BMW Guggenheim takes Berlin
The BMW Guggenheim Lab has opened its doors in Berlin on the second leg of the urban life project’s six-year global tour. The Lab had a successful 10-week stint in New York in 2011, but had to alter its plans to set up shop in the German capital in March this year after the organisers feared the project could get caught up in militant local action against gentrification of the Kreuzberg neighbourhood of the city.
The Lab has now found a home in Berlin’s Pfefferberg complex, a converted nineteenth-century brewery in the already-gentrified district of Prenzlauer Berg in partnership with ANCB The Metropolitan Laboratory.
The German/English programme will focus on ‘Empowerment Technologies’, ‘Dynamic Connections’, the ‘Urban Micro-Lens’ (addressing perception, communication, and emotion in city life) and the ‘SENSEable City’ examining the way new technologies transform the way people understand, design, and live in cities.
“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,” says 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.”
BMW Guggenheim Lab Berlin activities will be documented on the project’s blog, which also features interviews with BMW Guggenheim Lab contributors. The public can join the Lab’s dedicated social communities on Twitter – @BMWGuggLab and #BGLab – Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, and foursquare
