Josef Paul Kleihues

Josef Paul Kleihues (11 June 1933, Rheine – 13 August 2004, Berlin) was a German architect, most notable for his decades long contributions to the "critical reconstruction" of Berlin. His design approach has been described as "poetic rationalist".

In 1971 Kleihues designed "Block 270", a residential building in Berlin-Wedding. This became an important work which re-established the Berlin block plan, a traditional typology, that stood in opposition to contemporary urban planning. As professor at the TU Dortmund University from 1973

He was a visiting professor at Cornell University during fall 1975. From 1986 to 1991 he held the Irwin S. Chanin Distinguished International Professorship at The Cooper Union's School of Architecture. In 1989 his work was presented in Joseph Paul Kleihues: The Museum Projects, an exhibition and an accompanying catalog (Rizzoli, 1989) at The Cooper Union.

Kleihues received international recognition for several museum projects, including for the Sprengel Museum in Hanover (1972) and the Museum of Prehistory in Frankfurt (1980–86). He continued designing museums, including the Civic Gallery and Lütze Museum in Sindelfingen (1987–90), the Berlin Museum of Contemporary Art, an adaptive reuse of the Hamburger Bahnhof, a 19th-century railway station, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago.