The BMW Guggenheim Lab will operate in Berlin from May 24 to July 29, 2012. Berlin is the second stop in the Lab's nine-city tour, which premiered in New York earlier this year.
The BMW Guggenheim Lab Berlin, a combination think tank, public forum, and community center, will be located in the Pfefferberg complex in the Prenzlauer Berg neighborhood. Like the BMW Guggenheim Lab New York, the BMW Guggenheim Lab Berlin will be housed in an innovative mobile structure designed by Tokyo-based architects Atelier Bow-Wow. The Lab is presented in collaboration with ANCB-Metropolitan Laboratory and will offer a range of free programs exploring issues confronting urban life. Programming for the Lab will be created by the newly appointed Berlin Lab Team, together with Guggenheim curator Maria Nicanor.
As in New York, the BMW Guggenheim Lab Berlin will be housed in a compact temporary facility. Approximately 2,200 square feet in size, the structure can easily fit into dense neighborhoods and travel from city to city.
Lab Team and Program
The Berlin Lab Team includes: Jose Gomez-Márquez, program director for the Innovations in International Health Initiative at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston; architect and engineer Carlo Ratti, who practices in Italy and directs the SENSEable City Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston; Berlin-based artist Corinne Rose, who works with photography and video and teaches at the Bern University of the Arts, Switzerland; and Rachel Smith, principal transport planner with AECOM, based in Brisbane, Australia. The full Lab Team, which was nominated by the BMW Guggenheim Lab's Advisory Committee, will develop the programming and be present for the run of the Berlin Lab.
The programming of the Berlin Lab will focus on four main topics determined by the Lab Team: Empowerment Technologies (Jose Gomez-Márquez); Dynamic Connections (Rachel Smith); Urban Micro-Lens (Corinne Rose); and the Senseable (SENSEable) City (Carlo Ratti). All of the programs will relate to the theme of the first three-city cycle, Confronting Comfort, which explores ways of making urban environments more responsive to people's needs, striking a balance between individual and collective comfort, and promoting environmental and social responsibility. The programs will be designed to directly and proactively engage residents from all parts of Berlin and will address ideas and issues of particular relevance to the city.
"Each of us has very different educational and professional backgrounds that we are eager to share," said the Berlin Lab Team in a joint statement. "We are looking forward to making the BMW Guggenheim Lab Berlin a 'lab' of the interdisciplinary, multifaceted approach that will be needed to address tomorrow's major urban challenges."
After Berlin, the BMW Guggenheim Lab will travel to Mumbai in 2012-13.
Photo: Maria Nicanor