Alex Schweder American, b. 1970

Alex Schweder lives and works in New York City, where he was born in 1970. Schweder coined the term ‘Performance Architecture’ to describe his contributions to architectural discourse that have been developed in spaces of exhibition including, Sensefactory at Muffithalle Munich, Slow Teleport at Casino Luxembourg, Your Turn at the Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, The Newcomers in Performa17, Antarctopia at the 2014 Venice Biennale, Wall to Wall Floor To Ceiling at the Tel Aviv Art Museum, The Endless House at the Museum of Modern Art, Performance Architecture at the 2013 Moscow Biennial, The Real and Other Fictions at the 2013 Lisbon Architecture Biennial, Practise Architecture at Tate Britain, and A Sac of Rooms All Day Long at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Schweder pursued his undergraduate studies at Pratt Institute, graduate studies at Princeton University, and doctoral studies at Cambridge University. He has taught architecture, interior design, and industrial design at Pratt since 2012. Additionally he has taught at the Southern California Institute of Architecture, Der Akademie der Kunst in Vienna, the Architectural Association in London, and The Parson’s School of Design.

The New York Times, Artform, and Architectural Record are among the many periodicals to feature Schweder’s work. Historians such as RoseLee Goldberg and Juliet Rufford have theorized Schweder’s practice in Performance Now and Theater Architecture respectively. His writings have contributed to Performing Architectures (Andrew Filmer and Juliet Rufford eds.), Interiors Beyond Architecture (Amy Campos and Deborah Schneiderman eds.), and Log (Cynthia Davidson ed.).

Financial supporters of his work include, Die Kulturstiftung des Bundes, The Pollack Krasner Foundation, and The Graham Foundation. Schweder has been an artist in residence at the Kohler Company, the Chinati Foundation, The American Academy in Rome as a 2005-6 Rome Prize Fellow in Architecture and will be a Fellow at Civitella Ranieri in 2022.