David Chipperfield

His major completed works include the River and Rowing Museum in Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire; the Museum of Modern Literature in Marbach, Germany; the Des Moines Public Library in Iowa; the Neues Museum and its adjoining James Simon Gallery, Berlin; The Hepworth Wakefield gallery in Wakefield, West Yorkshire; the Saint Louis Art Museum, Missouri; and the Museo Jumex in Mexico City.

• Honorific Prefix — Sir • Name — David Chipperfield • Born — 18 December 1953 • Birthplace — London, England • Practice — David Chipperfield Architects • Significant Projects — * Neues Museum, Berlin (1997–2009) • Museum of Modern Literature, Marbach, Germany (2002–2008) • America's Cup Building, Valencia, Spain (2005) • The Hepworth Wakefield, Wakefield, UK (2003–2011) • Turner Contemporary, Margate, UK (2006–2011) • Museo Jumex, Mexico (2009–2013) • Awards — * Pritzker Architecture Prize • RIBA Stirling Prize • Royal Gold Medal • Andrea Palladio Prize • Tessenow Gold Medal • Education — Kingston University Architectural Association School of Architecture

Chipperfield was born in London in 1953, and graduated in 1976 from Kingston School of Art in London. He studied architecture at the Architectural Association (AA) in London, receiving his diploma in architecture in 1977. He worked in the offices of several notable architects, including Douglas Stephen, Norman Foster and Richard Rogers, before founding his firm, 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. He first established his reputation designing store interiors in London, Paris, Tokyo and New York. Among Chipperfield's early projects in England was a shop for Issey Miyake on London's Sloane Street, as well as designing 1 Cobham Mews Studios which would become his firm's London office for over 20 years. His shops in Japan led to commissions to design for a private museum in Chiba prefecture (1987), design for a store for the automotive company Toyota in Kyoto (1989), and the headquarters of the Matsumoto Company in Okayama (1990). His firm opened an office in Tokyo in 1989. His first commission to design an actual building was for a house for the fashion photographer Nick Knight in London in 1990. His first completed projects in London were the gallery of botany and the entrance hall for the Natural History Museum (1993), and restaurant Wagamama, both in London. His first major project in Britain was the River and Rowing Museum in Henley-on-Thames (1989) (see below). He also began to build in Germany, designing an office building in Düsseldorf (1994–1997). Other projects in the 1990s included the Circus Restaurant in London (1997) and the Joseph Menswear Shop (1997). The latter shop featured a curtain of glass six meters high around the two lower floors, and an austere modernist interior with dark grey sandstone floors and white walls. In 1997, he began one of his most important projects, the reconstruction and restoration of the Neues Museum in Berlin, which had been largely destroyed during World War II. After 2000, he won commissions for several other major museum projects in Germany, designed several major museum projects in Germany, including the Museum of Modern Literature in Marbach (2002–2006), and the Galerie Am Kupfergraben 10 in Berlin (2003–2007). In the same period, he designed and built, at rapid speed, a new headquarters for the America's Cup in Valencia, Spain (2005–2006), and an enormous judicial complex in Barcelona, Spain, which consolidated the offices previously contained in seventeen different buildings into nine new immense concrete blocks. He also constructed his first project in the United States, an extension of the Museum of ethnology and natural history in Anchorage, Alaska (2003–2009). Until 2011, most of his major projects were on the continent of Europe, but in 2011 he opened two notable museum projects in Britain, the Turner Contemporary (2006–11) in Margate, and The Hepworth Wakefield in Wakefield. In 2013, he opened the Jumex Museum in Mexico City, and the extension of the Saint Louis Art Museum in the United States. His most remote project was the Museum of Naga, on a site in the desert 170 kilometers northeast of Khartoum in Sudan, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. He designed a structure to preserve the remains of two ancient temples and an artesian well, dating to 300 B.C.-300 A.D. The building, built of the local stone, blends into reddish mountains around it. In 2015, Chipperfield won a competition to redesign the modern and contemporary art wing of the Metropolitan Museum in New York City, which in 2017 was put on hold due to budget cuts. His first ground-up building in New York City, The Bryant, a thirty-three storey hotel and condominium project next to Bryant Park in Manhattan, was completed in 2021. In 2017, he and his associates were engaged in a multitude of major projects around the world; including new flagship stores for Bally and Valentino, the reconstruction of the U.S. Embassy in London; One Pancras Square, an office and commercial complex behind King's Cross Station in London, a project for the Shanghai Expo tower in China, a new Nobel Center headquarters for the Nobel Prize in Stockholm (later cancelled), a headquarters store for the online firm SSENSE in Montreal, the extension building for Kunsthaus Zurich, the Haus der Kunst cultural center in Munich, the completion of the headquarters of Amorepacific in Seoul, Korea, and a visitor centre and chapel complex for Inagawa Reien, a cemetery in Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan. Together with Arup, Chipperfield is the architect of the Arena Santa Giulia (also known as the PalaItalia), a 16,000-capacity arena in Milan, Italy which will host ice hockey events during the 2026 Winter Olympics and 2026 Winter Paralympics. In January 2023, the National Archaeological Museum in Athens, Greece selected Chipperfield to design an extensive underground expansion, which will include a new entrance to the museum. As of 2024, Chipperfield's other works in progress include a new parliamentary office building in Ottawa, Canada and an American headquarters for Rolex in New York City. Completion of Chipperfield's first project in the Southern Hemisphere is scheduled for 2025, partnering with Molonglo Group to design and build Canberra's Dairy Road development.

• Illustration — River and Rowing Museum, Henley-on-Thames, UK, (1989–1997) The River and Rowing Museum in Henley-on-Thames is devoted particularly to the sports of rowing; the town is home to the Annual Royal Regatta Olympic boating events in 1908 and 1948. The building is a blend of modernist and traditional forms and materials. It was inspired by the form of traditional boat sheds, as well as the traditional barns of Oxfordshire. The building occupies a space of 2,300 square metres and is lifted above the ground on concrete pillars to avoid flooding. The exterior and parts of the interior are covered in planks of non-treated oak, matching the local rural architecture. The roofs and sunscreens are of stainless steel. The entrance has glass walls, and the galleries on the ground floor receive natural light through the roof.

• Illustration — Des Moines Public Library, Des Moines, Iowa, US (2002–2006) The Des Moines Public Library in Des Moines, Iowa, United States, covers an area of 110,000 square feet, and cost $32.3 million to construct. The two-storey building has no front or back; instead it fans out into three wings. A glass tunnel allows passers-by to stroll through the library. Its most distinct feature is an exterior of glass panels with cooper mesh sandwiched between them; the mesh blocks eighty per cent of the sunlight, while allowing library patrons to gaze out at the park around the library. Chipperfield told Christopher Hall of The New York Times: "The architecture is neutral and amorphous; almost no architecture at all, and the copper mesh is an attempt to veil the building as much as possible while allowing the outside in."

• Illustration — America's Cup Building, Valencia, Spain, (2005–2006) Chipperfield won a 2005 competition to construct a new headquarters for the America's Cup on the coast in Valencia, Spain. It was completed in just eleven months. The distinctive features of the 10,000 square metre building are three horizontal levels which overhang the terrace below by as much as fifteen metres, providing shade and an unobstructed view of the sea. The predominant colour inside and out is white, with panels of white metal on the ceilings, floors of white resin, and exterior trim of white-painted stainless steel. Exterior accents are provided by planks of wood.

• Illustration — Neues Museum, Berlin, Germany (1997–2009) In 1997, Chipperfield, along with Julian Harrap, won a competition for the reconstruction of the Neues Museum in Berlin, which had been severely damaged during World War II. His commission was to recreate the original volume of the museum, both by restoring original spaces and adding new spaces which would respect the historic structure of the building. Reinforced concrete was used for new galleries and the new central staircase, while recycled bricks were used in other spaces, particularly in the north wing and the south dome. In addition, some of the scars of the war on the building's walls were preserved, as an essential part of its history. As Chipperfield explained, the architects used these materials so that "The new would reflect that which was lost, without imitating it." The building received the European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture in 2011. In 2018, Chipperfield completed the adjoining James Simon Gallery.

• Illustration — The Hepworth Wakefield, Wakefield, UK (2003–2011) The Hepworth Wakefield is a gallery devoted to the work of the sculptor Barbara Hepworth. It is composed of ten trapezoidal blocks; its upper-level galleries are lit by natural light from large windows in the pitched roofs. Its windows have views of the river, historic waterfront and the city skyline. The building's façade is clad with self-compacting pigmented concrete made on-site, the first of its kind in the United Kingdom. The architects selected the material to emphasise the gallery's sculptural appearance. Rowan Moore of The Guardian, in a 2011 review of Chipperfield's body of work, criticised the Hepworth Gallery's design, which he felt resembled "a bunker".

• Illustration — City of Justice, Barcelona, Spain (2002–2011) The City of Justice is a group of nine buildings with 241,500 metres of space, which consolidate courtrooms and offices which previously were scattered among seventeen different buildings. The courtrooms are on the ground floor, with offices above. Four of the buildings are connected together by a four-storey hallway. In addition to the judicial buildings, the complex, on the outskirts of Barcelona, includes a commercial centre and retail stores, and a block of low income residential housing. The facades of the buildings are all the same, made of concrete poured in place and lightly tinted in different shades. Chipperfield wrote that the purpose of the building was to "break the image of justice as rigid and monolithic", but architectural critic Rowan Moore of The Guardian said it appeared "uncomfortably prison-like."

The Saint Louis Art Museum project in Saint Louis, Missouri, United States (2005–2013) involved building a major new wing attached to a landmark of American architecture, the gallery built by beaux-arts architect Cass Gilbert in 1904. The new building by Chipperfield, with 9,000 square metres of space, harmonizes smoothly with the classic building; its ground level is the same as that of the main floor of the Gilbert Building. The walls are dark concrete were poured and polished in place, and the roof of concrete caissons is designed to modify the light entering the galleries. To give the facade a distinctive look which also blended with the Gilbert building, Chipperfield speckled the dark grey polished concrete walls with fragments of the same kind of sandstone used in the Gilbert building. Edwin Heathcote of the Financial Times called it "a gem of clarity and deceptive simplicity... It is a building designed to glow, inside and out, one that is more about the intangibility of light than about mass reinforced by shadow.

• Illustration — Turner Contemporary in Margate, Kent, UK (2006–2011) The Turner Contemporary gallery is located beside a beach in Margate, on the north coast of Kent in south-east England. It is devoted to the works of painter J. M. W. Turner, his contemporaries, and those he influenced. It is close to the historic boarding house where the artist often stayed. The museum is composed of six identical glass galleries, referred to as "Cristalins", which are interconnected. The sunlight from the south is softened by a system of shutters over the ceiling, and the buildings are raised on pylons to avoid flooding from the neighbouring sea. The fritted glass façades are designed to resist the dampness, corrosion and winds coming from the sea.

The Museo Jumex in Mexico City displays one of the largest private collections of contemporary art in Mexico, neighbouring a theatre and another museum in a modern neighbourhood of the city. Zoning restrictions limited the space available, so Chipperfield put the museum administration, shop, and library in existing adjoining buildings, and devoted the Museum almost entirely to exhibit space. The galleries on the upper levels receive natural light from the skylights on the roof facing toward the west. The building is supported on fourteen columns, and is built of concrete covered with plaques of travertine limestone from Xalapa, in the state of Veracruz. The floor-to-ceiling windows on the lower floors have frames of stainless steel.

• Illustration — The James Simon Gallery in Berlin (2007–2018) The James Simon Gallery was developed as the final piece of a master plan which Chipperfield conceived for Berlin's Museum Island in 1999. It serves as a visitor's gateway to the island, physically connecting other institutions including the Pergamon and the Neues Museum, whose restoration was completed by Chipperfield in 2009. Drawing inspiration from surrounding works by architects such as Karl Friedrich Schinkel and Friedrich August Stüler, the primary element of its facade is a row of seventy columns cast in white concrete, which stand nine metres high but are less than thirty centimetres thick. Reviews of the James Simon Gallery in both The Guardian and Architectural Digest highly praised the building, but compared the colonnade to the Nazi Party Rally Grounds designed by Albert Speer. In response, Chipperfield told The Guardian: “We’ve been called fascist in the past [...] Germans weren’t allowed to use columns after the war because they were so tainted by association. Being an English architect gave [my client] some relief—‘Well, if he says we can do it, then it’s OK.’ We’ve tried to use the language in a very neutral, minimal way.” The gallery was completed in 2018 and opened to the public in 2019.

• River and Rowing Museum, Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, UK (1989–1997) • Gormley Studio, London, UK (1998–2001) • BBC Pacific Quay, Glasgow, UK (2001–2007) • Turner Contemporary, Margate, Kent, UK (2011) • The Hepworth Wakefield, Wakefield, West Yorkshire, UK (2011) • Café Royal Hotel, London (2008–2012) • One Pancras Square, London (2008–2013) • One Kensington Gardens, London (2010–2015) • Valentino, flagship store, London (2016) • Royal Academy of Arts Masterplan, London, UK (2008–2024) with Julian Harrap Architects

• Toyota Auto Kyoto, Kyoto, Japan (1989–1990) • Figge Art Museum, Davenport, Iowa, US (1999–2005) • Museum of Cultures (MUDEC), Milan, Italy (2000–2015) • Des Moines Public Library, Iowa, US (2002–2006) • Museum of Modern Literature, Germany (2002–2006) • Hotel Puerta America, third floor, Madrid, Spain (2003–2005) • America's Cup Building, Valencia, Spain (2005–2006) • Liangzhu Culture Museum, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China (2007) • Empire Riverside Hotel, St. Pauli, Hamburg, Germany (2007) • Neues Museum, Museum Island Berlin (1997–2009) • Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany (2007–2010) • City of Justice, Barcelona (2002–2011) • Saint Louis Art Museum, Missouri, US (2005–2013) • Museo Jumex, Mexico City (2009–2013) • Valentino, flagship store, New York (2014) • Xixi Wetland Estate, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China (2007–2015) • Amorepacific Headquarters, Seoul, South Korea (2010–2017) • Salerno Courthouse, Campania, Italy (2001–2018) • The Bryant, New York, United States of America (2013–2018) • James Simon Gallery, Berlin, Germany (2007–2019) • West Bund Museum, Shanghai, China (2017–2019) • Kunsthaus Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland (2008–2020) • Neue Nationalgalerie (renovation), Berlin, Germany, (2012–2020) • Taoxichuan Ceramic Art Avenue, Jingdezhen, Jiangxi, China (2022)

• Conversion of the former Embassy of the United States, London, England (2016–present) • Renovation of Procuratie Vecchie, Piazza San Marco, Venice, Italy (2017–present) • Rolex Building, New York City, United States (2019–present) • Renovation of Central Telegraph Office Здание Центрального телеграфа, Moscow, Russia (2020–present) • Elbtower, Hamburg, Germany (2021–present) • National Archaeological Museum (renovation), Athens, Greece, (2023–present)

David Chipperfield is recorded as architect, university teacher and designer.