Markus Miessen & Ralf Pflugfelder

Markus Miessen, born 1978 in Bonn, Germany, and Ralf Pflugfelder, born 1975 in Kösching, Germany, both live and work in London, UK, Zurich, Switzerland, and Berlin, Germany.

The globally operating architects Miessen & Ploughfields were invited to design the exhibition architecture of Art & Entrepreneurship due to their practice of adopting architecture as an intersection for dialog and for their spatial thinking referencing art, infrastructure and alternative modes of production. The architecture was designed as a result of the extreme demands of a globally traveling exhibition – dealing with highly diverse spaces. As the show spends more time in containers and par avion than within the institutions that house its actual content, the storage system that guarantees safe shipping was considered – as objet trouvé – an integral part of the exhibition. The resulting installation consists of a variety of spatial constellations of storage crates that become the primary structure that exposes the art to the audience. Zones defined by gray felt and electric bulbs reference the idea of the collector’s home.

Miessen & Ploughfields have built a gallery space for Max Wigram Gallery in London and a site-specific installation titled The Violence of Participation for the Lyon Biennial 2007. They are now working on a number of projects in locations ranging from Switzerland to the Middle East, including a high-alpine residency and institute that accommodates the private library of the Swiss curator Hans Ulrich Obrist, which will be made publicly accessible. Markus Miessen is an architect, researcher, educator and writer. He is currently a doctoral candidate at the Centre for Research Architecture at Goldsmiths, London. Ralf Pflugfelder has worked as an architect in Berlin, New York, Paris and London. His work has been published in a range of international architecture and design periodicals.

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