Roger Diener | Founding Partner
Prof. Emeritus ETH, Architect BSA SIA BDA a.o.

Roger Diener has been one of the leading figures in Swiss architecture for five decades. Since 1980, through Diener & Diener Architekten, he has made significant contributions to international architectural discourse across a wide range of scales and building types, from housing and office buildings to museums and urban masterplans. As a long-standing university professor, he has shaped generations of students and advanced both teaching and research. At the heart of his thinking, teaching and practice is a systematic yet sensitive engagement with the historically evolved city. The practice develops compelling approaches to the preservation of historic buildings and ensembles. Repairs, vertical extensions, conversions and additions are characterised by the coexistence of old and new. Working with existing buildings plays a central role in the practice's current work.

After studying at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich), Roger Diener joins his father Marcus Diener's practice in 1976. Four years later, he becomes his partner, and the jointly led practice takes the name Diener & Diener Architekten. Following visiting professorships at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Harvard University and universities in Vienna, Amsterdam and Copenhagen, he is Professor of Architectural Design at EPFL from 1987 to 1989. From 1999 to 2015, he is Professor at ETH Zurich. Roger Diener is a co-founder of ETH Studio Basel Contemporary City Institute.

Roger Diener serves on the Berlin State Monuments Council from 2005 to 2013 and on the Swiss Federal Commission for Monument Preservation from 2013 to 2023. He has been a member of the City of Zurich Heritage Conservation Commission since 2018.

Roger Diener receives numerous international honours, including France's Grande Médaille d'Or d'Architecture, the Prix Meret Oppenheim, the Heinrich Tessenow Medal and the Culture Prize of the City of Basel. Bauhaus-Universität Weimar awards him an honorary doctorate in 2019.