28 Facts About David Chipperfield

David Chipperfield established David Chipperfield Architects in 1985, which grew into a global architectural practice with offices in London, Berlin, Milan, Shanghai, and Santiago de Compostela.

David Chipperfield's major completed works include the River and Rowing Museum in Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire; the Museum of Modern Literature in Marbach, Germany; the Des Moines Public Library in Iowa; the Neues Museum and its adjoining James Simon Gallery, Berlin; The Hepworth Wakefield gallery in Wakefield, West Yorkshire; the Saint Louis Art Museum, Missouri; and the Museo Jumex in Mexico City.

David Chipperfield studied architecture at the Architectural Association in London, receiving his diploma in architecture in 1977.

David Chipperfield worked in the offices of several notable architects, including Douglas Stephen, Norman Foster and Richard Rogers, before founding his firm, David Chipperfield Architects, in 1985.

David Chipperfield first established his reputation designing store interiors in London, Paris, Tokyo and New York.

David Chipperfield's firm opened an office in Tokyo in 1989.

David Chipperfield's first completed projects in London were the gallery of botany and the entrance hall for the Natural History Museum, and restaurant Wagamama, both in London.

David Chipperfield began to build in Germany, designing an office building in Dusseldorf.

David Chipperfield constructed his first project in the United States, an extension of the Museum of ethnology and natural history in Anchorage, Alaska.

David Chipperfield designed a structure to preserve the remains of two ancient temples and an artesian well, dating to 300 BC-300 AD The building, built of the local stone, blends into reddish mountains around it.

In 2015, David Chipperfield won a competition to redesign the modern and contemporary art wing of the Metropolitan Museum in New York City, which in 2017 was put on hold due to budget cuts.

Together with Arup, David Chipperfield is the architect of the Arena Santa Giulia, a 16,000-capacity arena in Milan, Italy which will host ice hockey events during the 2026 Winter Olympics and 2026 Winter Paralympics.

David Chipperfield won a 2005 competition to construct a new headquarters for the America's Cup on the coast in Valencia, Spain.

David Chipperfield's commission was to recreate the original volume of the museum, both by restoring original spaces and adding new spaces which would respect the historic structure of the building.

Zoning restrictions limited the space available, so David Chipperfield put the museum administration, shop, and library in existing adjoining buildings, and devoted the Museum almost entirely to exhibit space.

The James Simon Gallery was developed as the final piece of a master plan which David Chipperfield conceived for Berlin's Museum Island in 1999.

In 2025, David Chipperfield was among 35 UK-based signatories of a letter to the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology secretary Peter Kyle urging the government to reconsider its plans to allow artificial intelligence models to be trained using copyrighted works without permission.

David Chipperfield has taught architecture in Europe and the United States, and has lectured extensively, including as Professor of Architecture at the State Academy of Fine Arts Stuttgart from 1995 to 2001.

David Chipperfield is a visiting professor at the University of the Arts London.

David Chipperfield has been on the Board of Trustees of The Architecture Foundation and is currently a trustee of the Sir John Soane's Museum in London.

David Chipperfield has been recognised for his work with honours and awards including membership of the Royal Academy of Arts, the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, a knighthood for services to architecture, and the Praemium Imperiale from the Japan Art Association in 2013.

In 1999, David Chipperfield was awarded the Tessenow Gold Medal, what was followed by a comprehensive exhibition of his work together with the work of the Tessenow Stipendiat and Spanish architect Andres Jaque, held in the Hellerau Festspielhaus.

David Chipperfield was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2004 for services to architecture, and was made Honorary Member of the Florence Accademia delle arti del Disegno in 2003.

David Chipperfield was knighted in the 2010 New Year Honours for services to architecture in the UK and Germany.

David Chipperfield was awarded the Wolf Prize in Arts in 2010, the Royal Gold Medal of the Royal Institute of British Architects in 2011, and was appointed Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour in the 2021 New Year Honours for service to architecture.

Form Matters, an exhibition looking back over David Chipperfield's career, was mounted by London's Design Museum in 2009.

In 2012, David Chipperfield became the first British architect to curate the Venice Biennale of Architecture.

David Chipperfield was part of the jury that selected Helen Marten for the Hepworth Prize for Sculpture in 2016.