O.M. Ungers Centenary: Cologne Exhibition and Berlin Symposium Revisit His Legacy
The centenary of Oswald Mathias Ungers, the renowned German architect, will be celebrated on July 12, 2026, with an exhibition titled 'O. M. Ungers: Architecture as Idea' at the Museum of Applied Art in Cologne, alongside a symposium at the Technical University of Berlin (TUB) called 'Questions for Our Time: Architecture Theory Today.' These events will showcase Ungers's perspectives on architecture's significance in relation to technical, ecological, and aesthetic challenges. The exhibition in Cologne will display his drawings, artwork, and furniture from his residences. The TUB symposium will reflect on a 1967 conference he organized, where historian Werner Oechslin critiqued the decontextualization in modern architecture. Ungers's career, which included landmark projects like the German Architecture Museum and the Wallraf-Richartz Museum, is particularly relevant today as Berlin faces potential cuts to six professorships.
Key facts
- Oswald Mathias Ungers would have turned 100 on July 12, 2026.
- Exhibition 'O. M. Ungers: Architecture as Idea' at the Museum of Applied Art in Cologne.
- Symposium 'Questions for Our Time: Architecture Theory Today' at the Technical University of Berlin.
- Ungers designed the German Architecture Museum in Frankfurt, German Ambassador's Residence in Washington, D.C., and Wallraf-Richartz Museum in Cologne.
- Ungers's early masterpiece is his own house in Cologne (1958-59).
- He published 'On a New Architecture' with Reinhard Gieselmann in 1960.
- Ungers taught at TUB from 1963 to 1968 and at Cornell from 1968 to 1983.
- His design for Roosevelt Island (1975) influenced Rem Koolhaas's 'Delirious New York'.
- Werner Oechslin criticized contemporary architecture's decontextualization at the symposium.
- Six professorships of architectural history and theory in Berlin are to be cut.
Entities
Artists
- Oswald Mathias Ungers
- Reinhard Gieselmann
- Rem Koolhaas
- Aldo Rossi
- Robert Venturi
- Karl Friedrich Schinkel
- Jean-Nicolas Durand
- Jörn Janssen
- Fritz Neumeyer
- Werner Oechslin
- Martin Kieren
- Heinrich Klotz
- Reinhold Martin
- Anja Sieber-Albers
- Sophia Ungers
- Gerhard Richter
Institutions
- Museum of Applied Art, Cologne
- Technical University of Berlin
- Cornell University
- German Architecture Museum
- Wallraf-Richartz Museum
- Museum für Angewandte Kunst Köln (MAKK)
- Badische Landesbibliothek
- Galerie der Gegenwart
- Berliner Nationalgalerie
- dpa
Locations
- Cologne
- Germany
- Berlin
- Frankfurt
- Washington, D.C.
- Roosevelt Island
- Utscheid
- Karlsruhe
- Hamburg
- Eifel
- Washington
- United States