Markus Miessen (born in

Bonn The federal city of Bonn ( lat, Bonna) is a city on the banks of the Rhine in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, with a population of over 300,000. About south-southeast of Cologne, Bonn is in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ru ...

, 1978) is a German architect and writer.

Education and teaching

Miessen received his bachelor's degree from the

Glasgow School of Art The Glasgow School of Art (GSA; gd, Sgoil-ealain Ghlaschu) is a higher education art school based in Glasgow, Scotland, offering undergraduate degrees, post-graduate awards (both taught and research-led), and PhDs in architecture, fine art, an ...

(BArch), continuing his studies at the

Architectural Association The Architectural Association School of Architecture in London, commonly referred to as the AA, is the oldest independent school of architecture in the UK and one of the most prestigious and competitive in the world. Its wide-ranging programme ...

in London (AADiplHons) and at the London Consortium (MRes). His PhD was completed at the Centre for Research Architecture at

Goldsmiths A goldsmith is a metalworker who specializes in working with gold. In German, the Goldsmith family name is written Goldschmidt. Goldsmith may also refer to: Places * Goldsmith, Indiana, United States * Goldsmith, New York, United States, a h ...

(London) in 2015 under the supervision of

Eyal Weizman Eyal Weizman MBE FBA (born 1970) is a British Israeli architect. He is the director of the research agency Forensic Architecture at Goldsmiths, University of London where he is Professor of Spatial and Visual Cultures and a founding director t ...

. From 2011 to 2016 Miessen held the position of Distinguished Professor in Practice at the

University of Southern California , mottoeng = "Let whoever earns the palm bear it" , religious_affiliation = Nonsectarian—historically Methodist , established = , accreditation = WSCUC , type = Private research university , academic_affiliations = , endowment = $8.1 ...

, USC (Los Angeles). Other teaching positions include Professor at HDK-Valand, Academy of Art and Design, University of Gothenburg (Sweden 2016–2020), Stiftungsprofessur for Critical Spaces Practice at the

Städelschule The Städelschule (), Staatliche Hochschule für Bildende Künste, is a tertiary school of art in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. It accepts about 20 students each year from 500 applicants, and has a total of approximately 150 students of visual a ...

(Frankfurt 2011–2013), guest professor at HEAD (Geneva), visiting professor at the Hochschule für Gestaltung (Karlsruhe) at the

Berlage Institute The Berlage Institute was an independent unaccredited postgraduate school of architecture in Amsterdam and Rotterdam, the Netherlands, that operated in 1990-2012. Named after the Dutch architect Hendrik Petrus Berlage, the Berlage Institute had an i ...

(Rotterdam), and Unit Master at the

(London 2004–2008). The Winter School Middle East was initiated by Miessen in 2008. He became a Harvard GSD Fellow in 2010. Since 2021, he is Professor of Urban Regeneration at the

University of Luxembourg The University of Luxembourg (French: ''Université du Luxembourg''; German: ''Universität Luxemburg''; Luxembourgish: ''Universitéit Lëtzebuerg'') is a public research university in Luxembourg. History The University of Luxembourg was found ...

, where he holds the Chair of the City of Esch, associated with the master programme "Architecture, European Urbanisation, Globalisation'.

Work

Studio Miessen was founded in London in 2005 and has been based in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...

since 2008, working on architectural and spatial design projects in Europe, North America, the Middle East and Asia. The studio has worked with institutional clients and collaborators such as

Art Basel Art Basel is a for-profit, privately owned and managed, international art fair staged annually in Basel, Switzerland; Miami Beach; Hong Kong and from 2022, Paris. Art Basel works in collaboration with the host city's local institutions to help ...

(Switzerland),

Art Sonje Center Artsonje Center is a private art museum in Seoul, Korea, located in Samcheong-dong, a neighborhood adjacent to known for its numerous art galleries, cafes, restaurants and boutiques. Founded in 1998, the museum introduces current and experiment ...

(South Korea), b-05 Art & Cultural Centre (Germany),

e-flux e-flux is a publishing platform and archive, artist project, curatorial platform, and e-mail service founded in 1998. The arts news digests, events, exhibitions, schools, journal, books, and art projects produced and/or disseminated by e-flux ...

(USA), Government of

Slovenia Slovenia ( ; sl, Slovenija ), officially the Republic of Slovenia (Slovene: , abbr.: ''RS''), is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Croatia to the southeast, an ...

Haus der Kulturen der Welt The Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW), in English House of the World's Cultures, in Berlin is Germany's national center for the presentation and discussion of international contemporary arts, with a special focus on non-European cultures and so ...

(Germany), the Serpentine Gallery (UK),

Witte de With Witte Corneliszoon de With (28 March 1599 – 8 November 1658) was a Dutch naval officer. He is noted for planning and participating in a number of naval battles during the Eighty Years War and the First Anglo-Dutch war. Early life and chil ...

(The Netherlands), Weltkulturen Museum (Germany), Institute of Modern Art (Australia), Kunstverein in Hamburg (Germany), Biennials such as the Gwangju Biennale (2011),

Performa The Macintosh Performa is a family of personal computers designed, manufactured and sold by Apple Inc., Apple Computer, Inc. from 1992 to 1997. The Performa brand re-used models from Apple's Macintosh Quadra, Quadra, Macintosh Centris, Centri ...

(2009, 2011, 2013),

Sydney Biennial The Biennale of Sydney is an international festival of contemporary art, held every two years in Sydney, Australia. It is a large and well-attended contemporary visual arts event in the country. Alongside the Venice and São Paulo biennales a ...

(2016),

Berlin Biennale The Berlin Biennale (full name: Berlin Biennale für zeitgenössische Kunst, Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art) is a contemporary art exhibition, which has been held at various locations in Berlin, Germany, every two to three years since 1998. T ...

(2016),

Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale (; it, La Biennale di Venezia) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy by the Biennale Foundation. The biennale has been organised every year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of ...

(2013),

Istanbul Biennale The Istanbul Biennial is a contemporary art exhibition that has been held biennially in Istanbul, Turkey, since 1987. The Biennial has been organised by the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (IKSV) since its inception. Format Istanbul Bien ...

(2014) and artists such as

Hito Steyerl Hito Steyerl (born 1 January 1966) is a German filmmaker, moving image artist, writer, and innovator of the essay documentary.

, Dénes Farkas,

Liam Gillick Liam Gillick (born 1964, Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire) is a British artist who lives and works in New York City.

, Flaka Haliti, Slater Bradley and Stefanos Tsivopoulos. In 2006 Miessen and

Hans Ulrich Obrist Hans Ulrich Obrist (born 1968) is a Swiss art curator, critic, and historian of art. He is artistic director at the Serpentine Galleries, London. Obrist is the author of ''The Interview Project'', an extensive ongoing project of interviews. He is ...

founded the Brutally Early Club., conducting conversational, salon-type meetings in post-public spaces at 6:30 AM in originally in London and later in Berlin,

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

and

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

. Markus Miessen has authored books such as ''Crossbenching'' (2016, Sternberg Press), and ''The Nightmare of Participation'' (2010, Sternberg Press). In collaboration with Nikolaus Hirsch, Markus Miessen initiated and edits the ''Critical Spatial Practice'' book series at Sternberg Press, publishing contributors including

Keller Easterling Keller Easterling is an American architect, urbanist, writer, and professor. She is Enid Storm Dwyer Professor and Director of the MED Program at Yale University. Biography She earned both her B.A. and M.Arch from Princeton University School of ...

Beatriz Colomina Beatriz Colomina (born 1952) is an architecture historian, theorist and curator. She is the founding director of the Program in Media and Modernity at Princeton University, the Howard Crosby Butler Professor of the History of Architecture and Direct ...

Chantal Mouffe Chantal Mouffe (; born 17 June 1943) is a Belgian political theorist, formerly teaching at University of Westminster. She is best known for her contribution to the development—jointly with Ernesto Laclau, with whom she co-authored her most fre ...

, Felicity Scott, Metahaven, Armin Linke,

Trevor Paglen Trevor Paglen (born 1974) is an American artist, geographer, and author whose work tackles mass surveillance and data collection. In 2016, Paglen won the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize and he has also won The Cultural Award from the ...

Rabih Mroué Rabih Mroué ( ar, ربيع مروة, born 1967) is a Lebanese stage and film actor, playwright, and visual artist. Rooted in theater, his work includes videos and installation art; the latter sometimes incorporates photography, text and sculptur ...

and

Jill Magid Jill Magid (born 1973) is an American conceptual artist, writer, and filmmaker. Magid’s performance-based practice "interrogates structures of power on an intimate level, exploring the emotional, philosophical, and legal tensions that exist b ...

. Miessen has worked as a consultant to the Government of Slovenia during their presidency of the EU Council, The European Kunsthalle (Cologne), the Dutch Foundation for Art and Public Domain (SKOR) (Amsterdam), the Serpentine Gallery (London), the European Commission and the Kosova National Art Gallery. In 2021, a monograph of the studio's work titled ''Cultures of Assembly'' will be published (Sternberg Press, MIT Press).

Selected books

*2021 ''Cultures of Assembly'', Berlin: Sternberg Press, Cambridge MA: MIT Press *2020 ''Para-Plattformen Die Raumpolitik des Rechtspopulismus'', Berlin: Merve Verlag *2019 ''Para-Platforms On the Spatial Politics of Right-Wing Populism'', Berlin: Sternberg Press *2018 ''Perhaps It Is High Time for a Xeno-architecture to Match'', Berlin: Sternberg Press *2018 ''14 Tage'', Munich: Sorry Press *2018 (with Kenny Cupers) ''Spaces of Uncertainty Berlin Revisited'', Basel: Birkhäuser *2016 ''Crossbenching'', Berlin: Merve Verlag *2016 ''Crossbenching'', Berlin: Sternberg Press *2015 (With Yann Chateigné) ''The Archive As a Productive Space Of Conflict'', Berlin: Sternberg Press *2014 ''MOULD Cultures of Assembly'', Milan: Mould Press *2012 ''Albtraum Partizipation'', Berlin: Merve Verlag *2011 (with Andrea Phillips) ''Actors, Agents and Attendants Caring Culture: Art, Architecture and the Politics of Health'', Berlin: Sternberg Press *2011 (with Patricia Reed, Kenny Cupers) ''Architectural Space as Agent'', Fillip: Vancouver *2011 (with Nina Valerie Kolowratnik) ''Waking Up From The Nightmare of Participation'', Utrecht: Expodium *2010 ''The Nightmare of Participation'', Berlin: Sternberg Press *2009 (with Tina DiCarlo) ''When Economies Become Form'', Rotterdam: Berlage Institute *2009 (Nikolaus Hirsch, Philipp Misselwitz, Matthias Görlich) ''Institution Building'', Berlin: Sternberg Press *2008 ''East Coast Europe'', Berlin: Sternberg Press *2007 ''The Violence of Participation'', Berlin: Sternberg Press *2007 (with Shumon Basar, Antonia Carver) ''With/Without'', Dubai: Bidoun *2006 (with Shumon Basar) ''Did Someone say Participate? An Atlas of Spatial Practice'', Cambridge MA: MIT Press *2002 (with Kenny Cupers) ''Spaces of Uncertainty'', Wuppertal: Müller+Busmann

References

External links

Studio Miessen

Winter School Middle East

Critical Spatial Practice

European Kunsthalle

Mould Press

Sternberg Press
{{DEFAULTSORT:Miessen, Markus 1978 births Alumni of the Architectural Association School of Architecture Writers from Bonn 20th-century German architects University of Southern California faculty Living people 21st-century German architects