bio

Daniel Kaven (born 1977 in Albuquerque, New Mexico) is an American architect and artist working in painting, film, writing, and photography. He is the co-founder of architecture and design studio William / Kaven Architecture and the author of Architecture of Normal: The Colonization of the American Landscape (Birkhäuser, 2022).

Kaven’s films, writing, architecture, and mixed-media installations have been widely exhibited and published. In a review of his solo show at Gallery 500, art critic John Motley wrote: “what makes Kaven’s show so obsession-worthy is not the masterful way he shifts between media, but through the information he omits. With only a handful of events and scenes represented, the viewer is left to draw connections and conclusions from narrative fragments.”

Kaven’s Architecture of Normal has been reviewed in Metropolis Magazine, ICON, PRINT Magazine, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, and elsewhere. The book was honored with a 2022 GRAY Award in product design.

In 2004, Daniel Kaven and his brother Trevor William Lewis formed William / Kaven Architecture, a design studio working in architecture and interiors. The studio has amassed a portfolio of residential and commercial buildings, often acting as both architect and developer. Kaven’s design work has been published by such outlets as The Wall Street Journal, Dwell, Hypebeast, Maxim, Architectural Digest, Wallpaper Magazine, and The Architect’s Newspaper.

Kaven lives and works in Portland with his wife and 3 children.