As a gallerist, Kristin Feireiss was always also a collector – of themes, of trends, but above all of people who embodied those themes. At the countless exhibition openings she hosted, she would often begin her introductory remarks with a personal anecdote: how she met the artists or architects, how the collaboration came about, what connected them. She always began with the human being – with curiosity, openness, and a genuine interest in the person she encountered.

When I moved to Berlin in 2004 to relaunch ARCH+ together with Nikolaus Kuhnert, this quality of hers struck me immediately. Although we never worked together directly, she was a reliable ally – especially when it came to taking a stand. Whenever there was controversy and it was necessary to speak out publicly, Kristin was there: dependable, supportive, engaged. Most recently, she lent her voice to the call for ideas titled Schlossaneignung (“Reappropriating the Palace”). She had always taken a clear and determined stance against the reconstruction of the Berlin Palace.

While ARCH+ often operated with discursive sharpness, Kristin consistently maintained connections in all directions – connecting, mediating, building networks. She called regularly, offered praise, encouragement, shared her thoughts. In recent times, she reached out more frequently to express her delight about developments at the Akademie der Künste. She was attentive. She was present.

What also connected us was the ongoing and often exhausting effort to preserve and protect the independence of our respective institutions. The discourse that Kristin Feireiss cultivated at Aedes – as we do at ARCH+ – has never been structurally secured. It lives from the personal commitment of those involved – from passion, conviction, and perseverance. And not least from an economy of means, which turns creative improvisation into a necessity. Alongside content, she – like us – constantly had to tend to the financial foundation on which such independence rests. A foundation we strive to maintain against all odds, for good reason.

From personal experience, I know what it takes not just to keep an independent institution alive over decades, but to infuse it with life. In that sense, Kristin was a role model. For all of us.

Regine met Kristin at the old Grolmanstraße Aedes location in the ’80s, when she was a student at the TU, for a spectacular Peter Eisenman exhibition.

Frank met Kristin in Berlin in early 1993, when we had just moved to the city from a year in Rome with Cornell University. Frank didn’t speak a word of German, and Kristin fixed him with a steady gaze before rather pointedly asking in her charmingly accented English, “What is your position?! IN ARCHITECTURE.” Taken aback, Frank said, “I really haven’t thought about it too much, but I’ll get back to you on that ASAP.” Luckily, she liked the student project he’d done for her friend Thom Mayne at Harvard for the American Library in Berlin. He was a newcomer to Berlin but knew enough to know that she was THE go-to person in Berlin if you wanted to be successful. That was clear.

It seemed like a generous way to be part of a larger discussion, and we did a show with Kristin that neatly bridged 1999 into 2000 — a time when our practice started to take off. We didn’t quite know what a curator was then, or what one did, so we put together a nice exhibition (Cultivating the Landscape) and catalogue at the old Aedes location in Savignyplatz, near where we lived and worked. That space under the S-Bahn, with the trains rolling overhead, made you feel like you were part of a new, dynamic, and emerging city. It felt good.

We discovered what sort of gallerist/curator Kristin was. She had an eye for critical architecture. She made you think about what you stood for, what made you unique, why what you were doing mattered. She was not a controlling curator. She let you figure out what and how you wanted to present yourself — and then let you know if you were on the right track. This kind of dialogue made you stake a claim for yourself, what you meant as a young practice — and that was perhaps the most valuable lesson of all.

Kristin was a connector, first and foremost. She brought people together. At her birthday parties, we were flattered to be invited and astonished by the collective group of friends, rivals, former teachers, and stars she was able to bring to her and Hans-Jürgen’s home in Tuscany from around the world. Nobody in Berlin, Germany, or Europe for that matter had the capacity, influence, or warmth to do this — then or now. Through her natural curiosity and generosity of spirit, she could. She made you feel like you were part of something, that you mattered.

And in over 30 years of friendship — over dinners, exhibition openings, lectures, and teaching — she was always there, reaching out for you (literally): an encouraging and supportive voice through both successes and struggles, good times and bad. And for this, we are boundlessly grateful.

She was one of a kind, and we will not come across another like her anytime soon.

With love and respect,
Regine and Frank

To us, as architecture students at TU Berlin in the 1980s who also lived nearby, the Aedes Gallery on Grolmanstraße in Charlottenburg felt like part of the immediate neighborhood. Tim recalls exhibitions such as Vollendung des Wiederaufbaus – Entwurf für ein Wohngebäude in Rotterdam by OMA (Rem Koolhaas, Stefano de Martino, Kees Christiaanse), which he visited with his father in 1982, and Wettbewerb Adenauerplatz by Zaha Hadid in 1986. During the opening, the phone rang in the back room of the small gallery. Kristin rushed to answer it, picked up the receiver, and called out to the crowd: “Rem is on the phone!” It was Rem Koolhaas, calling to personally congratulate Zaha Hadid on her exhibition. The opening then simply continued as if nothing had happened.

In 1995, our first joint exhibition titled bilden took place in the new gallery space under the railway arches at Savignyplatz. It was accompanied by a small catalogue featuring an introductory text by Adolf Krischanitz. By then, the gallery was jointly run by Kristin Feireiss and Hans-Jürgen Commerell, and would soon relocate to Berlin-Mitte.

While Kristin served as director of the Netherlands Architecture Institute (NAI), she invited us – together with Berlin colleagues – to participate in the group exhibition Made in Berlin, held in Rotterdam in 2001 to mark the end of her 5-year tenure. Later collaborations included exhibition and publication projects, symposia, and guest critiques – each of them representative of the remarkable breadth and diversity of formats initiated, organized, and curated by the Aedes Metropolitan Laboratory on Christinenstraße under the direction of Kristin and Hans-Jürgen and their team. Just four weeks ago, she wrote to us from Tinos, saying how especially interested she was in our project in Thessaloniki and that she would love to meet soon. Sadly, that meeting never came to be.

Kristin’s contributions to architectural discourse over the past four decades have consistently set new standards. Her influence on the culture of exhibiting, presenting, and discussing architecture was singular—not least because she continually encouraged emerging architects, curators, and gallerists to realize projects of their own, and because Aedes became a model for exhibition formats and spaces in other parts of the world. For all her professionalism, she was always warm, personal, affectionate — almost familial. Family meant everything to her, and she instinctively extended her idea of family to include all of us.

For this, we are endlessly grateful.

I first met Kristin in 1981, when we – the newly established Rotterdam-based OMA office – held our first exhibition in West Berlin at Galerie Aedes, which at the time was located in a small storefront on Grolmanstraße. She formed a duo with Helga Retzer, and even then it struck me how much social talent, entrepreneurial spirit, and cultural instinct she brought to curating the architectural scene. After the opening, there was a dinner in Grunewald with a few architects, among them von Bülow and Kleihues Sr., who brought along his 19-year-old, long-haired son Jan.

We were in close contact especially in 1996 and 1997, when she became director of the Netherlands Architecture Institute (NAI) and I, like Matthias Sauerbruch, received a professorship at TU Berlin. Kristin rented a three-room postwar apartment in Rotterdam, not unlike the one I had lived in for seven years. From time to time, we flew together from Amsterdam to Tegel (or back) on early morning flights. She would get up at 4 a.m. to get ready, while I only rose around six.

Before long, she organized an exchange at the NAI between young offices from Berlin and Rotterdam, including Barkow Leibinger, Sauerbruch Hutton, and Grüntuch Ernst – described by Matthias Sauerbruch as the background singers for Kristin’s first Holland show.

At the opening dinner for the Erasmus Bridge – naturally initiated by Kristin – we found ourselves seated at a table with Thom Mayne and Ben van Berkel. When the evening ended, Thom turned to me and said, “By the way, congratulations with your new bridge!” He had mistaken me for Ben the entire evening.

For the KCAP–ASTOC exhibition in the Aedes space under the S-Bahn arches, I gave a lecture at TU Berlin beforehand. In the middle of it, Kristin suddenly ran onto the stage and said: “Kees, you’re talking far too long. We have to go to the opening now! Let’s go!” And the entire audience stood up as one and headed off.

Kristin became a key figure in Dutch architectural culture. She truly made the NAI international and influential. Together with Matthias Sauerbruch and Juliette Beckering, we organized a summer school. And it was largely thanks to her that, in 2003, the now-renowned International Architecture Biennale Rotterdam (IABR) saw the light of day at the NAI.

Sadly, Kristin stepped down as director of the NAI in 2001. Klaus Töpfer, then head of UNEP, flew to Rotterdam specifically to attend her farewell celebration and award her the Federal Cross of Merit. She would later also be honored with the Order of the Dutch Lion. I was not the only one to regret her resignation – the entire Dutch architectural culture did. The institution was never the same after Kristin.

Kristin, thank you.

For decades, Kristin was like an architectural mother to me – especially as I came into the field as a lateral entrant, developing conferences, exhibitions, and projects. Time and again, she set me on the right path. She pointed me toward crucial calls I absolutely had to apply for – like the 2004 Architecture Biennale or the position at S_AM in Basel.

As the patron of the MakeCity Festival, she was gentle, yet also clear and focused when working on concepts and texts. At the same time, she was always attentive to life beyond the professional sphere. She cared about my well-being, my son, my thoughts about the uncertainties of freelance work. She firmly disregarded the boundaries between the personal and the professional – what mattered more to her was that one pursued, with mind and soul, what truly moved and inspired you. That’s how we spoke to each other – about highs and lows alike.

More than anything, she encouraged me to take a stand – to hold clear positions and to explore new paths. I could call her anytime. She always made time for me. We’d meet on her rooftop garden or at the café next door – her first question was always: “What do you need?” and when we parted, she almost always said: “You’ll make it.”

The strength with which she lifted me up, time and again, was an expression of solidarity, care, and deep human connection. I will never forget her.

The beginning of my career as an architect in Berlin is closely tied to Kristin. When I moved from New York to Berlin in the summer of 1994, it was through the initiative of Liz Diller that I immediately met Kristin and Hans-Jürgen. This jump-start to our acquaintance led – alongside 30 years of friendship – to our first exhibition in 2002, still at Aedes West at the time. We presented our first successes. And we produced a catalogue with a glow-in-the-dark cover. Invitations to professorships and international competitions soon followed.

Kristin’s enthusiasm was infectious, and she was constantly in search of the new. To explore international architecture within her orbit, and to be part of her curiosity, remains a special gift to me to this day. And ever since, there have been countless occasions, celebrations, and conversations to honor Kristin and to celebrate with her. These moments are unforgettable, and I will miss her deeply.

The catalogue we made together back then still casts a lasting glow.

Like many other offices, Atelier Bow-Wow also had an important exhibition at Aedes — ours was in 2012. Kristin always believed in us, always encouraged us.

I visited Kristin and Hans-Jürgen at their home last November, during the first general assembly of the Akademie der Künste I attended as a newly elected member. We talked, had tea, and shared a lovely piece of cake.

Kristin showed me her many drawings and artworks, each filled with memories of friends and moments from a rich life. It was a wonderful, generous time — one I’ll never forget.

Thank you, Kristin. You will be missed. Please rest in peace.

She introduced generations of architects representing a wide range of architectural positions—something for which she was at times sharply criticized, especially during the architectural debates in Berlin in the 1990s. She simply shrugged it off, seemed to let it bounce right off her—yet it did affect her personally.

It was always a deep personal concern of hers to present not only well-known architects but also emerging ones at Galerie Aedes—including Konrad Wohlhage and myself. In our moment of greatest uncertainty, after winning first prize for the World Trade Center in 1991, she spontaneously supported us unknowns with an exhibition—despite the skepticism of the clients.

Just four weeks ago, she opened her final exhibition, and the next morning she was there, as always, at the customary brunch for her guests.
That was Kristin! She died the way she lived—at full throttle.

I will not forget her.

I first met Kristin Feireiss at a café on Savignyplatz, during a preparatory meeting for the exhibition The Seven Rooms of Zurich – and found myself face to face with an incredibly warm-hearted, alert, and curious woman. She was instantly on fire, bubbling over with ideas. It was sympathy at first sight. And quite unexpectedly, this first encounter quickly turned into something more: not long after, when I arrived in Berlin as Senate Building Director, Kristin immediately took me in – she opened the doors to the Berlin scene for me, with a natural ease and openness for which I remain deeply grateful to this day.

Throughout all my years in office, Aedes was always more than just a place: it was a piece of home, a space of experimentation – and at the same time, a window to the world. Kristin Feireiss and Hans-Jürgen Commerell became my “research department.” Through their exhibitions, forums, and international knowledge platform, they turned Berlin into a hotspot for global urban development trends.

Over the years, Kristin brought countless – and at times wonderfully eccentric – projects to life, both for me and for the city of Berlin. One I especially remember is the Urban Intervention Award Berlin. Though the budget was modest, the ambition was great – and in Kristin I found the perfect partner for its conception and realization. She was used to stepping into uncharted territory. With a wealth of experience, international renown, and an instinctive feel for impact, she conjured an exhibition that was as simple as it was – in the truest sense of the word – magnificent. And as if on the side, she improvised a witty little neon sign for the trophy cabinet – just one of her many talents.

It was Kristin’s tireless curiosity, her energy, her love of travel, her knowledge and her openness that made all of these projects possible in the first place. Her work was not only successful – it had integrity, depth, and soul.

To me, Kristin was far more than a brilliant curator, writer, publisher, and connector. Over the years, she became a close friend. When she published her autobiography in 2012, we grew even closer in a new way. We talked a lot – about her book, about life, and about what connected us: the experience of asserting oneself as a woman, far from home and from one’s own family, in a new environment. Kristin welcomed me with open arms – as she did so many others. She accompanied me through difficult times, often marveling in disbelief at some of the stories I shared from Berlin’s political scene. We were able to make sense of things, to discuss and reframe experiences, and to come to terms with resistance. She had a fine instinct for people – intelligent, sensitive, with great wisdom about life.

What touched me most was her generosity – and her deep sense of family. Anyone who met Kristin instantly became part of her global family. No one had to apply – everyone was naturally welcomed, taken by the hand, and placed in just the right spot at the table.

When I think of Kristin, I see her open, warm smile. I see the slight tilt of her head when she voiced a quiet truth. I hear her voice, speaking of a person or an encounter, her eyes lit with wonder.

Dear Kristin, I will miss you deeply. I can no longer call or drop by for tea. And most of all, I will miss your enthusiastic “wonderful!” – because no word ever captured you better.

I first met Kristin in 2019, when she invited us to exhibit at Aedes. Of course, I already knew of her – back when I was a student of Svein Tønsager in Aarhus, the most avant-garde students would travel to Berlin just to see the exhibitions at Savignyplatz. I was just a first-year student, naturally not included.

Meeting Kristin felt like reuniting with someone deeply familiar, being welcomed with the warmth of an old friend. Her energy and engagement were infectious, and she had a rare ability to make everyone around her feel truly seen and included. Witnessing her deep bond with Hans-Jürgen only added to the sense of connection and care that defined her.

Kristin was sharp, fiercely loyal, and a genuinely good friend. Her profound knowledge of critical issues and remarkable analytical clarity remained intact always. She was curious, enthusiastic, and unwavering in her belief in the power of architecture.

It is an honour and a joy – something truly special – to have been part of her circle.

Kristin Feireiss has accompanied me since the late 1980s – through her gallery, through her attitude, through her openness. As a young architect, she opened my mind and gave meaning to a Berlin I hadn’t yet learned to love. Even though she herself never truly embraced the narrowness of this city – she was the very opposite of the parochialism Alfred Kerr once described as the Berlin provincial mindset.

I deeply valued her generosity, her hospitality, her ability to connect people, and her tireless curiosity. Conversations with her were always inspiring; her advice was clear, kind, and often pathbreaking.

I will miss her wide-open gaze, her ability to think beyond the obvious, and the visionary force she brought to everything she touched.

I must have first met Kristin around 1980. As a student, I used to wander around the Aedes gallery on Grolmanstraße like a child circling a bowl of jelly. I was irresistibly drawn to the place. One of the first exhibitions I vividly remember showed the work of Peter & Alison Smithson – an experience that, in an osmotic and lasting way, profoundly shaped my life and my view of architecture.

At the time, Kristin seemed like someone straight out of London’s Biba department store: cool, elegant, casual, and avant-garde – and, incidentally, she remained all of that until the very end.

In the 1980s, I became more familiar with Aedes and – following the currents of Rem Koolhaas and Elia Zenghelis – also with Kristin herself. But perhaps our most significant and telling “Kristin moment” occurred in 1991, just after our newly founded office, Sauerbruch Hutton, won the competition for the GSW building. Almost simultaneously, a new Senate Building Director was appointed – and he rejected our design. When Kristin caught wind of his attempts to undermine the project, she spontaneously invited Louisa Hutton and me to present our project to the public at the gallery – by then already located under the S-Bahn arches at Savignyplatz. At the opening evening, Philip Johnson happened to be in town, and standing in front of our model, he told the client: “Go and build this.” The rest is history.

Kristin was spontaneous, courageous (she didn’t care about the risks), she had principles – and she made them unmistakably clear. Even back then, she was the center of the small Berlin and the considerably larger international architectural scene, which, not least through the IBA, had taken a growing interest in the city. We had to fight on for nearly eight more years until the GSW building was finally completed on Kochstraße. In the many moments of weakness – whether self-inflicted or externally caused – Kristin was always a role model for us: in her perseverance and her determined energy, which often exceeded the limits of her own endurance (and at times, perhaps, that of those around her).

An architecture gallery is not a profitable business model. Contemporary architectural drawings and models have no commercial value. The gallerist is not a salesperson of objects or images. She brings ideas to the public – ideas whose value often only becomes clear much later. Often unnoticed by her contemporaries (but together with Hans-Jürgen Commerell), she acted as a sharp-eyed herald of new tendencies.

Who even knows that the now world-famous artist Ai Weiwei had his first appearance in Germany at Aedes? To this day, young architects from all over the world celebrate their debut at Aedes. And by now, its sphere of influence has extended beyond the professional into the academic realm. ANCB – The Aedes Metropolitan Laboratory – collaborates with universities around the globe, gathers ideas, and produces knowledge. How all of this has worked – without any public funding from the city, state, or federal government – remains something of a miracle. One that we are now hoping to support with the founding of a circle of friends (Aedes Alumni & Friends, AAF e.V.).

What began as a purely architectural relationship with Kristin soon grew into a deeply personal friendship, which of course came to include Hans-Jürgen as well (who joined the scene around 35 years ago). She was one of the most generous and open-hearted people I have ever known. Even so, she never revealed internal conflicts, problems, or doubts – though, of course, they existed. She always had new projects in mind and never let her physical frailty stop her from realizing them. Typically, she passed away in the middle of the doing, with new plans and ideas still in the making.

She was also a passionate host. Who, in unpretentious Berlin, still knew how to throw a proper party? One in the Bärensaal for the 20th anniversary of the gallery, one in Tuscany for her birthday, gatherings in the garden at Pfefferberg, on the rooftop in Gneisenaustraße – wherever they took place: they were wonderful, joyful, and generous occasions, full of style and interesting people. She herself, in contrast, was an extremely modest guest. The first time she stayed at our place in London, she and Louisa had to sleep on the floor of the top floor, as our house was under renovation at the time. Part of the renovation involved removing the roof – so at least, as compensation for the hard bedding, the two of them fell asleep under the summer stars.

Our last collaboration was the Drawing in Space exhibition at the Tchoban Foundation in February 2024. Kristin was a member of the foundation’s artistic advisory board, and she insisted on organizing and curating the show. And so we did it – even though we already knew another exhibition at the Akademie der Künste in Berlin would follow just a few months later. You don’t argue with Kristin – especially not when it comes to artistic matters. Today we are grateful. It turned out to be a completely different exhibition than expected – and had she not pushed us, we likely would never have found the energy to do it.

She was a sharp instinct, a driving force, a challenge, an ultimatum, a gift.

We will all miss her dearly.

Below we present an excerpt from the speech given by Karin Wilhelm on the occasion of awarding Kristin Feireiss an honorary doctorate from the Technical University of Braunschweig in 2007. At the time, Karin Wilhelm was a professor of History and Theory of Architecture and the City at the faculty and had initiated and justified the recognition of Kristin Feireiss’s achievements:

What motivated our Faculty to honor Kristin Feireiss’s work with the honorary degree of Doctor of Engineering? To illustrate Kristin Feireiss’s outstanding and innovative achievements, I would like to share with you some excerpts from the statement we submitted to the Senate of our Technical University:

“In 1980, a unique experiment was launched in West Berlin. Kristin Feireiss opened the first privately run Forum for Architecture (Aedes), where, alongside exhibitions presenting current trends in national and, above all, international architecture, regular discussions were held on technical, aesthetic, and sociopolitical developments in the field of building.

By that time, Kristin Feireiss had already made a name for herself as an architecture critic and, through her journalistic work, embodied a new approach to communicating contemporary architectural positions. Architects, who from the 1980s onwards increasingly had to grapple with changing conditions in competition and contracting under the European Union framework, found themselves—like their counterparts in other arts such as painting, sculpture, photography, or film—under growing pressure to engage publicly. Unlike the visual arts, however, architecture in Germany lacked galleries that could showcase contemporary buildings and design approaches. Aedes filled this gap, offering architects a unique platform.

Shortly after its founding, Aedes gained international recognition, providing not only renowned architects but also young talents at the start of their careers the opportunity to exhibit recently completed projects or to present experimental, novel concepts. […]

In addition, Kristin Feireiss regularly showcased work from leading architecture faculties in Germany and abroad, becoming a vital mediator between academic architectural research and the broader public. Through this work, Kristin Feireiss significantly contributed to the culture of architectural and urban planning discourse in Germany and helped to raise awareness of the cultural and economic importance of architecture beyond Berlin’s borders. […]

Kristin Feireiss has devoted her scholarly work primarily to contemporary architecture and current urban development issues. The distinctiveness of her work lies in the combination of research activity and the publication of results across various media, making the exhibitions she curated an integral part of her scholarly output. Her outstanding achievement also lies in the fact that, through this linkage, she substantially enhanced the international reputation of German architecture. At the same time, she “imported” international architectural debates into Germany. Honoring Kristin Feireiss with an honorary doctorate from the Technical University of Braunschweig thus recognizes a personality who has not confined the transfer of knowledge to existing institutions but has consistently sought to make research and scholarship accessible to a wide audience. In this, she has charted new territory in an exemplary way.” […]

What few had expected at the time of Aedes’s founding—that a private architecture gallery could survive, given that it offered no marketable exhibits for speculative buyers—became a reality. Moreover, the gallery demonstrated a vitality and international reach that, while no longer surprising after all these years, was hardly foreseeable in 1980. On the occasion of the anniversary, I had a conversation with the esteemed architecture critic Manfred Sack about this small miracle, about the countless outstanding publications you have produced in your various scholarly roles. We recalled the crowds that would gather outside the first Aedes premises on Grolmanstraße for every opening. We agreed that a creative innovation like yours—one that taught us in Germany to be open to different architectural positions, focusing on their quality rather than on any stylistic or ideological dogma—deserved to be appropriately honored by the academic community of this country. […]

With a heavy heart, and in deep sorrow as well as admiration, I bid farewell to Kristin Feireiss.

I had learned about Kristin’s pioneering work at Aedes Architecture Forum before I met her in person. Her recognition and celebration of architecture not merely as physical structures but as a profound cultural and social language was, and continues to be, deeply inspiring.

Kristin, together with Hans-Jürgen, was among the very first to bring Chinese modern architecture into the international spotlight, long before it became globally recognized. Through her work, names like Ai Weiwei, Wang Shu, Liu Jiakun, and Yung Ho Chang found resonance far beyond their local contexts. Equally, she was committed to discovering and supporting female architects, who brought unique visions to the global stage at a time when women in architecture were still underrepresented. Her inspiration and encouragement to future generations, including myself — who saw in her a mentor and an ally — will carry on.

I had the great privilege of meeting Kristin and Hans-Jürgen in 2017 in preparation for our Rural Moves – The Songyang Story exhibition opening at Aedes in March 2018. Then in her mid-70s, Kristin traveled tirelessly to each site in the mountain villages of Songyang County, full of curiosity and energy. I remain deeply grateful for her recognition that architecture can make social and economic impacts in rural China, and for her sense of urgency in confronting the consequences of mass urbanization.

In 2022, I was not able to join her 80th birthday celebration in person due to the pandemic. On that occasion, I sent a poem from the Book of Poetry, written around 3,000 years ago:

Like the moon turning full,
like the sun rising up.
Like the mountain, always strong.
Like the pine and cypress —
may your legacy live on.

Rest peacefully, dear Kristin.

For more than forty years, Kristin Feireiss steered Aedes through good times and difficult ones, always with the goal of bringing architecture closer to society.

In an interview she conducted with me some time ago, she asked, among other things, how my work since Haus-Rucker-Co relates to time and to the public. I referred to my most important building after Haus-Rucker-Co – the Neanderthal Museum, realized by 1996 together with Julius Krauss and Arno Brandlhuber, whose analog documentation I presented that same year at Aedes West.

The model of society embodied in that building – one that moves in loops from the past into the future – is brought into question at the tangentially converging endpoint of the exhibition spiral. It was meant to raise awareness of the approaching shift in time, the epochal turning point we find ourselves in today.

On April 20, 2025, Kristin left Aedes – and the time spiral of our societies. Everything now lies in the hands of the new leadership of this institution, which is, without question, of such great importance to us architects.

I imagine her now, from "Transkristinia," her new place of residence, offering the new directors an occasional piece of advice in their dreams – guiding Aedes safely into the future.

Adieu, Kristin!

Kristin was an extraordinary woman whom I met during my architecture studies at the Hochschule der Künste in the early 1990s.

With her gallery and her unique perspective on architecture, Kristin filled a gap in the architectural discourse by creating space and a forum for the experimental and unconventional in architectural thinking and design.

I was often at Aedes on Savignyplatz and, thanks to my involvement in the lecture series Künstlergespräche at the HdK and Positionen der Avantgarde at the TU, I quickly came into direct contact with Kristin. She was deeply interested in our student initiatives, often present at events, and a great supporter. Unforgettable was her invitation to her home for tea with Thom Mayne.

Thanks to a spontaneous exhibition at Aedes on the war destruction in Sarajevo, I traveled there myself at the end of the war—a formative experience and project on war and the city that would never have happened without Kristin, and which created a strong bond between us.

In recent years, this connection became increasingly personal—with phone calls and invitations to events, including at her home and ours. Unforgettable, too, was the wonderful celebration of her 80th birthday with guests from all over the world.

It is hard to imagine not being able to see her or speak with her again. One finds comfort in the words attributed to Michelangelo:

“You are not dead, you have just changed rooms.
You live within us and walk through our dreams.”