Dorte Mandrup
Kenzo Tange Design Critic in Architecture

Dorte Mandrup is the Principal and Creative Director of the Danish architecture studio Dorte Mandrup, which she established in 1999. The studio is internationally recognised for their ability to create architecture that actively engages with the complexities of each place and continuously creates new relevance. Using the entire context as a conceptual starting point, Dorte Mandrup employs a multilayered site-specificity that encompasses both the tangible and intangible conditions of a place. She explores the transition between context and space, form and function, old and new through sensitive, yet forceful interventions which can be seen in projects such as the transformation of an old welding hall in Copenhagen into a stage design workshop for the Royal Danish Theatre and subsequently a home to one of Scandinavia’s most extensive exhibition venues for contemporary art – Copenhagen Contemporary. With the Wadden Sea Centre on the west coast of Denmark, Mandrup changed the perception of thatched construction, introducing vertical thatch to contemporary Danish architecture and setting an example for innovative use of bio-based, local material. And with Kangiata Illorsua – Ilulissat Icefjord Centre in Greenland, she has successfully created a habitable place for social interaction and knowledge sharing in the vast Arctic landscape, shaped by the conditions of nature.
Dorte Mandrup has been visiting faculty member at Academia di architettura di Mendrisio in Switzerland since 2021 and lectured at universities around the world. In 2018, she headed a studio on architectural interventions in the Arctic at Cornell University, aiming to develop a context-specific understanding of architecture as a response to present and future challenges. With a hands-on approach to her research and design practice, Dorte Mandrup’s teachings balances pragmatic considerations and creative exploration, combining a scientific, analytical methodology and an artistic, intuitive approach to understand the inherent qualities and restraints of a given place and form architecture that evokes and enhances the existing contextual narratives. The context is perceived on both a local and global scale, addressing the urgent and interconnected global challenges as an intuitive part of every project.
Dorte Mandrup has received numerous national and international awards and recognitions for her work, including the Finn Juhl Architecture Award, the C.F. Hansen Medal, the Eckersberg Medal, Kunstpreis Berlin, the Global Award for Sustainable Architecture, and the Roux-Dorlut Medal of l’Académie d’Architecture in Paris. She headlined the international exhibition at La Biennale de Venezia in 2018, is Vice Chairman of Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, and member of the highly acclaimed Akademi der Künste in Berlin.
Courses
Events
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Dorte Mandrup, “Conditions of Place & Form”
Dorte Mandrup, Lecturer
Grace La, Host