Berlin, Germany (June 15, 2012) /Marketwire/ — The BMW Guggenheim Lab opens today in Berlin, the second stop on the project’s six-year global tour. Offering free programs from June 15 to July 29, 2012, the BMW Guggenheim Lab Berlin is a temporary public space and online forum encouraging open dialogue about issues related to urban life.
A local think tank with a global perspective, the BMW Guggenheim Lab Berlin focuses on practical making and doing, with programs designed to empower residents with tools and ideas to actively engage in city change. The Lab is located in Prenzlauer Berg at Schönhauser Allee 176 in the Pfefferberg complex, a converted nineteenth-century brewery. The Lab is open Wednesday through Sunday, and all programs are offered in German or in English with German translation.
The BMW Guggenheim Lab Berlin is presented in cooperation with ANCB The Metropolitan Laboratory.
BMW Guggenheim Lab Berlin Programming
Under the umbrella of Confronting Comfort, the theme of the Lab’s first two-year cycle, programming for the Berlin Lab focuses on the importance of “doing and making” to bring about city change. Programs have been developed by the Berlin Lab Team (José Gómez-Márquez, Carlo Ratti, Corinne Rose, and Rachel Smith), an international, multidisciplinary group of innovators and experts led by Guggenheim curator Maria Nicanor, with contributions from local organizations. The schedule, available on the BMW Guggenheim Lab website, will include more than one hundred events at the Pfefferberg site and throughout the city.
“The goal of the BMW Guggenheim Lab is to spark a conversation about the future of cities and to create a forum where people of all backgrounds can create and share ideas,” said Maria Nicanor, Curator, BMW Guggenheim Lab. “Berlin is the ideal city to develop the Lab’s philosophy further, precisely because of its deeply rooted system of citizen participation.”
Programs concentrate on four main topics:
Empowerment Technologies (June 15-24)
José Gómez-Márquez, a pioneer in the field of health technology, will lead a series of “do-it-yourself” workshops focused on building one’s own city by “hacking” and transforming urban spaces.
Dynamic Connections (June 27-July 6)
Transportation planner Rachel Smith will lead programs focused on sustainable mobility and community-building.
Urban Micro-Lens (July 7-18)
Berlin-based artist and psychologist Corinne Rose will explore the intersection between psychology, architecture, and art with programs that address perception, communication, and emotions in city life.
SENSEable City (July 19-29)
Architect and engineer Carlo Ratti will lead programs examining how new technologies transform the way we understand, design, and live in cities.
Activities at the BMW Guggenheim Lab Berlin will be documented on the project’s blog, Lab | Log, which also features interviews with BMW Guggenheim Lab contributors. The public is invited to join the Lab’s dedicated social communities on Twitter (@BMWGuggLab and #BGLab), Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, and Foursquare.
BMW Guggenheim Lab and GOOD Call for “City Forward” Ideas
In collaboration with GOOD, the BMW Guggenheim Lab has launched a worldwide, online call for ideas to “make” urban comfort, asking: “How would you transform a public space in your city to make it more comfortable?” The public is invited to submit forward-thinking, innovative, imaginative, surprising, or unconventional ideas that would enhance people’s experience in a public space. Entries may be submitted to good.is/city-forward beginning June 19, 2012. Selected entries will be highlighted on the BMW Guggenheim Lab and GOOD websites and social media channels.
GOOD is a collaboration of individuals, businesses, and nonprofits pushing the
world forward. The GOOD.is website is an ongoing exploration of what GOOD is and what it can be.
Visitor Information
All BMW Guggenheim Lab Berlin programs are free and open to the public on a first-come, first-served basis during operating hours. Advance online registration is required for select programs. The Lab is open Wednesday through Friday, 2-10 pm, and Saturday and Sunday, 12-10 pm.
About the Architecture and Design
Lightweight and compact, with a structural skeleton built of carbon fiber, the mobile structure for the first two-year cycle of the BMW Guggenheim Lab has been designed by Tokyo architecture firm Atelier Bow-Wow as a “traveling toolbox.” The structure’s lower half is an open space that can be configured to accommodate the Lab’s various programs. The upper, “toolbox” portion of the structure is wrapped in a semitransparent mesh. Through this external skin, visitors can view the extensive apparatus of “tools” that are raised and lowered for programs as needed.
The graphic identity for the first cycle of the BMW Guggenheim Lab has been developed by Seoul-based graphic designers Sulki & Min.
About the BMW Guggenheim Lab
The BMW Guggenheim Lab is a joint initiative of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation and the BMW Group. The BMW Guggenheim Lab launched in August 2011 in New York. Over six years, the Lab will travel to nine cities around the world in three successive two-year cycles, each with its own theme and structure. Following Berlin — the second stop of the tour — the BMW Guggenheim Lab will travel to Mumbai in winter 2012-13. Details about the Lab’s second cycle will be announced in the months to come. The BMW Guggenheim Lab is curated by David van der Leer and Maria Nicanor of the Guggenheim Museum.
