Oswald Mathias Ungers (* 1926) is one of Germany’s most influential architects as well as one of the twentieth century’s most influential architectural theorists. According to Ungers, a close relationship to the visual arts is of fundamental importance to architecture: „Art and architecture have the same roots, are inscribed with the same codes and systems. Separating them would mean destroying their value, eradicating them.“ Ungers’s museum buildings, like the Galerie der Gegenwart in Hamburg or the Wallraf Richartz Museum in Cologne, as well as his own buildings are symbols of his emphatic commitment to architecture as pure art.

This publication, featuring texts by Jasper Cepl, Oliver Elser, Martin Kieren, Wilfried Kühn, Andres Lepik, Wallis Miller, and Stephanie Tasch, uses Ungers’s collections of art and architectural models, his own buildings, and his library to shed light for the first time on different aspects of his theoretical approach, and investigates the internal connection between his architectural works and various themes in art. (English edition ISBN 3-7757-1881-8)