Test your design IQ
MANILA, Philippines - Who is the Iranian born architect who designed some of the most popular buildings from Duzai to Hamburg and from Moscow to Istambul?
He was born on February 2, 1954 in Tehran, Iran, and left his homeland before the tightening of the internal situation in his country.
He moved to Germany in 1977 to study architecture at the Technical University of Braunschweig, where he graduated in 1984. He went on to teach at Aachen’s Technical University, and quite exceptionally began his career as a fashion designer before completely dedicating himself to architecture and becoming a celebrated name in that field.
A freelance architect since 1990, he founded the architecture company Bothe Richter Teherani in 1001. He later founded a self-named company in 2003, and with buildings from Dubai to Hamburg, and from Moscow to Instanbuil, he shapes modern cityscapesof international metropolises.
As an architect possessing an exceptional approach to design, his unique sense of aesthetics and feel for shapes, surfaces, and proportion carry over into other areas of design, which include lamps, street furniture, and home textiles.
In his enthusiasm for the extraordinary, his curiosity, and his ability to think outside the box are part and parcel of every single one of his designs, giving them an unparalleled emotional quality Projects like the Living Bridge and the visionary Docklands office building in Hamburg always consider the immediate environment of each objects. Architecture adapts to its surroundings and vice versa. With this approach, he designs buildings and products with a futuristic look, and feel that still blends seamlessly into their respective environments.
His body of work has been very prolific — the Landmark street furniture line, a bus stop shelter, automatic public toilets, vending kiosks, city information panels, advertising pillars, and bluespot terminals. Some of his more recent projects include Business Bay and The Cube both in Dubai
His defined, aesthetic shapes have won numerous awards: a Red Dot Award in 2007 for the Landmark bus stop; a Good Design Award for the Chicago Athenaeum in 2006, and the hampergerdesignpreis in 2006. In 1999, he became a member of the Hamburg Free Academy of Arts and won the Hamburg BDA Architecture Prize n the same year. He received the 2000 German Critics Prize, as well as FAIBCI Prix d’ Excellence for the House Double X in 2001 and the German Steel Construction Award for the office building in Berlin Arch in 2002.
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Last week’s question: Who is the pastry chef and cookbook author who has influenced the way Americans prepare desserts, and is known as the First Lady of Desserts?
Answer: Maida Heatter
Winner: Azucena Alim of Bicutan
