Wolfgang Pehnt (1931-2023)
Prize winner
As an art historian who is equipped with the profound knowledge of historical developments, cultural cross connections and personal interrelations, Wolfgang Pehnt is subtly able to subject architecture to the immanent observation as a work of art and to interpret concepts and designs against a background of an ideal gestation. Subsequent to the critical evaluation of a work and its designer, Wolfgang Pehnt consistently and systematically changes the frame of reference with regard to his architectural criticism by altering the scale so as to simultaneously investigate individual buildings from a cultural semiotic perspective as elements of heterogeneous structures for their ruptures, contradictions, asynchonicities. By speaking about invisible matters, about manners of use, people’s feelings, desires and fears, further dimensions are opened up, which leads his critique from the field of architecture to that of culture and society. His widely framed intellectual structures offer reflections and previews across decades.
Werner Durth