Christoph Ingenhoven

Christoph Ingenhoven was born in Düsseldorf in 1960 and studied architecture at the RWTH Aachen from 1978 to 1984 and from 1980 to 1981 at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf with Hans Hollein. In 1985, Christoph Ingenhoven founded the architecture office ingenhoven architects in Düsseldorf, which was acquired by BKW Energie in 2019.^[7] Today, he heads his architecture studio under the name christoph ingenhoven architects with headquarters in Düsseldorf.^[8]

Christoph Ingenhoven received international recognition in 1997 with the design of one of the world's first ecological high-rise buildings, the RWE Tower in Essen.^[9] Before, in 1991, the then 31-year-old Ingenhoven received a great deal of attention when he and his team competed in the international competition for the Commerzbank Tower in Frankfurt and shared jury prize with Norman Foster. The fact that Foster was commissioned to build the skyscraper prompted Frei Otto to make a public statement in which he spoke out in favor of the young German architect's design.^[10][11]

Christoph Ingenhoven is a founding member of the German Sustainable Building Council (DGNB) and the Bundesstiftung Baukultur, a federal foundation for architectural culture in Germany. He is member of the International Academy of Architecture.

Christoph Ingenhoven pursues an approach to sustainable architecture that strives for the highest ecological, architectural and artistic goals. The structural designs provide for the use of natural resources such as sunlight, geothermal energy, rainwater and air conditioning through natural ventilation and are adapted to the surrounding (urban) landscape as site-specifically as possible.^[13][14] Ingenhoven calls his concept of holistic, interdisciplinary, sustainable architecture supergreen. In addition to the ecological aspects, the supergreen concept also includes social and humanistic aspects.^[15][16][17]

Christoph Ingenhoven's works received numerous national and international awards and recognitions, including the Holcim Awards for Sustainable Construction Gold for Stuttgart Main Station and the International High-Rise Award for 1 Bligh in Sydney.^[18][19] His projects have received several MIPIM and WAF awards, e.g. the Lanserhof Sylt won both in 2023.^[20][21]

Christoph Ingenhoven was recipient of Europe's highest architecture award in 2022, the European Prize for Architecture.^[22] The Saxon Academy of Arts honored Ingenhoven with the Gottfried Semper Prize 2019. The German structural engineer and architect Werner Sobek delivered the laudatory speech at the award ceremony in Dresden.^[23] In 2023, Christoph Ingenhoven has been awarded the Golden Flower, Germany's oldest environmental prize, which has been awarded biennally since 1967.^[24] In 2024, he was awarded the AW Architect of the Year.^[25] This award was the occasion for the exhibition Stuttgart Main Station. A Once-in-a-Century Project Becomes Reality at the Aedes Architecture Forum in Berlin.^[26]

• International Academy of Architecture, UNESCO^[27]
• Bundesstiftung Baukultur (founding member)^[28]
• German Sustainable Building Council DGNB (founding member)^[29]
• Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH)^[30]
• North Rhine-Westphalia Academy for Science and Arts^[31]
• Association of German Architects (BDA)^[32]
• American Institute of Architects (AIA)
• Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA)
• Swiss Society of Engineers and Architects (SIA)^[33]
• Australian Institute of Architects
• North Rhine-Westphalia Association of Architects (AKNW)^[34]

• Michael Keller/Christoph Ingenhoven (2025). Does something have to come out right away? Relax friends, architecture is architecture! Unfinished Conversations #6. Blackspace Munich. ISBN 978-3-00-085542-9
• Feireiss, Kristin/Commerell, Hans-Jürgen (2024). Christoph Ingenhoven. Stuttgart Main Station - A Once-in-a-Century Project Becomes Reality. Aedes Berlin. ISBN 978-3-94361585-2
• a+u 2015:08 (539) Feature: ingenhoven architects - supergreen
• Ingenhoven, Christoph (2022). Stadt neu denken - Es liegt an uns zu handeln! In: Brunnengräber, Achim: Das Zeitalter der Städte (in German). Jahrbuch Ökologie. Hirzel. ISBN 978-3-7776-3032-8
• Ingenhoven, Christoph (2019). Arbeiten am Raumschiff Erde oder: Die grüne Agora. In: Weibel, Peter: "Von Morgenröten, die noch nicht geleuchtet haben" (in German). Suhrkamp. ISBN 978-3-518-46943-9
• Ingenhoven, Christoph/Altenschmidt, Stefan/Lambertz, Michaela/Mösle, Peter (2018): Praxishandbuch Green Building (in German). De Gruyter. ISBN 978-3-11-027517-9
• Feireis, Kristin (2002). Energies (in German). Birkhäuser. ISBN 3-7643-6667-2
• Ingenhoven Overdiek und Partner/KMS Team (2001): 1/1 Architecture and Design: New Synergies. Birkhäuser. ISBN 3-7643-6466-1
• Ingenhoven, Christoph and Pehnt, Wolfgang (2000). Ingenhoven, Overdiek und Partner 1991–1999. Birkhäuser. ISBN 3-7643-5839-4

• christoph ingenhoven architects
• Christoph Ingenhoven shows his former office in Düsseldorf
• Christoph Ingenhoven at CTBUH
• Christoph Ingenhoven at world-architects.com
• Interview in Hills Life Magazine
• lecture at Architects not Architecture
• lecture at ZKM in Karlsruhe
• lecture at Oskar von Miller Forum (Deutsches Museum)
• Architectural Record's DESIGN:ED Podcast with Christoph Ingenhoven