Jeff Kipnis


Jeffrey Kipnis is an American architectural critic, theorist, designer, film-maker, curator, and educator.

Education, honors, and career

Not a registered architect, Kipnis first came to prominence through his association with avant-garde architect Peter Eisenman, and their joint collaboration with French philosopher Jacques Derrida. Kipnis holds a master's degree in physics from Georgia State University, USA, and in 2006, he was awarded an honorary diploma by the Architectural Association School of Architecture, London, in recognition of his contributions to the discipline of architecture as a teacher, critic, and theorist. Other honors include the AIA Bronze Medal for Service to Architecture, a Professional Development Award from the Architectural Society of Ohio Foundation, and an Ohio State University Distinguished Research Award. He is professor of architecture at the Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, USA. He has been a visiting professor at Princeton University, New Jersey, Columbia University, New York, and the Southern California Institute of Architecture, Los Angeles, the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, Cambridge, and is currently a Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. Kipnis taught at the Architectural Association from 1992–1995, where he was the founding director of the Graduate Design Program. He also curates Architecture and Design at the Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus, Ohio.
As a critic he has written for many different periodicals, including Assemblage, El Croquis, Architectural Design, Harvard Design Magazine, Log, and Quaderns.

Designer

As a designer, Kipnis collaborated with architects Reiser + Umemoto on the Water Garden in Columbus, Ohio and the Kansai-kan National Diet Library. During the 1990s he collaborated with the Iranian architect Bahram Shirdel on the design of influential projects such as the Scottish National Museum, Montreal Urban Design 1990-2000, and Place Jacques Cartier.

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