Adam Szymczyk has been appointed director of the Swiss Architecture Museum Basel (S AM). He will take over from Andreas Ruby who has held the position for ten years.
Born in Poland, Adam Szymczyk studied art history in Warsaw before completing his curatorial training at De Appel in Amsterdam. From 2002 to 2014, he served as director and curator of the Kunsthalle Basel where he curated over 80 exhibitions. He co-curated the 5th Berlin Biennale in 2008 and served as artistic director of documenta 14, which took place in 2017.
He has since been working freelance as a writer and curator, while also teaching seminars at the gta Institute for the History and Theory of Architecture at ETH Zürich, at the Universities of Basel and Zurich, and the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna.
‘I am very much looking forward to leading the program of S AM as its director from 2026 onwards’, said Szymczyk. ‘In my work as curator, author and lecturer, I have often addressed architecture and architects, with growing awareness of the political dimension of the progression and the discourse that shapes architecture within a broader social, economic, and cultural context.’
