Kleihues at 70: a major Berlin retrospective of the work and life of Josef Paul Kleihues shows that his influence is still strongly felt.

The standing and reputation of Josef Paul Kleihues in contemporary German architecture is well recognized. Since he opened his own architectural practice in Berlin in 1962, Kleihues' work and influence has been strongly linked with the history of the once divided German capital and, since the fall of the Wall, even more with the critical reconstruction of new Berlin. On 11 June 2003, Kleihues celebrated his 70th birthday, an event that prompted his former office principal, Paul Kahlfeldt, art historian Andres Lepik, as well as Kleihues' eldest son Jan to surprise him with an exhibition of his work and influences at the Museum of Contemporary Art, the so-called Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin.

Emphatically entitled Stadt-Bau-Kunst, the exhibition is not a typical parade of architectural masterpieces in chronological order. Rather it creates poetic and geometric centres of interest based on Kleihues' poem Seven Pillars of Architecture displayed with small accompanying programmatic drawings. Visitors meander through seven geometric room dividers symbolizing Kleihues' seven architectural virtues: geometry, construction, harmony, perfection, function, utopia and poetry. Kleihues had nothing to do with the organization of the exhibition and it took the aforementioned trio two years of secret preparation to compile this extraordinary show.

The inspired curators concentrated primarily on Kleihues' built oeuvre in Berlin which spans forty uninterrupted years. However, they also imaginatively incorporate other architects' work (for instance Libeskind, Grassi, Ungers, Stirling) and paintings from Kleihues' private collection by Baselitz, Lupertz and Lewandowsky. In parts the exhibition resembles that of an avid collector with truly encyclopaedic taste ranging from rare books, to illustrations by Gilly, street and house-hold furniture as well as the obligatory plans and models and, of course, the paintings. Despite its thematic complexity, the major strands of Kleihues' work are clearly exposed and the significant buildings given sufficient space.

Nowadays, every German architect is familiar with Kleihues' pioneering urban concepts and buildings. Key ones such as 'Poetic Rationality' or 'Critical Reconstruction' still have a refreshing idealistic and formal and architectural scene. The Berlin International Building Exhibition (IBA) or the latest initiative known as Planwerk Innenstadt pay undeniable homage to Kleihues' ideas and architecture. So there could not have been a better setting for this show than the Hamburger Bahnhof. Refurbished and extended by Kleihues during the late 1980s, it has now become Berlin's first address for the city's permanent contemporary art collection.

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Stadt-Bau-Kunst, Josef Paul Kleihues' 70th birthday exhibition, Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin, until 31 August, www.hamburgerbahnhof.de