Sir David Alan Chipperfield, CH, CBE, RA, RDI, RIBA, HRSA, (born 18 December 1953) is a British architect.

He established David Chipperfield Architects in 1985,[1] which grew into a global architectural practice with offices in London, Berlin, Milan, Shanghai, and Santiago de Compostela.

[8] In 1997, he began one of his most important projects, the reconstruction and restoration of the Neues Museum in Berlin, which had been largely destroyed during World War II.

[10] In 2015, Chipperfield won a competition to redesign the modern and contemporary art wing of the Metropolitan Museum in New York City, which in 2017 was put on hold due to budget cuts.

[12] In 2017, he and his associates were engaged in a multitude of major projects around the world; including new flagship stores for Bally and Valentino, the reconstruction of the U.S. Embassy in London; One Pancras Square, an office and commercial complex behind King's Cross Station in London, a project for the Shanghai Expo tower in China, a new Nobel Center headquarters for the Nobel Prize in Stockholm (later cancelled),[13] a headquarters store for the online firm SSENSE in Montreal, the extension building for Kunsthaus Zurich,[14][15] the Haus der Kunst cultural center in Munich, the completion of the headquarters of Amorepacific in Seoul, Korea,[16] and a visitor centre and chapel complex for Inagawa Reien, a cemetery in Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan.

[19] As of 2024, Chipperfield's other works in progress include a new parliamentary office building in Ottawa, Canada and an American headquarters for Rolex in New York City.

[20][21] Completion of Chipperfield's first project in the Southern Hemisphere is scheduled for 2025, partnering with Molonglo Group to design and build Canberra's Dairy Road development.

[28] In 1997, Chipperfield, along with Julian Harrap, won a competition for the reconstruction of the Neues Museum in Berlin, which had been severely damaged during World War II.

Reinforced concrete was used for new galleries and the new central staircase, while recycled bricks were used in other spaces, particularly in the north wing and the south dome.

It is composed of ten trapezoidal blocks; its upper-level galleries are lit by natural light from large windows in the pitched roofs.

Rowan Moore of The Guardian, in a 2011 review of Chipperfield's body of work, criticised the Hepworth Gallery's design, which he felt resembled "a bunker".

In addition to the judicial buildings, the complex, on the outskirts of Barcelona, includes a commercial centre and retail stores, and a block of low income residential housing.

Chipperfield wrote that the purpose of the building was to "break the image of justice as rigid and monolithic",[31] but architectural critic Rowan Moore of The Guardian said it appeared "uncomfortably prison-like.

The sunlight from the south is softened by a system of shutters over the ceiling, and the buildings are raised on pylons to avoid flooding from the neighbouring sea.

The building is supported on fourteen columns, and is built of concrete covered with plaques of travertine limestone from Xalapa, in the state of Veracruz.

[35] The James Simon Gallery was developed as the final piece of a master plan which Chipperfield conceived for Berlin's Museum Island in 1999.

It serves as a visitor's gateway to the island, physically connecting other institutions including the Pergamon and the Neues Museum, whose restoration was completed by Chipperfield in 2009.

Reviews of the James Simon Gallery in both The Guardian and Architectural Digest highly praised the building, but compared the colonnade to the Nazi Party Rally Grounds designed by Albert Speer.

[37][38] In response, Chipperfield told The Guardian: “We’ve been called fascist in the past [...] Germans weren’t allowed to use columns after the war because they were so tainted by association.

[39] Chipperfield's buildings cannot be described as following one particular style, although his work is sometimes seen as a reaction against the more flamboyant projects of Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid or Santiago Calatrava.

In 2005, he told Christopher Hall of The New York Times, "I'm very interested in doing buildings that people are fond of, but with each project I also try to push the boundaries, to make something familiar but different.

"[26] Rowan Moore, The Guardian's architecture critic, described his work as "serious, solid, not flamboyant or radical, but comfortable with the history and culture of its setting".

He also noted that Chipperfield "is much sought after for projects that help define cities' modern view of themselves, often in relation to a rich or fraught history.

"[30] In a 2014 interview with Andy Butler in Designboom, Chipperfield declared: "The one thing you can't do in architecture, at least in my opinion, is to limit your way of thinking to a style, or a material, you have to be responsive to the circumstances of a project."

"[41] Chipperfield described the style of his recent The Bryant residential tower in New York City (2013–2018) as "classical elegance in terms of its symmetries and simple grids and order."

Describing the Bryant Park, Tim McKeough of The New York Times wrote "In contrast with other big-name architects who wow with audacious forms and breathtaking structural feats, Mr. Chipperfield is best-known for buildings with a pared-down aesthetic purity."

[citation needed] He was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 2004 for services to architecture,[53] and was made Honorary Member of the Florence Accademia delle arti del Disegno in 2003.

His Tonale range of ceramics for Alessi received the Compasso d'Oro in 2011, and the Piana folding chair has recently been acquired for the permanent collection at MoMA.