Markus Miessen

Markus Miessen is an architect and writer, and in 2021 was appointed Professor of Urban Regeneration at the University of Luxembourg, where he holds the Chair of the City of Esch and runs the research platform Cultures of Assembly, which he initiated. He received his PhD from the Centre for Research Architecture at Goldsmiths, London, supervised by Eyal Weizman. Previously, he studied at the Glasgow School of Art, graduated from the Architectural Association London with Honours, and received a Master in Research from the London Consortium. The author of the Participation tetralogy, his work revolves around questions of critical spatial practice, institution building, and spatial politics.

Miessen has taught at the Architectural Association (London), the Berlage Institute (Rotterdam), and has been a Harvard Fellow at the Graduate School of Design (Cambridge, MA). Most recently, he has held a Stiftungsprofessur for Critical Spatial Practice at the Städelschule (Frankfurt), has been a Studio Professor at HEAD, Geneva School of Art and Design, was Distinguished Professor of Practice at the University of Southern California (Los Angeles), and Full Professor for Design at HDK-Valand Academy of Art and Design (Gothenburg).

As an architect, he directs Studio Miessen, where he has worked closely with institutions such as The Munich Documentation Center for the History of National Socialism, the Gropius Bau in Berlin, or Witte de With in Rotterdam (now Kunstinstituut Melly) –– as well as a number of artists with whom the studio has longer-term working relationships, such as Hito Steyerl or Flaka Haliti. The studio’s largest project to date is a strategic framework design for a former NATO military site in Germany, which was transformed into a cultural centre. As a consultant, Miessen has worked with several governments, NGOs, the European Commission, as well as independent cultural institutions. In 2008, Miessen founded the Winter School Middle East (now Kuwait).

Amongst many other books and writings, Miessen is the author of The Nightmare of Participation, which is available in 7 language editions, and Crossbenching: Towards Participation as Critical Spatial Practice, both originally published by Sternberg Press and Merve Verlag. He has edited volumes such as Para-Platforms: on the spatial politics of right-wing populism, and The Archive as a Productive Space of Conflict. Together with Nikolaus Hirsch, he is the editor of the book series Critical Spatial Practice, which has, amongst others, included protagonists such as Chantal Mouffe, Eyal Weizman, Beatriz Colomina, Felicity D. Scott, Jill Magid, Keller Easterling, and Charlotte Malterre-Barthes.

His most recent volume, Agonistic Assemblies (On the Spatial Politics of Horizontality), a collaborative project by Cultures of Assembly (UniLu) and the Harvard Graduate School of Design, was published in January 2024.