Alex Lehnerer, an architect and urban designer, is currently Assistant Professor of Architecture and Urban Design at the Department of Architecture at ETH Zurich. He was previously based in Chicago, where he was a professor at the Illinois School of Architecture. He received his PhD from ETH Zurich and his MArch from the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA). Lehnerer founded the Department of Urban Speculation (DeptUS) in Chicago and is a partner of the firm Kaisersrot in Zurich. His Zurich-based architectural practice, Ciriacidis Lehnerer Architekten, tries to understand architecture as cultural practice by relentlessly exploring urban and architectural conditions – their forms, ingredients, and rules. Together with his partner Savvas Ciriacidis, he is the general commissioner of the German Pavilion at this year’s International Architecture Biennale in Venice.

He is author of the books Grand Urban Rules (2nd ed, nai010, 2014) and The Western Town – A Theory of Aggregation (Hatje Cantz, 2013).