Coop Himmelb(l)au, with a multicultural team from more than 15 countries, was founded in 1968 by Wolf dPrix, Helmut Swiczinsky, and Michael Holzer (who left in 1971). After Helmut Swiczinsky’s departure in 2006, Wolf D. Prix has continued to lead the studio as CEO and design director.
Believing that architecture is a three-dimensional expression of society, the team considers it essential to present a social portrait that encompasses social, political, cultural, energetic, and economic forces. In line with this vision, they develop complex and contemporary projects in architecture, urban planning, design, and art worldwide.
“COOP” means cooperative, and “HIMMELBLAU” means sky blue. We started building in 1978 and so set the “L” in brackets, meaning the blue turns into “sky building”. Wolf dPrix
Renowned worldwide for their innovative design approach and characterized by dynamic, multi-layered complexity, Coop Himmelb(l)au creates architecture that embraces openness and deliberate instability, embodying a democratic spirit through form and expression.
Recurring themes in current work are the re-manifestation of public space through architecture and, beyond the material manifestation of architecture, a consciousness that looks at buildings as local participants in the universal energy balance, where the incorporation of natural forces such as sun, wind, water, greenery, and earth creates self-sustainable buildings in balance with people and their environment.
As a studio interested in innovative design technology, Coop Himmelb(l)au has, since 2009, expanded its use of parametric tools to include Digital Project and BIM software. Coop Himmelb(l)au views parametric design as a factor that gives the architect control over the project delivery. Their logic takes into account algorithmic and performance optimization; in general, working in 3D forces us to set rules and adhere to them as part of the design process.
Here are 10 impressive projects designed by Coop Himmelb(l)au:
1. Rooftop Remodeling Falkestrasse
Location: Vienna, Austria
Year: 1988
The loft conversion of a historic law office in the center of Vienna holds the distinction of being the world’s first deconstructivist building. This rooftop, one of Coop Himmelb(l)au’s most impressive projects, is a prime example of how to add a new layer to a historic structure without compromising its integrity.
The project spans two floors with a height of 7.80 meters and a total area of 400 m². Its spatial layout includes a 90 m² meeting room, three office units, a reception area, and adjacent rooms. The roof lacks any recess, proportion, material, or color context; instead, a visualized energy line emanating from the street, encompassing the project, breaks and opens the existing roof. This tension-creating curve, a spatial element that has become increasingly significant in Coop Himmelb(l)au’s architecture since the 1980s, forms both the steel backbone and the overall stance of the project.
The roof shell’s open glazed and closed folded or linear surfaces control light, allowing or restricting views. The vistas, visible both from outside and inside, define the complexity of the spatial relationships.
2. House of Music
Location: Aalborg, Denmark
Year: 2014
The Music House in Aalborg, designed as a creative hub by Coop Himmelb(l)au, represents the unity between architecture and music. Designed as a combined school and concert hall, the building’s open structure fosters interaction between audiences and artists, students, and teachers. The house of music design is shaped around the concept of sharing and synergy, fostering spatial sharing and the overlapping of public and performance spaces.
Inspired by the fluidity, rhythm, and dynamism of music, the building’s form consists of undulating, fractured, rising, and expanding surfaces. The Music House, comprised of a steel structure and a glass and aluminum façade, is striking from the outside, with its fragmented and seemingly dynamic surfaces. A vertical foyer, with views of the fjord and the adjacent Culture Square, opens northward, defining the main hall with three additional halls of varying sizes and functions. The organization centers on a 1,300-seat concert hall, with a U-shaped educational wing placed above the backstage facilities and connected to a foyer organized around a courtyard that places the concert hall at its center.
Energy consumption is minimized thanks to a building management program that controls the building’s equipment and ensures that no systems are inactive when not needed.
3. Museum of Contemporary Art and Planning Exhibition (MOCAPE)
Location: Shenzhen, China
Year: 2016
Designed by Coop Himmelb(l)au after winning an international competition, MOCAPE is a large-scale cultural complex. The project, which brings together the Museum of Contemporary Art and the Planning exhibition, emphasizes the unique functional and artistic requirements of both museums while uniting them within a single, multifaceted façade.
Part of the master plan for Shenzhen’s new urban center, the Futian Cultural District, MOCAPE’s main floor, like other buildings in the area, is elevated 10 meters above ground level, creating a stage-like platform that acts as a unifying element with the adjacent buildings.
With its transparent façade and sophisticated interior lighting concept, the building provides in-depth views of the entrance and transitional spaces between buildings, offering visitors a sense of being in a lightly shaded outdoor environment. This impression is reinforced by fully open, column-free exhibition spaces ranging from 6 to 17 meters in height. The lobby, multifunctional exhibition halls, auditorium, conference rooms, and service areas are shared. Beyond the entrance area, located between the museums, visitors enter the main floor, Meydan, via ramps and escalators.
4. European Central Bank
Location: Frankfurt, Germany
Year: 2015
One of the most impressive examples of Coop Himmelb(l)au’s deconstructivist architectural approach applied to a corporate structure, the European Central Bank is a multifaceted building with an extremely complex geometry, offering a completely different appearance from every angle. A vertical hyperboloid section is carved through the 185-meter-high monolithic block, separating it and filling the newly created intermediate void with a glass atrium. As a result, the skyscraper, reaching a height of 220 meters, appears massive and powerful from the southeast, yet slender and dynamic from the west.
The atrium, with its exposed steel support structure, spans nearly the full height between the office towers. Connection and circulation platforms horizontally divide this intermediate space into three sections, 45 to 60 meters in height. Like public squares, the hanging gardens invite visitors to interact, while providing a pleasant indoor climate. Elevators and stairs connect the floors and the common areas of the Grossmarkthalle.
Designed with a sustainable energy concept, the tower incorporates rainwater use, heat recovery, efficient insulation, solar shading, natural lighting, and natural ventilation for the offices. Natural ventilation is achieved through vertical, floor-to-ceiling ventilation elements integrated into the tower’s three-layered hybrid façade, which also serves as a protective shield.
5. BelView Tower
Location: Vienna, Austria
Year: 2021
Reflecting Coop Himmelb(l)au’s pursuit of a sculptural expression within the urban fabric, BelView Tower is a residential tower with 249 apartments. Designed as a fluid monolithic structure with an organic, amoeba-like form, the tower’s perimeter railings, comprised of white powder-coated aluminum panels, are interrupted at specific locations to reflect environmental factors such as wind, sound, and light exposure. This creates a distinctive façade with opaque and glazed balcony elements, linear and dotted.
All apartments on the upper 18 floors, comprising 234 two-bedroom and 15 three-bedroom apartments, have balconies or loggias offering views of Vienna. Each of the six apartment types is equipped with ceiling cooling and underfloor heating. BelView Tower, which features a sauna area and fitness center on the basement floor, also features a common area with a kitchen and a landscaped square, creating an activity area for residents.
The volumetric form of BelView Tower is structured by the creation of three transparent façade zones set back floor by floor. The exterior walls of the residential tower are designed as a thermally insulated composite façade with plastered, rotating, or tilting elements in triple-glazed fixed glass or aluminum-glass construction.
6. Musée des Confluences
Location: Lyon, France
Year: 2014
One of Coop Himmelb(l)au’s most impressive projects, the Musée des Confluences, is located on a peninsula artificially expanded 100 years ago and located at the confluence of the Rhone and Saone rivers. The museum is composed of two complexly interlocking architectural units stacked atop one another: the transparent “Crystal,” made of glass and steel, and the main exhibition area, the “Cloud,” shaped with metallic, dynamic forms.
Visitors enter through the transparent Crystal and step into the Cloud, transitioning from light-filled spaces to a dramatic exhibition atmosphere. The Cloud, floating on columns, contains a series of dark “black box” spaces without daylight to allow maximum flexibility in exhibition design.
The foyer, known as the Crystal, is a naturally ventilated space. Supply air enters through the central ventilation vents on the east facade, while exhaust air exits through the roof, eliminating the need for a traditional air conditioning system.
The exhibition area, the Cloud, features a highly efficient insulated building envelope, with all main entry areas naturally illuminated, while water supply for sanitation is sourced from groundwater.
7. Busan Cinema Center
Location: Busan, South Korea
Year: 2012
Designed by Coop Himmelb(l)’au as the main hub of the Busan International Film Center, the Busan Cinema Center provides a new intersection between public space, cultural programs, entertainment, technology, and architecture, creating a vibrant landmark within the urban landscape.
The building, conceived as a steel lattice shell, rests on concrete slabs, with a single column serving as the only vertical structural support for the expansive cantilevered roof. The center offers versatile use both during the festival and throughout the year, housing a theater, indoor and outdoor cinemas, congress halls, offices, creative studios, and restaurants.
By combining outdoor and indoor spaces, the center immerses visitors as part of the event. Features such as the Double Cone, Cinema Mountain, City Valley, Red Carpet Area, and BIFF intersect to form an urban plaza where functions overlap.
The complex is protected by two roofs covered with computer-controlled LED elements. The steel “Big Roof,” combined with glass panels, creates a space that is both transparent and protective. The Big Roof features an 85-meter column-free cantilever that covers the multifunctional Monument Square. Monument Square serves as a majestic gateway to Cinema Mountain.
8. Martin Luther Church
Location: Hainburg, Austria
Year: 2011
Coop Himmelb(l)au’s Martin Luther Church project is one of their impressive projects that applies a deconstructivist approach to religious architecture in Austria. The building consists of four main elements: a sanctuary, a congregation hall, a sacristy, and a sculptural bell tower.
The sanctuary includes a daylight-filled baptistery and a glass-enclosed children’s corner, while the congregation hall at the rear, with its folding doors, creates a seamless space for worship. The 20-meter-high bell tower in the front courtyard, acting as a vertical steel sculpture, completes the ensemble and gives the building a strong symbolic presence.
The church, with its unusual form compared to traditional religious buildings, features broken surfaces, asymmetrical volumes, and dramatic roofs, imbuing the space with dynamism and movement. The building’s form is inspired by a giant table, with the entire roof structure resting on four steel columns, acting as the table’s legs. Drawing inspiration from the curved roofs of Romanesque masonry, the church’s roof has been reinterpreted using digital design tools.
Martin Luther Church presents the worship space as an experiential journey for visitors, and three large, curved openings in the roof direct light into the interior. The interior, which offers a sense of mysticism and tranquility, also creates an open space for the community.
9. Akron Art Museum
Location: Akron, Ohio, USA
Year: 2007
Designed as both an urban connector and a destination, the Akron Art Museum is one of Coop Himmelb(l)au’s most impressive projects. The building, constructed as an extension of the existing museum structure, consists of three sections: the Crystal, the Gallery Box, and the Roof Cloud. The Crystal, the entrance hall connecting the old and new structures, opens onto public spaces such as the library, café, bookstore, and conference hall. The Gallery Box, offering a spacious area with minimal columns, allows flexible exhibition arrangements.
Integrated loading ramps and elevator systems enable the transportation of large artworks. Suspended above the museum, the Roof Cloud is a sculptural volume that provides shade and serves as a horizontal urban landmark. Its mass and materiality create a blurred envelope that surrounds the interior space.
At the Akron Art Museum, where contemporary architecture seamlessly blends with sustainable design, the energy concept is based on thermal mass, daylighting, and microclimate zones. A water-tube radiant system in the concrete slabs provides heating and cooling, while optimizing natural light reduces energy consumption and operating costs.
10. Funder Werk 3
Location: Sankt Veit an der Glan, Austria
Year: 1989
Funder Werk 3, a striking example of Coop Himmelb(l)au’s innovative approach to industrial architecture, is a decorative paper office and production factory. Unlike typical industrial buildings, the factory integrates function with aesthetics, centering its design on spatial arrangements that highlight the transparency of the production process and inspire the workforce. The complex consists of a production hall, energy plant, media bridge, and office/laboratory sections.
The building’s distinctive energy plant, known for its three 25-meter-high and one 13-meter-high “dancing chimneys,” connects to the production hall via the Media Bridge, a curving element clad in steel and acrylic. The flat roof of the production hall, built on a steel frame, is supported by twenty beams. The facades are clad in prefabricated reinforced concrete curtain walls and sheet metal panels, while glass surfaces allow for controlled light penetration. A sloping corner structure composed of steel and glass stands out in the south corner.
