Albert Speer Jr

Albert was a German architect and urban planner. He was the son of Albert Speer (1905–1981), Adolf Hitler's chief architect before assuming the office of Minister of Armaments and War Production for Germany during World War II. His grandfather, Albert Friedrich Speer, was also an architect.

Childhood:

Albert Speer was born on July 29 1934, the oldest of six children, and liked to remind people that he came from a family of architects who were not all as notorious as his father. Some of the buildings designed by his grandfather, the first Albert Speer, are now classed as historic monuments in Germany. A great-grandfather, Bertold Speer, was also an architect.

Career:
Speer claimed that his decision to become an architect had nothing to do with his father. He considered urban planning to be his main area, rather than architecture. He won his first international prize in 1964, and then opened his own architect's office. He also worked in Saudi Arabia. In 1977, he became professor of urban planning at the University of Kaiserslautern in the state of Rheinland-Palatinate. His firm has had an office in Shanghai since 2001.

In 1984, he founded the company Büro Albert Speer & Partner in Frankfurt am Main. He was responsible for the design of Expo 2000 in Hanover, design of the Shanghai International Automobile City, and the central axis in Beijing created while serving as lead designer for the 2008 Olympics. Speer was part of the architectural firm involved in Munich's bid for the 2018 Winter Olympics, and in the Qatar 2022 FIFA World Cup.

Design philosophy:

Architect of a sustainable future: German architect Albert Speer Jr is a pioneer of sustainable building and city planning whose firm has designed ecological communities from Cologne in Germany to Shanghai in China. With the publication of a new book setting out his philosophy, he explains why we should take a more holistic approach to urban development.

“That we don't use more resources today than we can rebuild for the next generation. We still, everywhere, need too much energy and too much of everything else--mobility, land use and so on. Western society thinks in sectors, and not enough in circles. We must be holistic and interdisciplinary.”

Works:
European Central Bank (ECB) and designed the Museum Riverbank and the Holbeinsteg pedestrian bridge connecting the two sides of city centre in the 1980s.

Shanghai International Automobile City, and the central axis in Beijing.

Chinese industrial city of Anting, and a new capital for Nigeria.

He created the layout for the Olympic zone north of Beijing for the 2008 Games.

In Germany Speer put together a master plan for the design, construction, transport and logistics of the Expo 2000, Germany’s first world fair held in Hanover, featuring, at its heart, the Europe Plaza, a vast space stretching across 12,000 square metres.

He also developed the Olympic bids for Leipzig for 2012 and Munich for 2018.

Quotes:

“That we don't use more resources today than we can rebuild for the next generation. We still, everywhere, need too much energy and too much of everything else--mobility, land use and so on. Western society thinks in sectors, and not enough in circles. We must be holistic and interdisciplinary.”