Gregor Schneider, born in the German city of Rheydt, held his first exhibition at the age of 16. He won the prestigious 'Golden Lion' in 2001 at the 49th Biennale in Venice, with his solo exhibition "Totes Haus u r Venedig 2001" for the German pavilion. Within three months, Schneider built a ‘Totes Haus u r’ inside the pavilion, after shipping 24 original rooms using 100 packing 
pieces with a combined weight of 150 tons from Rheydt to Venice. Schneider rebuilt the rooms inside the German pavilion into a house with double walls and double floors just like his own in Rheydt. He remodelled a late 19th century entrance with columns as standard door entrance. Inside windows could not be opened to the outside. Haus u r is a quotation and extension of the original that reveals how an apparently normal and benign space can trap and disorient through illusion and mystery. "One builds what one no longer knows", Schneider commented about his rooms. In 2003, the 'Tote Haus u r' was constructed for one year inside the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.
In 2008, Gregor Schneider designed a new entrance for Mönchengladbach's Abteiberg Museum that is as monumental as it is mysterious. The huge walk-in sculpture erected on the lawn in front of the museum is implemented as a temporary building. 
Schneider’s concept envisages the museum as a black hole leading into an unknown space. The visitor enters it through a black opening. Total blackness removes all sense of place and creates an experience of complete isolation, compelling visitors to feel their way along the walls of a corridor into total darkness, before eventually discovering a new entrance to the museum. The exhibition rooms located beyond this entrance are also entirely dark, their architecture vanishing into a black and obscure nothingness. Sensitised in this manner, visitors then enter Gregor Schneider’s innovative presentation of the museum’s collection, which includes original rooms from Haus u r.
The dimensions of this project both as urban architecture and a critical statement are one of its key features. The result is a major landmark that draws attention to what was previously a rather inconspicuous inner-city museum and endows its currently hidden entrance with new prominence. The enormous entrance tunnel, located in front of the museum, catches the eye from several perspectives, virtually drawing the viewer into it.
