Werner Ruhnau

Werner Ruhnau understood architecture as an interdisciplinary dialog between architecture, fine arts and technology. He became particularly well known for the Musiktheater im Revier in Gelsenkirchen, a Gesamtkunstwerk that he realized together with artists such as Yves Klein, Jean Tinguely and Norbert Kricke.

Werner Ruhnau (1922–2015) was a German architect who dissolved the boundaries between architecture and the visual arts. After studying at various technical universities, he founded his own office in Gelsenkirchen in 1956. There he realized the Musiktheater im Revier, which he conceived as a “Theaterbauhütte” – a place where architects, engineers and artists worked and lived together. His work includes not only theater buildings but also projects such as the Münster City Theatre, the Grillo Theatre in Essen and the open-plan office of the Herta KG company in Herten. Ruhnau taught at various universities, including Québec, Montréal and Cologne, and his approach of understanding architecture as part of a larger cultural and social whole made him an important representative of post-war modernism in Germany.