Chen Kuen Lee

Chen Kuen Lee moved to Germany in 1931 and in the same year started to study architecture at the Technische Hochschule Berlin (now Technische Universität Berlin), from which he graduated in 1937. Simultaneously he worked in the studio of Hans Poelzig. He finished his diploma in 1939. From 1939 to 1941 he was an associate of Hans Scharoun. Until 1943 he worked together with Hugo Häring on the idea of a Chinese Werkbund. In the years 1943 to 1947 he was an associate of Ernst Börschmann; from 1947 to 1953 he worked repeatedly with Hans Scharoun. Subsequently, he started his own business with offices in Berlin and Stuttgart. From 1981 onwards he taught as a visiting professor at Tunghai University in Taiwan. He relocated to Taiwan in 1988 in order to teach at various universities, but returned to Germany in 1996 where he lived up to his death in Berlin on September 14, 2003.

Lee concentrated mainly on residential housing, striving to consider the specifics of the respective location. The characteristics of his style include open and non-orthogonal floor plans and the interlocking of the buildings with their immediate and more distant surroundings. For this purpose he worked together with landscape architects for most of his projects from the very early planning stages on, among others with Hermann Mattern, Adolf Haag and Hannes Haag. With many of his buildings, inner and outer shapes interact by means of the continuation of lines of sight along sun rooms and water pools. Lee's designs are oriented on the requirements of the functional processes within his buildings. By starting the design with the interior and moving outward the shape of the building becomes a result of fulfilling its functions, i.e. the floor plan is not subordinate to an arbitrary outer shape. The free floor plan designs could only be achieved by self-supporting constructions. Often the roof forms a landscape folded in various directions with multiple vistas into the surroundings and with different actions of light. By providing interior spaces with different ambient qualities for the users open floor plans with interleaving rooms were created. For many of his buildings Lee himself took care of the interior design. Numerous designs for furniture, lighting, and other fitments were created. Lee finished 63 buildings; in addition, there are around 40 draft designs that have not been realized. Besides his residential buildings he designed several industrial plants as well as the interior of Chinese restaurants in Berlin, Karlsruhe, Stuttgart, and Munich. Chen Kuen Lee is the author of several essays and two books published in Taiwan on the Neues Bauen movement, the principles of which are explained by taking various buildings designed by him as examples.

• House Scharf (Oberstdorf, 1953) • House Ketterer (Stuttgart, 1954–55) • House Straub sr. (Knittlingen, 1956–57) • House Schmidt (Giengen an der Brenz, 1960) • Apartment house (Stuttgart, 1961–62) • Residential buildings Märkisches Viertel (Berlin, 1965–70) • House Audry (Luxembourg, 1967–69) • House Straub jr. (Knittlingen, 1975–78) • House Dr. Gärtner (Bretten, 1976–81)

Part of his estate has been delivered to the Baukunstarchiv of the Akademie der Künste in Berlin.

Chen Kuen Lee is recorded as a citizen of Republic of China. Recorded with the occupation architect.