Opening hours
Wednesday-Sunday, 3pm-7pm
Closed on public holidays

Guided Tours with steidle architects
Every Wedneday at 5pm

Discussions
24.6.2026 at 7pm: How Housing Creates Community
1.7.2026 at 7pm: Community Reflected

Architekturgalerie München
Blumenstraße 22, 80331 München

With the exhibition Community Happens Here, steidle architekten celebrate 20 years of ideas, projects and people, highlighting the theme of encounters in architecture. The exhibition explores architecture’s potential to create community and examines how urban spaces enable relations, spark exchange and shape the way we live together.

Through plans, models, photography and events, the exhibition demonstrates how spaces become places of togetherness by creating connections, shaping the public realm, and evolving into collective experiences. The architecture of the city is presented as a spatial practice that strengthens individuality while building community, revealing the dynamic relationships between them.

Community Happens Here transforms the gallery into a place of dialogue and exchange and invites visitors to experience architecture as both catalyst and framework for vibrant community life.

About the Exhibition
The themes of communication and encounter — the question of how we live together, shape our communities, and give them space and form — have been a driving force behind the work of the practice from the very beginning. The founding generation of Steidle and Partner explored these issues through the built icons of Structuralism, which continue to shape the image of modern housing today. With the rediscovery of the evolving city as a viable model for the future, this perspective broadened. Defining themes such as encounter, circulation, flexibility, in-between space, order, publicness and privacy were expanded to include architectural concerns such as context, figure, façade and transformation. These ideas were applied to larger and more complex architectural and urban projects and continuously deepened over time.

Connected by a common thread, this exhibition presents a cross-section of the most significant buildings and projects from the past twenty years through the lens of communication and encounter. Set alongside key references from the practice’s own history, unexpected relationships and new proximities emerge. A panoramic presentation, complemented by selected images, makes these themes visible throughout the gallery. A simple scaffolding structure serves as a temporary object linking the animated sectional drawings with the three-dimensionality of space. For a brief period, the gallery becomes a place of new paths, connections, sightlines and spatial experiences. Encounters Happen Here.

In a further layer developed specifically for the exhibition, the floor plans of our architectural and urban projects have been arranged in a loose order to form a spatially expansive collage of urban figures. Their distinctive, at times enigmatic forms define the character of our cities and shape everyday life, both within and beyond the buildings themselves. Each figure bears traces of its specific location, overarching rules and its own individuality. The interplay between external conditions and internal logics becomes tangible. It is a pleasure to reveal these figures and make them experienceable in their own right.

Urban design models and models of selected individual buildings complement the wall collage, creating a three-dimensional overall composition that can almost be felt physically. At the same time, the respective projects are presented in an endless projection loop within their real contexts. Here too, the montage becomes a collage of urban possibilities.

Urbanism and architecture as a living practice form the subject of a specially commissioned photographic series by Markus Lanz. He visited selected projects from the past twenty years and re-examined them through the lens of community and encounter. His work explores not only the interaction between users, residents, architecture and urban space, but equally the relationships between buildings and structures themselves. Encounters and Community Happen Here!

We would like to thank our sponsors:
B&O Bau GmbH, Dawonia Real Estate GmbH & Co. KG, FSB GmbH + Co KG, Girnghuber GmbH, HOCHTIEF Infrastructure GmbH München, KEIMFARBEN GmbH, Marc O’Polo SE, Moll Immobilien Holding GmbH, Reiß & Co. GmbH, Schnitzer& GmbH, SWI Schimpel & Winter Hausbau GmbH, WÖHR + BAUER GmbH

Projection photographs by Markus Lanz

Photographs by Stefan Müller-Naumann, as well as Ivana Bilz (Werksviertel), Marcus Buck (Munich Re), Marcus Ebener (Schinkelplatz), Franziska von Gagern (Leopoldstraße, Wohnturm Theresienhöhe), Verena von Gagern (Genter Straße, Pilotengasse, documenta Kassel, IBZ, University of Ulm), Reinhard Görner (IBZ, University of Ulm, Michaelis Quartier, Harthof39, Oldenbourg Verlag, Medienbrücke), Oliver Heissner (Herzog-Ernst-Platz), Pez Hejduk (Vienna), Hiebler Brunier (Am Alten Botanischen Garten), Florian Holzherr (Munich Re, Herzog-Ernst-Platz, KVR), Uwe Kiessler (G+J), Klaus Kinold (Genter Straße, interiors), Markus Lanz (Nymphenburger Höfe), Andreas Meichsner (WERK3), Fabbio Oggero (Turin), Stefan Randlkofer (People of Genter Straße), Stefan Resch (Ohlmüllerstraße), Ingrid Scheffler (Hans-Fischer-Straße), Johann Spengler (Belgradstraße), steidle architekten, and ZEIT Magazine, 1972 (Genter Straße, colour interior photograph).