19.01.2023: Andreas Ruby @ Werkstattgespräche

“The Happy (Never) Endings of Architecture”

Why do we talk about a building being finished when its inhabitants haven’t even moved in yet? Is architecture “finished” without the lives of the people who inhabit it and who will at some point change it structurally as their needs change? If one compares the “handover” of a building with the birth of a human being, then the life of a building would only really begin afterwards. In the media communication of architecture, buildings seem to be interesting only as babies. In doing so, we miss out on the most exciting thing architecture has to offer: The adventure of its own perpetual transformation.

Andreas Ruby is a German architecture critic, publisher and curator. After studying art history, philosophy and media studies in Berlin, Trier, Bonn, Düsseldorf and Cologne, he worked as an editor at the architecture magazine Daidalos in Berlin. He taught architectural theory at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, the University of Kassel, TU Graz and ENSAPM in Paris. Together with Ilka Ruby, he founded the agency for architectural communication Textbild in 2001 and the award-winning architectural book publisher Ruby Press in 2008, whose catalogue now includes 50 titles. Since 2016, he has been director of the Swiss Architecture Museum S AM in Basel.

The event will start at 7:00 p.m. in our Zurich office at Geerenweg 2. We look forward to taking another step in the debate!