Andreas Kofler

Weltgebraus is a German compound word describing the incessant roaring of the world. With no direct equivalent in English, its use in German remains rare and is largely confined to lyricist Richard Dehmel’s motto ‘Steh fest mein Haus im Weltgebraus’ (Stand firm, my house, in the roaring of the world). An invocation of resilience amid instability, later inscribed by Peter Behrens on the façade of his house on the Mathildenhöhe in Darmstadt, as if architecture could be ‘vaccinated’ against the conditions that surround it. Weltgebraus, however, does not describe a measurable scale, form, or intensity of this roaring. It rather defines a persistent background signal: closer to tinnitus than to noise, or an effervescent sound like an aspirin tablet dissolving in a glass of water. An overlay of everything.

Andreas Kofler is an architect-urbanist, author and curator. He has worked for Theo Deutinger, Rem Koolhaas’ OMA/AMO, l’AUC, and Dominique Perrault. His projects often build on multidisciplinary practice, including Greater Paris (DPA), Bordeaux 50 000 (l’AUC), Prada (AMO), and the exhibition The Image of Europe (TD/AMO) for the European Union. His curatorial and editorial projects include Japanese Architectures in Paris and the first exhibition on Armando Ronca. From 2018 to 2024, he served as curator and deputy artistic director at the Swiss Architecture Museum (S AM). He teaches at the E.N.S.A. Versailles, regularly contributes to L’Architecture d’Aujourd’hui, and writes an architecture column for the newspaper Dolomiten. He is co-curating the 2026 Beta – Timișoara Architecture Biennial. And loves fonts.

Clients and/or collaborations (selection): Pavillon de l’Arsenal, Kunsthaus Meran, Repossi, Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS), Collection Pinault, Christoph Merian Verlag (CMV), Novartis, Canton of Basel-Stadt, Vitra, Architekturstiftung Südtirol – Fondazione Architettura Alto Adige, Theater Basel, Luxembourg Center for Architecture (LUCA).