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M rs. and Mr. Meuser, you are architects and run your joint office, Meuser Archi-
tekten, in Berlin. You are also publishers and founded DOM publishers in 2005.
How and with which book did it all begin?
Philipp Meuser (PM): In the early 2000s, we won a competition with the graphic design
office adlerschmidt for a guidance and orientation system for the state-owned castles and
palaces in Rhineland-Palatinate. Twenty years ago, only a few experts mastered this de-
sign task, it was new territory for us. The research for good examples turned out to be
extremely difficult. When it came to implementation, we had built up a whole archive of
signage. So it was obvious to make a book out of it – with our own publishing house.

r How did the publishing house and the architecture firm in parallel?
Natascha Meuser (NM): Working on books and planning projects at the same time is mu-
tually beneficial. Looking back today, we have published many books that also document
our architectural work. Be it a handbook on barrier-free construction or publications on
safety topics in architecture. Since we carry out our planning and building projects al-
most exclusively outside Europe, we constantly have to engage with other cultures. We
have often experienced that a printed book can serve as a kind of door opener for dialo-
gue with other colleagues or clients. To be honest, we do not distinguish between archi-
tecture and book art in our projects. We think architecture holistically.

r Architects who love to travel know your slim monochrome architectural guides,
which range from the Sauerland to Stockholm to the Sub-Sahara. There are now over
200 such guides, one of the most recent being the Architekturführer Deutschland
2023. What did you want to do differently with your series?
PM: As architects, travelling and collecting artefacts are in our DNA. We collect, arrange,
put things into context. That’s how a building design emerges. An architectural guide is
a reflection of that. The authors make a selection of typical buildings of a region, arrange
them according to chronology, typology or geography and convey background knowledge
in their texts. Anyone who sets out with our architectural guides can get to know a city
or a country in all its architectural facets. This also applies to places that cannot be tra-
velled to, or currently only at high risk: Ukraine, Iran, Pyongyang. Our publishing pro-
gramme even includes an architectural guide to the moon. With the series, we didn’t aim
to do anything new per se. But we have further developed this book genre. The German
magazine Der Spiegel once described our annually published Architekturführer Deutsch-
land as the Michelin Guide to German architecture. That endorsed our work.

r In the Grundlagen (Fundamentals) series, you give authors and young academics
the opportunity to bring highly diverse topics on architecture and urban planning into
a book format on an international level. What qualities must an author and a manu-
script have in order to be published by DOM publishers?
PM: Our authors must be passionate about their subject. This is an important prerequi-
site for publishing an academic text between the two boards of a book. Unfortunately,
we find that publishing online titles has led to an increasing shallowness of content. Re-
cognising the value of a printed book, and also appreciating this book ̶this is what we
and our publishing house want to stand for. But it is also important that a book idea fits
thematically into our publishing programme. We often reject authors because their topic
would be better suited for another publishing house.

r How do you manage to reconcile your different tasks in the publishing house, in
the architecture office and your professorships? What synergies do you use and how
much team power is behind your professional activities?
NM: Our mission is demanding. Therefore, from the very beginning, part of our corporate
culture has been to work together with a good, committed, outstanding team that pur-
sues this path together with us with conviction and dedication. Some staff members have
supported us for 15 years, some even for 20 years. We trust each other, don’t need to dis-
cuss every step three times, and we delegate responsibility. It wouldn’t work otherwise.
This is the only way we have time for our own research topics or teaching. We love what
we do. That is key to many beautiful projects.
r Meuser Architekten specialises in “buildings under a special preservation order”
in Germany and abroad, including above all embassies. Together with Jörn Düwel,
you have documented the history of German diplomacy in your book Architektur und
Diplomatie. In what way do theory and practice benefit from each other?