Hans Hollein, an important architect, designer, and exhibition curator, was born in Vienna in 1934. Until 1956, Hans Hollein attended the Akademie der bildenden Künste in Vienna before going on to study architecture and Urban Planning at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago and the University of California Berkeley until 1960. In 1964 Hans Hollein opened an architecture practice in Vienna and soon made a name for himself worldwide as a leading exponent of Postmodernism. Important early Hans Hollein architecture projects in Vienna include remodeling the Retti candle shop (1964/65) and the Schullin jewelry shop (1973/74). From 1972 to 1982 Hans Hollein worked on the plans for the Städtische Museum Abteiberg in Mönchengladbach and, in 1977/78, he designed the Museum for Glass and Ceramics in Teheran. In Frankfurt am Main, Hans Hollein built the Museum für Moderne Kunst (1982-1991). During the 1980s Hans Hollein also found time to design Postmodern furniture, such as the 1981 "Schwarzenberg" desk he designed for Memphis. Hans Hollein was a professor of architecture at the Düsseldorf Art Academy between 1967 and 1976. Then Hans Hollein taught industrial design and architecture at the Hochschule für angewandte Kunst in Vienna (since 1998: Universität für angewandte Kunst) from 1976 until 2002. From 1978 until 1990 Hans Hollein was Austrian commissioner at the the Venice art Biennale and from 1991 to 2000 also commissioner for the architecture Biennale in Venice. In 1996 Hans Hollein was director of the entire Venice Biennale. Back in 1976 Hans Hollein conceived and realized the inaugural exhibition "MANtransFORMS" for the Cooper Hewitt Museum in New York. In 1985 Hans Hollein curated the exhibition "Traum und Wirklichkeit" at the Viennese Historisches Museum.