François Valentiny

In 2016 Valentiny was awarded the Cruz Europea de Oro by the Fundacion Europeo Barcelona, and the Eiffel Wooden Construction Award in Germany for the Biodiversum in Remerschen, Luxembourg, as well as being named one of the 100 Architects of the Year by the Korean Institute of Architects. In 2018 he was awarded the Grand Decoration of Merit by the Land of Salzburg.

Since 2011 he has been a Master of Community Planning and Green Architectural Design with the Beijing DeTao Masters Academy (DTMA), a higher education institution in Shanghai, China. The DeTao Master Francois Valentiny Studio opened in Shanghai in 2014.

In 2011 he co-founded the Musica em in Trancoso - MeT Festival, and designed the amphitheater in the canyon of Trancoso, Bahia, Brazil. Valentiny established his own foundation, the Valentiny Foundation, in 2014. The foundation opened an office in Remerschen in 2016.

He was also involved in the Austrian and Luxembourg Pavilions for the Seville Expo '92, the latter winning second prize, and the Luxembourg Pavilion at Expo 2010 in Shanghai, China, winning first prize.

He was made Président of the Fondation de l'Architecture et de l'Ingénierie in Luxembourg for the year 2006/2007 and in 2006 was awarded the Decoration of Honour in Gold for Services to the Republic of Austria (= 9th Class). In 2008 he was honoured for his overall architectural work in the Grand Duchy and abroad and received the Luxembourg Architecture Prize 2007. In 2009 he became a member of the Academia Scientiarum et Artium Europaea in Salzburg, Austria.

Between 2000 and 2003 he was substitute professor at the Leipzig University of Applied Sciences, and in 2002 founded and published the first Luxembourg architecture magazine, Adato. From 2003 to 2007 he was a member of the administration committee of the Fondation de l'Architecture et de l'Ingénierie in Luxembourg, and was Luxembourg's commissioner for the Venice Biennale in both 2004 and 2006.

Valentiny won the Architecture prize of the State of Sachsen-Anhalt in 1995 for his work on a hotel and service industry complex in Halle an der Saale, Germany, as well as the Architecture Prize of the Fondation l'Architecture et de l'Ingénierie Luxembourg for the Luxembourg Embassy in Vienna, and the Luxembourg Architecture Prize for the best concrete building for a town council building in Bech-Kleinmacher, Luxembourg.

He was a member of the design advisory committee to the City of Salzburg (1991-94), the architecture and urban advisory committee of the City of Trier (1997-2006) and the advisory committee to the German Architecture Museum in Frankfurt (2000-05). In 1997 he founded Hermann & Valentiny et Associés SARL. The company was renamed as Valentiny HVP Architects Sarl in 2012.

From 1987 to 1992 he was a visiting lecturer at the Department of Architecture of the University of Applied Sciences Trier, and in 1991 he became Luxembourg's first representative at the Venice Biennale of Architecture

In 1980 he completed his studies in Vienna with the title "Magister architecturae" in the master class of Wilhelm Holzbauer, and was awarded a scholarship by the Federal Ministry for Science and Research in Vienna. He also became an assistant at the International Summer Academy in Salzburg. In the same year, he formed a partnership with Hubert Hermann, founding the architects' office Hermann & Valentiny in Luxembourg and Vienna.

François Valentiny (born 1953 in Remerschen-Schengen, Luxembourg) is a Luxembourgish architect. After his studies in architecture at the Ecole d'Architecture de Nancy and the University of Applied Arts Vienna, in 1980 he formed a partnership with Hubert Hermann, founding the architects' office Hermann & Valentiny in Luxembourg and Vienna. He first advised for the city of Trier, and later became a visiting lecturer at the Department of Architecture, University of Applied Sciences Trier.

Valentiny was born in 1953 in the village of Remerschen-Schengen, Luxembourg, one of two sons of a carpenter. His parents sent him to boarding school in Belgium at the age of 12, and on his return, he followed the family tradition and became a carpenter. He studied architecture between 1975 and 1980 at the Ecole d'Architecture de Nancy and the University of Applied Arts Vienna.