Hans Kollhoff Biography, Buildings and Best Books

Hans Kollhoff (born 1946) is a German architect based in Berlin and one of the leading advocates of a return to the traditions of the European city after the reunification of Germany. His brick and stone buildings, including the Kollhoff Tower at Potsdamer Platz, the Piraeus housing block in Amsterdam and the Leibnizkolonnaden in Berlin, draw on classical and early modern architecture rather than avant-garde form.

Karlsruhe, Vienna and Cornell

Kollhoff was born in Lobenstein, Thuringia, in 1946. He studied architecture in Karlsruhe and Vienna and then at Cornell University, where he worked with Oswald Mathias Ungers, one of the most important influences on his thinking about the city. He opened his office in Berlin in 1978 and later worked in partnership with Helga Timmermann.

From visionary projects to the European city

In the 1980s Kollhoff produced urban projects such as the compact city proposal for Atlanpole near Nantes (1988). From the late 1980s his work turned increasingly toward the traditional block, street and facade, which he saw as the basis of lasting cities. The Piraeus housing block on KNSM Island in Amsterdam (1994), a brick block folded around courtyards, marks this shift.

Berlin after reunification

In reunified Berlin Kollhoff designed the brick Kollhoff Tower at Potsdamer Platz (1999), inspired by American skyscrapers of the 1920s, the Leibnizkolonnaden in Charlottenburg (2001) and many offices and housing blocks. He taught at ETH Zurich from 1990 to 2012.