
Mels Crouwel received his Master of Architecture degree from Delft University of Technology in 1978 and the following year, with Jan Benthem, founded Benthem Crouwel Architects in Amsterdam. The two founding directors and their partners—Marcel Blom, Joost Vos, Marten Wassmann, and Markus Sporer—today maintain an international practice with 70 employees located in offices in Amsterdam and Aachen (Germany).
With a personal passion for the arts and a commitment to functionality, sustainability, and innovative design solutions, Mels Crouwel has worked on many internationally renowned museums, public buildings, and cultural platforms. Among his notable projects, in addition to the renovation and expansion of the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, are the restoration and expansion of the Anne Frank House (Amsterdam, 1999); the adaptive reuse of the former Thomas de Beer textile mill in Tilburg as the De Pont Museum of Contemporary Art (1992–2003); Las Palmas cultural and commercial center (Rotterdam, 2008); the award-winning Deutsches Bergbau Museum (Bochum, 2009); the Ziggo Dome (2012), a new 17,000-seat concert venue in Amsterdam’s Arena Boulevard; and the Kulturbau and Forum Mittelrhein in Koblenz (2013), a project that redevelops the city’s Central Square.
In 1986, Benthem Crouwel became master architect for Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport, in collaboration with NACO (Netherlands Airport Consultants). Benthem Crouwel designed and has implemented the Airport City master plan for the terminals, facilities, roads, offices, and hotels, emphasizing clarity of organization throughout the huge project. In 1989, Mels Crouwel became the supervising architect for Amsterdam RAI, the largest trade and convention center in the Netherlands, Over the past 20 years he has designed numerous plans, renovations, and urban schemes for the complex, which welcomes almost 2 million visitors a year. From 2004 until 2008, Mels Crouwel held the position of Chief Government Architect in the Netherlands, charged with stimulating architectural excellence both in government buildings and more generally throughout the nation. Among its major current public projects, Benthem Crouwel is architect for the construction of the North/South subway line in Amsterdam, scheduled for completion in 2017.
Benthem Crouwel has received numerous prizes for its work, including the prestigious BNA Kubus in 1999, awarded by the Royal Institute of Dutch Architects, as well as the Kunstpreis Berlin (1989) and Constructa Berlin (1990). The firm is frequently successful in national and international design and innovation competitions, including the Benelux Aluminum Prize and the Dutch National Prizes for Concrete Structures and Steel Structures. Benthem Crouwel’s commitment to sustainability has been recognized in projects including Etrium (the headquarters of Econcern in Cologne, 2007–08), which received the highest ranking in Certified Sustainability from the German Green Building Council (DGNB), comparable to LEED Platinum status in the United States.
Mels Crouwel is a member of the Royal Institute of Dutch Architects and an honorary member of the Association of German Architects. He lectures frequently in cities in the Netherlands and abroad, including Berlin, Bochum, Chicago, Darmstadt, Dortmund, Hamburg, Jerusalem, Leuven, London, Munich, New York, Seattle, Stockholm, Stuttgart, Toronto, and Vienna.
Announcements
If Walls Could Speak: My Life in Architecture by Moshe Safdie
If Walls Could Speak: My Life in Architecture
By Moshe Safdie
Publisher: Grove/Atlantic
Published: September 2022
One of the world’s greatest and most thoughtful architects recounts his extraordinary career and the iconic structures he has built—from Habitat in Montreal to Marina Bay Sands in Singapore—and offers a manifesto for the role architecture should play in society.
Design Emergency: Building a Better Future by Alice Rawsthorn and Paola Antonelli
Design Emergency: Building a Better Future
By Alice Rawsthorn and Paola Antonelli
Publisher: Phaidon Press
Published: May 2022
Rawsthorn and Antonelli tell the stories of the remarkable designers, architects, engineers, artists, scientists, and activists who are at the forefront of positive change worldwide. Focusing on four themes—Technology, Society, Communication, and Ecology—the authors present a unique portrait of how our great creative minds are developing new design solutions to the major challenges of our time, while helping us to benefit from advances in science and technology.
Why Design Matters: Conversations with the World’s Most Creative People by Debbie Millman
Why Design Matters: Conversations with the World's Most Creative People
By Debbie Millman
Publisher: Harper Design
Published: February 22, 2022
Debbie Millman—author, educator, brand consultant, and host of the widely successful and award-winning podcast “Design Matters”—showcases dozens of her most exciting interviews, bringing together insights and reflections from today’s leading creative minds from across diverse fields.
Milton Glaser: POP: by Steven Heller, Mirko Ilić, and Beth Kleber
Milton Glaser: POP
By Steven Heller, Mirko Ilić, and Beth Kleber
Publisher: The Monacelli Press
Published: March 2023
This collection of work from graphci design legend Milton Glaser’s Pop period features hundreds of examples of the designer’s work that have not been seen since their original publication, demonstrating the graphic revolution that transformed design and popular culture.
Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall by Alexandra Lange
Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall
By Alexandra Lange
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Published: June 2022
Chronicles postwar architects’ and merchants’ invention of the shopping mall, revealing how the design of these marketplaces played an integral role in their cultural ascent. Publishers Weekly writes, “Contending that malls answer ‘the basic human need’ of bringing people together, influential design critic Lange advocates for retrofitting abandoned shopping centers into college campuses, senior housing, and ‘ethnocentric marketplaces’ catering to immigrant communities. Lucid and well researched, this is an insightful study of an overlooked and undervalued architectural form.”
Women Holding Things by Maira Kalman
Women Holding Things
By Maira Kalman
Publisher: Harper Design
Published: October 2022
In the spring of 2021, Maira and Alex Kalman created a small, limited-edition booklet, “Women Holding Things,” which featured select recent paintings by Maira, accompanied by her insightful and deeply personal commentary. The booklet quickly sold out. Now, the Kalmans have expanded that original publication into an extraordinary visual compendium. We see a woman hold a book, hold shears, hold children, hold a grudge, hold up, hold her own. In visually telling their stories, Kalman lays bare the essence of women’s lives—their tenacity, courage, vulnerability, hope, and pain.
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