On Boundaries

In several theoretical essays, dialogues on collaborative projects and reflections on his own work, the architect Nikolaus Hirsch explores the critical transformations of contemporary space and its effects on spatial practice. On the threshold to disciplines such as visual and performative arts (“Planning the Unpredictable” with William Forsythe) he questions the notion of “boundary”: as a phenomenon of social and political discourse, as a conflict between collaboration and authorship, as well as a physical limitation that negotiates between stable and unstable conditions.

Nikolaus Hirsch is a Frankfurt-based architect, educator, and curator. He was the Dean of Städelschule and Director of Portikus Kunsthalle in Frankfurt am Main. His architectural work includes the award-winning Dresden Synagogue (2001), Bockenheimer Depot Theater (with William Forsythe), Cybermohalla Hub (Delhi, 2012), and “Do We Dream Under The Same Sky” (Art Basel, 2015/LUMA Arles, 2017). Hirsch has curated „ErsatzStadt“ at Volksbühne Berlin (2005), numerous exhibitions at the Portikus, the Folly project for the Gwangju Biennale (2013), “Wohnungsfrage” at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin (2015), and the German Pavilion at the Architecture Biennale 2020 in Venice. He is the co-editor of Institution Building, Superhumanity, and the Critical Spatial Practice series from Sternberg Press, and co-founder of e-flux architecture.