Ben van Berkel

Infobox Architect


caption=
name= Ben van Berkel
nationality= Dutch
birth_date= 1957
birth_place= Utrecht, Netherlands
death_place=
practice_name=UNStudio
significant_buildings= Moebius House
Erasmus Bridge
Mercedes-Benz Museum
|

Ben van Berkel (born 1957) is a Dutch architect. He studied architecture at the Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam, and at the Architectural Association in London, receiving the AA Diploma with Honours in 1987.

In 1988 he and Caroline Bos set up an architectural practice in Amsterdam. Van Berkel & Bos Architectuurbureau has realized, amongst others projects, the Karbouw office building, the Erasmus Bridge in Rotterdam, Museum Het Valkhof in Nijmegen, the Moebius house, and the NMR facilities for the University of Utrecht.

In 1998 van Berkel and Bos relaunched their practice as UNStudio, the UN standing for "United Net". UNStudio presents itself as a network of specialists in architecture, urban development and infrastructure. With UNStudio, van Berkel has built several projects, including the Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart, a façade and interior renovation for the Galleria Department store in Seoul, Korea, and a private villa in up-state New York. Current projects are the restructuring of the station area of Arnhem, a shopping mall renovation in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, a masterplan for Basauri, Spain, a music theatre for Graz, Austria, the design and restructuring of the Harbor Ponte Parodi in Genoa, and an apartment building in the Tribeca section of Manhattan.

Ben van Berkel has lectured and taught at several architectural schools. Currently he is Professor of Conceptual Design at the Staedelschule in Frankfurt am Main. Central to his teaching is the inclusive approach of architectural works, integrating virtual and material organization and engineering constructions.

External links

* [http://www.unstudio.com/ UNStudio Homepage]