Stefan Behnisch

Stefan Behnisch, born 1957 in Stuttgart, studied philosophy and economics in Munich and architecture in Karlsruhe, Germany. He worked as an architect in Behnisch & Partner, the practice founded by his father Günter Behnisch, before establishing his own practice in 1989.  This practice, Behnisch Architekten, became independent in 1991 and has built up a reputation for various innovative sustainable buildings, for example the Institute for Forestry and Nature Research in Wageningen, The Netherlands. As the firm expanded, further offices were founded in Los Angeles, CA (1999), in Boston, MA (2007), and in Munich (2008). Stefan Behnisch has been an advocate of sustainable design since he started working as an architect. Many of his buildings received prestigious awards, and the Genzyme Center in Cambridge, MA, was rated LEED Platinum. He has worked on Harvard’s Allston Science Complex in Allston/Boston and residential buildings in the USA and Germany, as well as on office buildings, laboratories, health care buildings, museums, etc. in various countries, the most recent completed ones being the oceanographic museum OZEANEUM in North German Stralsund, the Unilever headquarter building and the residential Marco Polo Tower in Hamburg’s HafenCity. Among his current projects are the John and Frances Angelos Law Center for the University of Baltimore and a new building for Amherst College in the USA. In 2007 Stefan Behnisch received a Global Award for Sustainable Architecture (one of five) and in 2009 a Good Design Award in the category “People” presented by the Chicago Athenaeum and the European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies. In 2008 he was named Honorary Fellow of the AIA - American Institute of Architects. Stefan Behnisch has been the Eero Saarinen Chair visiting professor at Yale School of Architecture in 2005, 2006, 2008 and 2009, is Miller Visiting Professor at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, and also Harry W. Porter Jr. Visiting Professor at the University of Virginia School of Architecture.