Vittorio Magnago Lampugnani
professor emeritus
Curriculum Vitae

Vittorio Magnago Lampugnani, professor emeritus for the History of Urban Design at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, has his own architectural practice in Milan (Studio di Architettura) as well as another one in Zurich (Baukontor Architekten).

Born in Rome in 1951. Swiss primary school, Rome, German grammar school, Rome. Study of architecture at Rome and Stuttgart University; 1973 graduation and 1977 doctorate in architecture at Stuttgart University. Since 1978 member of the Baden-Württemberg Institute for Architects, since 1979 of the Deutscher Werkbund. 1983 doctorate in architecture at Rome University. Since 1991 member of the Bund Deutscher Architekten, since 1995 of the Bund Schweizer Architekten. 1992 - 96 member of the Architecture advisory board of the Deutsche Bank, Frankfurt am Main. 1999 - 2002 member of the Scientific advisory boards of the Triennale di Milano and the Musée d’Architecture Français, Paris. 2000 - 04 member of the Scientific advisory board of the Collegium Helveticum, Zurich, and of the Swiss science and technology council, Berne. 2001-14 member of the Steering Committees of all Novartis Campus sites, 2012-14 of the design advisory board of Munich airport, 2013-2017 of the evaluation committee of the Architectural Association School of Architecture, London. Since 2001 member of the Internationale Bauakademie Berlin and of the program advisory board of the Oskar von Miller Forum, Munich. Numerous prizes and awards, among them three times the price for outstanding achievement in teaching at the Department of Architecture, the Credit Suisse Award for the best teacher of the entire ETH (2017), the prize of honour of the Union of freelance architects, Munich (2006) and the Heinrich-Tessenow-Medaille (2017).

From 1974 - 80 scientific assistant at the Institute for modern architecture and design at Stuttgart University. 1981 - 82 DAAD scholarship under the Berlin programme of artistic exchanges. In 1981 and 1982 - 83 research fellowship granted by the American Council of Learned Societies at Columbia University, New York. 1983 professor at the International Summer School of Fine Arts, Salzburg. 1984 - 85 visiting professor at the Department of Architecture, Graduate School of Design, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.; 1985 - 86 Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies, Berlin. 1990 - 94 professor at the State University of Fine Arts (Städelschule), Frankfurt am Main. Since 1994 professor for the History of Urban Design at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, where he was dean of the faculty from 1998-2001; since 2003 member of the Institute for Urban Design; since 2005 dean of the Network City and Landscape. 2002-2007 director of the postgraduate program „Urban Forms. Conditions and Consequences“, 2007-10 director of the working group „Spatial Sciences in the ETH Domain“. 2010-16 Dean of the Institute of History and Theory of Architecture (gta); 2017-18 again Fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin. Furthermore lecturing and visiting professorships, among others at the Harvard University, at the Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura at the University of Navarra, Pamplona, and at the Faculty of Architecture at the Politecnico in Milan.

1984 exhibition "The adventure of ideas in architecture 1750 - 1980" at the New National Gallery of Berlin (1985 under the title „L’avventura delle idee nell’architettura 1750 - 1980“ at the Milan Triennale). 1987 exhibition "Le città immaginate: un viaggio in Italia“ (Imagined cities: a journey through Italy), mounted in the Triennale as well (with Vittorio Savi). 1990 - 95 Director of the German Architecture Museum in Frankfurt am Main; with numerous exhibitions, symposia, conference series. 1994 exhibition "Rinascimento. Da Brunelleschi a Michelangelo: La rappresentazione dell'architettura" in Palazzo Grassi in Venice (with Henry Millon); in 1995 – 96 the exhibition was shown in the National Gallery, Washington D.C., at the Musée des monuments historiques, Paris, and at the Altes Museum, Berlin.

1980 - 84 scientific consultant to the International Building Exhibition Berlin (I.B.A.) for the new construction areas. 1981 - 85 external member of the editorial board of Casabella, Milan. 1986 - 90 deputy editor and from 1990 - 95 editor of Domus, Milan. 2000 - 05 member of the editorial committee of “The Harvard Design Magazine”. Since 1995 publishing regularly articles in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung.

Since 1980 own architectural practice: first in Berlin, then in Milan and Zurich. Among his most important projects: office building in Block 109, Berlin (1991-96), with Marlene Dörrie; housing group in Maria Lankowitz near Graz (1995-99) with Marlene Dörrie and Michael Regner; entrance square of the Audi forum, Ingolstadt (1999-2001), with Wolfgang Weinzierl; urban design planning of Novartis Campus in St. Johann, Basel, (2001 ff); underground station Mergellina, Naples (2004-08); reshaping of the Donau banks, Regensburg (2004 ff), with Wolfgang Weinzierl and others; master plan Richti Quartier, Wallisellen, as well as planning of the open spaces and of a residential block with shops (2007-14); parking garage in East Hanover, New Jersey (2011-14); Office Building at Schiffbauplatz, Zurich (2014-17). These and other projects have been published in various monographs (Vittorio Magnago Lampugnani, Urban Architectures, Quart Verlag, 2006; Urban Design as Craft, gta Verlag, 2011) and in the most significant architecture magazines, amongst them Casabella, Domus and Lotus international, Milan, Arquitectura Viva, Madrid, and AMC (Architecture Mouvement Continuité), Paris, as well as in expositions (individual and collective), for example the Biennale di Venezia. Member of various jurys for architecture competitions and prizes, among them the Praemium Imperiale, Tokyo (consultant); the Mies van der Rohe Award for European Architecture, Barcelona (chairman) and the Green Prize for Urban Planning, Harvard University.

His most important architectural publications have all been translated into several languages; available in English are: Architecture of the 20th century in drawings, Rizzoli international, New York 1982; Architecture and city planning in the 20th century, Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York 1985; Encyclopaedia of 20th century architecture, Harry N. Abrams, New York 1986; Museum Architecture in Frankfurt 1980 - 1990, Prestel, Munich 1990; Museums for a New Millenium. Concepts, Projects, Buildings (Prestel, 1999), with Angeli Sachs; Novartis Campus. A Contemporary Work Environment. Premises, Elements, Perspectives (Hatje Cantz, 2009);


January 2018