Top Interior Designers: David Chipperfield – Sir David Chipperfield is decidedly one of the most globally recognized personalities in architecture and design. His award-winning work has been recognized many times over for its simplicity and clarity of vision, and recently, he was appointed as artistic director of Driade, the iconic Italian design house. In today’s article, the Modern Chandeliers blog is taking a look at his work, join us!

Top Interior Designers

David Chipperfield

David Chipperfield Architects

Since its foundation in 1985, David Chipperfield Architects has developed a diverse international body of work including cultural, residential, commercial, leisure, and civic projects as well as master planning exercises. Within the portfolio of museums and galleries, projects range from private collections such as the Museo Jumex in Mexico City to public institutions such as the revitalized Neues Museum in Berlin. Practices in London, Berlin, Milan, and Shanghai contribute to DCA’s wide range of projects and typologies.
Ongoing current projects include the Nobel Center in Stockholm; a new building for the Kunsthaus Zurich in Switzerland; the restoration of the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin; a mixed-use tower overlooking Bryant Park in New York; a luxury resort in Doha, Qatar; the James Simon Gallery, a new entrance building to Berlin’s Museum Island; Elizabeth House, a major new office and residential development near Waterloo in London; the Palace of Justice in Salerno, Italy; and a headquarters building for Korean cosmetics company Amorepacific in Seoul.

The practice has won more than 100 international awards and citations for design excellence, including the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), Royal Fine Art Commission (RFAC), and American Institute of Architects (AIA) awards, as well as the RIBA Stirling Prize in 2007, and the European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture – Mies van der Rohe Award in 2011. David Chipperfield received the 2011 RIBA Royal Gold Medal and the Japan Art Association’s Praemium Imperiale in 2013, in recognition of a lifetime’s work. The reputation of the office is established by both a commitment to the collaborative aspect of creating architecture and a strong focus on refining design ideas to arrive at a solution that is architecturally, socially, and intellectually coherent.

Biography: The man before the myth

Sir David Alan Chipperfield (born 18 December 1953) is a British architect. David Chipperfield has been recognized for his work with an array of honors and awards including membership in the Royal Academy of Arts, the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, a knighthood for services to architecture, and the Premium Imperiale from Japan Art Association in 2013.

David Chipperfield Architects is a global architectural practice with offices in London, Berlin, Milan, and Shanghai, and projects in more than 20 countries on 4 continents. The practice’s projects have received more than 100 architecture and design awards, including the 2007 RIBA Stirling Prize (for the Museum of Modern Literature, Marbach), the 2011 European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture (Mies van der Rohe Award), and the 2011 Deutscher Architekturpreis.

The Most Iconic Projects

Villa Eden, Gardone, 2008-2015

The western shore of Lake Garda is characterized by its mild climate and richly cultivated landscape. David Chipperfield Architects has built two villas on the hillside looking over the resort town of Gardone Riviera. Both buildings are carefully inserted into the landscape with their olive groves and cypress trees. Their volumes are divided into individual one or two-story structures, which are offset by one another following the topography of the hillside.

Valentino Rome Flagship Store, Rome, 2015

The new Rome Flagship Store is situated on Piazza di Spagna, in the former American Express building. It is next to the Palazzo Gabrielli-Mignanelli (1575), which historically has been the creative nerve center and principal headquarters of Valentino Maison.

Editor’s choice:

Empire Small Pendant

Museo Jumex, Mexico, 2009-2013

Located on a triangular site within the Polanco area of Mexico City, this new museum building exhibits part of one of the largest private collections of contemporary art in Latin America – Colección Jumex – and is part of a wider urban redevelopment. Overlooked by large commercial buildings, the constrained site is delineated by the major street Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, the Ferrocarril de Cuernavaca railway line, and an adjacent property to the east. The extremely individual quality of the neighboring buildings overrides any attempt to integrate the new museum within this particular urban context. The absence of a discernible streetscape or coherent aesthetic into which the project could be comfortably inscribed therefore offered a rare opportunity to create a distinct building that simultaneously contributes to the larger context. Heading the triangular park, the building can be described as a freestanding pavilion that corresponds to the eclectic nature of the neighboring buildings, which include the Museo Soumaya and the underground Teatro Cervantes. The mass of the building responds to the non-orthogonal plan of the site, which it exploits to provide the maximum footprint while delivering the program within the constraints of local planning requirements

The Creator’s Choice

In 1999, David Chipperfield was awarded the Tessenow Gold Medal, which was followed by a comprehensive exhibition of his work together with the work of the Tessenow Stipendiat and Spanish architect Andrés Jaque, held in the Hellerau Festspielhaus. In 2004 he was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for services to architecture and was made Honorary Member of the Florence Academy of Art and Design in 2003. In 2009 he was awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, the highest tribute the Federal Republic of Germany can pay to individuals for services to the nation. In the New Year Honours 2010, Chipperfield was appointed as a Knight Bachelor for services to architecture in the UK and Germany. He was awarded the Wolf Prize in Arts in 2010 and the Royal Gold Medal of the Royal Institute of British Architects in 2011. “Form Matters”, an exhibition looking back over Chipperfield’s career, was mounted by London’s Design Museum in 2009. His Tonale range of ceramics for Alessi received the Compassod’Oro in 2011, and the Piana folding chair has recently been acquired for the permanent collection at MoMA.