To the death of Hans Hollein

The most significant post-war personality of the Austrian architectural scene has passed away. A visionary who, in the 1960s, along with the artistic group Haus-Rucker-Co and the architectural association Coop Himmelb(l)au, brought Austria to the forefront of world architecture.
Across the Iron Curtain, our architects found inspiration in Hollein's intimate Vienna interiors, allowing them to weave long deliberations about them. Hollein's later work influenced individuals such as Frank Gehry, who admitted that he drew inspiration for his museum in Bilbao from Hollein's museum Abteiberg in Mönchengladbach, Germany.
Hollein studied architecture in the mid-1950s at the Vienna Academy under Professor Clemens Holzmeister, later expanding his education across the ocean at IIT in Chicago and the University of California, Berkeley. The fascination with America was mutual: in the mid-1960s, Hollein garnered attention during his visiting professorship at Yale, and two decades later, he became only the second European to receive recognition from the then-nascent Pritzker Foundation.
In addition to unforgettable installations, unrealizable visionary projects, and completed buildings, Hollein was also known for his provocative statement that "everything is architecture." An extensive exhibition of Hollein's work is currently underway at the Abteiberg Museum in Mönchengladbach, Germany, under the same title until the end of September, or you can visit the MAK in Vienna in June for a major retrospective originally intended to celebrate the master's eightieth birthday.

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