airfield, also received widespread attention. Under Lilienthal's leadership, the HAU theatre was chosen twice as the "Theatre of the Year". In 2007, it received the "Design Award of the Federal Republic of Germany" for its campaign featuring boxers from Berlin-Neukölln.

Jean Philippe Vassal was born in Casablanca (Morocco) in 1954. After graduating from the School of Architecture (École nationale supérieure d'architecture et de paysage) in Bordeaux in 1980, he worked as an urban planner in Niger (West Africa) from 1980 to 1985. He was a visiting professor at Berlin's Technical University from 2007 to 2012 and also taught at the École Polytechnique in Lausanne.
Together with Anne Lacaton, he founded the office of Lacaton & Vassal in 1987. Based in Paris, the office works far beyond the French border and is involved in various public housing, housing and urban planning projects. Major projects of the past include, for example, the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, the CORBACI café and restaurant at the Architekturzentrum Wien, the École nationale supérieure d'architecture in Nantes and a number of outstanding housing projects in France, such as the House Latapie in Bordeaux and the "House in the Trees" on Corsica, as well as various social housing projects, such as the "Cité Manifeste" in Mulhouse and the transformation of Tour Bois le Prêtre in Paris.
Jean Philipp Vassal received numerous awards, e.g. the Grand Prix National d'Architecture (France, 2008), the International Fellowship of the Royal Insitute of British Architects (2009), the Erich Schelling Award (2006) and the Prix d'architecture de l'Equerre d'argent (France, 2012).