Frank Barkow

Frank Barkow (born 1957) is an American architect. His practice Barkow Leibinger, founded with his partner Regine Leibinger, is known for industrial architecture (e.g.Trumpf Campus in Farmington, CT and in Stuttgart), domestic and cultural projects (e.g. the Biosphere in Potsdam and Fellows Pavilion for the American Academy in Berlin), as well as for the two landmark office towers, the TRUTEC Building in Seoul and the Tour Total in Berlin (2012).

Both Barkow and Leibinger favor a material architecture, a conviction that architectural ideas and materials are inherently related and interconnected. This allows their work to respond to advancing knowledge and technology as well as to the handcrafted, and thus explore new materials and their applications.

Education and career Frank Barkow studied architecture at Montana State University Previously he was visiting professor at the Royal College of Art in London, the EPFL, the Architectural Association in London and Cornell University Ithaca, NY, among others. He held lectures at the Monterey Design Conference, the Walter Gropius Symposium at Bauhaus Dessau, the Alvar Aalto Symposium at the University of Jyväskylä in Helsinki. - which led Hal Foster, Princeton, to following statement in the most recent publication "Spielraum":

"In the end Barkow Leibinger are bricoleurs as much as they are engineers. ... There is always an element of inspired performance in bricolage. And as the greatest philosophers in German aesthetics tell us, such play (Spiel) is also essential to art; it opens up a realm for an imaginative response to any question. In the end, this is what Barkow Leibinger offer us all: Spielraum, room for play, space for invention."

Exhibitions, collections and prizes Barkow Leibinger's work has been widely exhibited, national and internationally, including the Architecture Biennale in Venice 2008 and 2014, the 4th Marrakech Biennial "Higher Atlas", the Pinakothek der Moderne Munich, Oslo Architecture Triennale, DAM Frankfurt, MoMA New York, 032c Berlin, AA London, among others. Barkow Leibinger's work is included in the permanent collections of MoMA, New York, and the Deutsches Architektur Museum, Frankfurt. They have won three National AIA Honor Awards for Architecture and the Marcus Prize for Architecture, Milwaukee, Tour Total Berlin, 2012 Estrel Tower Berlin, competition 2014, 1. prize Fraunhofer Research Campus, Waischenfeld, 2014 Fellows Pavilion, American Academy in Berlin, 2015 Aufbau Haus 84, 2015

Publications (selection) Cultivating the Landscape, Editor Galerie Aedes, Berlin, exhibition catalogue, 1999 Werkbericht 1993–2001 / Workreport Barkow Leibinger, Editor George Wagner, Basel, Birkhäuser, 2001 Barkow Leibinger Architects Works | Opere BY 7, Editor Marcella Gallotta, Melfi: Casa Editrice Librìa, 2004 Barkow Leibinger Architects C3, Editor Uje Lee, Seoul, Korea, 2007 Reflect - Building in the Digital Media City, Seoul, Korea, Hrsg. Andres Lepik, Hatje Cantz, Ostfildern, 2007 An Atlas of Fabrication, Editor Pamela Johnson, AA Publication, London, 2009 Bricoleur/Bricolage, AA Publications, London 2013 Spielraum, Hatje Cantz, Berlin, 2014