Gerber Architekten. Installation view at Palazzo Bembo, 2016.

Global Architecture – Eckhard Gerber’s ambition for an open and memorable architecture
Gerber Architekten is a German architectural practice working on national and inter-national projects with offices in Dortmund, Hamburg, Berlin, Riyadh, and Shanghai. The office was founded by Professor Eckhard Gerber in 1966. Throughout five decades he and his team have built memorable buildings in many countries and have been awarded with many architecture prizes.
Almost all commissions result from successful competition entries, many of which are international. As a consequence, Eckhard Gerber and his office have acquired expertise in almost every type of building, including office and residential buildings, universities, science and research facilities, arts and cultural buildings, high-rise buildings, railway stations, urban restorations, exhibition halls, and hotels. The work of Gerber Architekten also covers the varied disciplines of architecture, urban design, landscape design, and interior design.
From the very beginning, Eckhard Gerber, with his team Gerber Architekten, have followed a design principal which might be described as a strategy of “the unpreju-diced open mind”; a vision, which refocuses the depth of field on every new aspect of a project. That is to say, they try to gain something very specific and made to measure out of each building task and location. At one time this was seen as part of the natural consideration of the genius loci. Nowadays, however, when the genius loci of many places has disappeared for ever, we tend to speak rather unemotionally about contextual design.
Imagine an architectural approach which is capable of enlivening urban and architectural compositions with openness – a void that is capable of being continually recharged by the imagination – rather than filling them with petrified, unchanging forms. Such an approach would be very close to what Adolf Arndt described in his famous speech of 1961 as “a more democratic, meaning humane, design culture“.
Without doubt, Eckhard Gerber and his team Gerber Architekten can be considered as following this approach. He has never been interested in labels but rather in the often-quoted ”added value“ with which he has endowed each of his buildings – always aiming to stimulate mind and senses. Taking all his buildings together, this “added value” is a personal statement of what God and the world means to this architect, who grew up in a rectory.
Even if the still young 21st century becomes more globally orientated and positioned and dissolves or dilutes established conceptions, Eckhard Gerber’s buildings, pro-jects, and visions will still be excellent starting points for a kind of constructive re-sistance; a resistance that uses tectonics and transparency as strategic instruments to avoid losing sight of the poetic idea of “moving out into the wide open spaces”.
In an almost symbolic way, what could illustrate this better than the big buildings and visions for Saudi Arabia? Whether they are interpreted as a flying carpet, a petrified sand dune, or an oasis of the future, they always promise a spirit of optimism and a call for action. It is precisely this promise that has been fulfilled by so many other Gerber buildings, a promise that, even in spite of his prodigious oeuvre, is still creating a desire for more.