Karl-Heinz Petzinka

Since 2008, he has been professor of the Baukunst class at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. He also acts as an adjudicator at national and international level. Since 2012, he has also held a visiting professorship at the Austral University of Chile on the topics of systems, urban planning and planning in non-European countries. On 24 April 2017, Petzinka became the fourth architect to be elected Rector of the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. He took office on 1 August 2017 for a term of four years.

In 2007, Petzina was appointed as one of four program directors of the Ruhr.2010 project for the Ruhr being European Capital of Culture in 2010. He was responsible for the sector "City of Possibilities" which included architecture, urban development and visual arts.

The conversion of the Jahrhunderthalle [de] in Bochum in 2002/03 is one of the projects in which this concept – in this case the addition of technological and reactivating elements to the historical building fabric and building construction – was implemented. At the same time, the Jahrhunderthalle marks the opening of a new field of work in Petzinka's oeuvre with the conversion of historic buildings to a new use. In October 2004, Petzinka took over as chairman of the management of the real estate company THS Wohnen [de] with headquarters in the converted Zeche Nordstern [de] in Gelsenkirchen. Petzinka left the company in November 2011.

Born in Bocholt, Petzinka studied architecture at the RWTH Aachen from 1976 and graduated in 1982 with the academic degree of Diplom-Ingenieur. In 1981, he received the North Rhine-Westphalia state's Förderpreis for young artists in the field of architecture. After his first professional years 1982–1983 as a freelance architect in the office of O. M. Ungers in Cologne, he worked as an assistant to Wolfgang Döring [de] at the RWTH Aachen from 1983 to 1985. From 1986 to 1987, he was a scholarship holder of the Villa Massimo in the architecture category. From 1988, Petzinka taught design at the Bergische Universität Wuppertal, and in 1994 he was appointed professor in the Department of Design and Building Technology at the Technische Universität Darmstadt, where he taught until 2007. During this time, Petzinka also held guest professorships at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf and at RWTH Aachen. At the same time, he founded the Petzinka Pink Architekten studio together with Thomas Pink in 1994, with offices in Düsseldorf and Berlin.

Karl-Heinz Petzinka (born 7 January 1956) is a German architect, and Rector of the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. He is known for office buildings in Düsseldorf and Berlin. He converted historic industrial buildings, and was responsible for the section architecture for the Ruhr.2010 project.