10 Top Architecture Firms in Germany; 2025 Review
Germany’s architectural landscape is distinguished by a rich history and a commitment to innovation. The nation is home to approximately 137,000 architects and urban planners, many of whom contribute to leading firms renowned for their design excellence.
Prominent among these is Behnisch Architekten, founded in 1989 by Stefan Behnisch, with offices in Stuttgart, Munich, Weimar, Los Angeles, and Boston, employing around 100 professionals.
Another key player is gmp International GmbH, established in 1965 by Meinhard von Gerkan and Volkwin Marg. With nearly 600 employees across multiple locations, including Hamburg, Berlin, and international offices, gmp has completed over 500 projects in more than 70 countries.
These firms, among others, have significantly influenced both national and international architecture, blending Germany’s historical architectural traditions with contemporary design and technological advancements.
Their contributions continue to shape the built environment, reflecting Germany’s dedication to architectural excellence and innovation. In this article, we listed top architecture firms in Germany.
Top Architecture Firms in Germany
Here, we prepared top architecture firms in Germany including Sauerbruch Hutton, HENN, Barkow Leibinger Architekten, Behnisch Architekten, Graft, J. Mayer H. Und Partner Architekten, Kadawittfeld Architektur, Tchoban Voss Architekten, Max Dudler, and Staab Architekten.
1. Sauerbruch Hutton
Sauerbruch Hutton, amongst the top architecture firms in Germany and worldwide, an agency for architecture, urbanism and design, founded in 1989. Architects, interior and product designers, engineers and modelmakers are working in their office in Berlin. The team is led by the partners Matthias Sauerbruch, Louisa Hutton, Juan Lucas Young and the associates Jürgen Bartenschlag, Andrew Kiel, Tom Geister and David Wegener.
They realise individual and sustainable solutions to a wide range of programmes. The enjoyment of the sensuality of space and material, as well as the mastery of up-to-date technology and the intelligent use of existing resources of every kind are the focus of their work.
2. HENN
HENN is an international architecture office in Munich, Berlin and Beijing with more than 70 years of expertise in the fields of work space, culture, health, education and research as well as production and master planning. The office is led by Gunter Henn and twenty-two partners. 350 employees – architects, designers, planners and engineers – from 30 countries are able to draw upon a wealth of knowledge collected over three generations of building experience in addition to a worldwide network of partners and experts in a variety of disciplines.
This continuity, coupled with progressive design approaches and methods and interdisciplinary research projects, forms the basis for a continual examination of current issues and for a consistent design philosophy. Forms and spaces are no mere objective, they are developed from the processes, demands and cultural contexts of each project. As a general contractor HENN is able to satisfy this principle at every stage of project planning and implementation.
3. Barkow Leibinger Architekten
Barkow Leibinger is an American/German architecture firm based in Berlin and New York, founded in 1993 by Frank Barkow and Regine Leibinger. Their discursive research-based approach to architecture and design allows Barkow Leibinger’s work to respond to advancing knowledge and technology.
Their work is realized over a wide range of scales and building types including building for workplace (industry, office, and master planning), cultural, housing, event spaces, as well as exhibitions and installations in the public realm internationally.
Recently completed buildings include the Trumpf Smart Factory in Chicago, the Fellows Pavilion for the American Academy in Berlin, the HAWE Factory Kaufbeuren, the Tour Total office high-rise in Berlin and the Harvard ArtLab. They have won five National AIA Honor Awards for Architecture and a Global Holcim Innovation Award for sustainability as well as various German architecture awards.
4. Behnisch Architekten
Behnisch Architekten was founded in 1989 and works out of three offices – Stuttgart, Munich, and Boston. These offices are directed by Stefan Behnisch and his partners Robert Hösle (Munich), Robert Matthew Noblett (Boston), Stefan Rappold and Jörg Usinger (Stuttgart).Behnisch Architekten, amongst the top architecture firms in Germany and worldwide, enjoys a global reputation for high-quality architecture that integrates environmental responsibility, creativity, and public purpose.
The architecture firm provides services ranging from building, interior, product and landscape design to programming, space and layout planning, feasibility studies, project management and general planning, including cost consulting and on-site management.
5. Graft
GRAFT was established in 1998 in Los Angeles, California by Lars Krückeberg, Wolfram Putz, and Thomas Willemeit. Further offices followed in Berlin, Germany, in 2001 and Beijing, China, in 2004. GRAFT was conceived as a Label for Architecture, Urban Planning, Design, Music and the pursuit of happiness.
With the core of the architecture firm’s enterprises gravitating around the field of architecture and the built environment, GRAFT has always maintained an interest in crossing the boundaries between disciplines and grafting the creative potentials and methodologies of different realities.
This is reflected in the architecture firm’s expansion into the fields of exhibition design and product design, art installations, academic projects and »events« as well as in the variety of project locations in Germany, China, UAE, Russia, Georgia, in the U.S. and Mexico, to name a few.
6. J. Mayer H. Und Partner Architekten
Mayer H. und Partner Architektenis an international award-winning architecture office with projects at the intersection of architecture, communication, and new technology. From urban planning schemes and buildings, to installation work and objects with new materials, the relationship between the human body, technology, and nature form the background for a new production of space.
Among best architecture firms in Germany, J. Mayer H. has a wide array of completed national and international projects. National and international awards include the Mies van der Rohe Award, emerging architect, special mention 2003; Holcim Award, winner Europe bronze 2005 and Audi Urban Future Award, winner 2010.
7. Kadawittfeld Architektur
Originally founded in Aachen in 1999, Kadawittfeld Architektur today stands for more than just architectural design. The interdisciplinary approach of their work, linking architecture, interior and product design on the one hand and at the interface of town planning and urban projects, on the other hand, reflects the full range of our creative output. In a team of more than 160 persons, they create architecture with added value space for living, communication and work environments.
In the way they deal with volumes, materials, structures and functions, they strive to integrate our schemes into their surroundings with the objective of creating contemporary and sustainable architecture and meeting the needs of both the users and the general public.
8. Tchoban Voss Architekten
Since its foundation in 1970 by Alf M. Prasch, Wolfgang Nietz and Peter Sigl in Hamburg, Tchoban Voss has stood for the successful development and implementation of contemporary buildings. Following the opening of additional locations in Dresden and Berlin, the partnership was expanded in 1995 by Ekkehard Voss and Sergei Tchoban. With many years of experience, excellent project teams, efficient administration and a wide range of planning tools, they offer architecturally and functionally sustainable solutions for almost every construction task at home and abroad.
They design, plan and build for regional and international clients in the public and private sectors in throughout Germany, as well as in Russia and its neighbor states, Turkey, Central Asia and the Arab states. In addition to residential and commercial buildings, their emphasis is on the planning of hotels, office and industrial complexes, leisure, educational and social facilities, as well as the conversion and revitalisation of listed buildings. For this purpose, they have always undertaken all architectural services up to general planning.
9. Max Dudler
Max Dudler was born in Altenrhein in Switzerland. After completing his studies in architecture at the Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main and at the Hochschule der Künste Berlin, he has headed his own practice, with branches in Berlin, Zürich, Frankfurt and Munich, since 1992.
Over the past two decades, the practice’s focus has expanded beyond traditional architectural tasks. In ever changing contexts, Max Dudler has transposed his conceptual approach onto areas as diverse as urban planning, transportation structures, conversions, historic preservation, exhibition design and even furniture design.
10. Staab Architekten
The founding of Staab Architekten dates back to the competition for the Neues Museum in Nuremberg in 1991. Several successful public building projects from different areas such as cultural buildings, scientific research and teaching buildings, office and administrative buildings as well as educational buildings have been planned and realised in recent years.
An essential concern of their work is to condense the complex conditions of architecture into a simple, surprisingly plausible form. Here contextual, economic, functional and technical conditions play just as important a role as the formal condition that develops from the respective logic of the building. Focusing on the essential is the focus of their work.
This attitude is followed in every detail. So Staab Architekten architectural work is characterized by the careful, conceptual use of form, material and color.
Resources: aaup | architizer | archdaily | rethinking the future | archello | Staab Architekten | Max Dudler