Manuel Herz Architects is an office for architecture and urban planning, based in Basel, Switzerland and Cologne, Germany. Amongst the recently constructed buildings is the Jewish Community Center of Mainz, the mixed-use building ‘Legal / Illegal’ in Cologne, and a museum extension (with Eyal Weizman and Rafi Segal) in Ashdod, Israel. Current projects include housing projects in Cologne, Zürich and Lyon. The projects have received several prizes such as the German Facade Prize 2011, the Cologne Architecture Prize 2003, the German Architecture Prize for Concrete in 2004 and a nomination for the Mies van der Rohe Prize for European Architecture, 2011.

Manuel Herz studied at the RWTH Aachen, and the Architectural Association in London. After teaching at the Bartlett School of Architecture, London, the Berlage Institute, Rotterdam and Harvard Graduate School of Design he was head of the teaching and research at ETH Studio Basel - Institute of the Contemporary City. After a visiting professorship  at the ETH Zürich 2012-2014, he has been appointed professor of architecural and urban design at the University of Basel. Besides his work as a practicing architect he researches and publishes on the relationship between architecture and nation building, and on refugee camps. His books include 'From Camp to City - The Refugee Camps of the Western Sahara' (Lars Müller Publishers) and 'African Modernism - Architecture of Independence' (Park Books Publishers).