Mobile Laboratory Explores City Life With Over 100 Free Public Programs; Berlin and Mumbai Are Next Stops in Nine-City Global Initiative
The BMW Guggenheim Lab launches its worldwide tour tomorrow in Manhattan's East Village. A combination of think tank, public forum, and community center, the Lab will offer free programs that explore the challenges of today's cities within an innovative mobile structure that was designed to house this urban experiment. Over the next six years, the Lab will travel to nine cities in three successive cycles, each with its own distinct theme and structure, to help raise awareness of urban challenges and yield sustainable benefits for cities around the world.
In New York, the Lab is located at First Park, Houston at 2nd Avenue, a New York City Parks property, and is open free of charge Wednesdays to Sundays, August 3 to October 16. Visitors may participate in over 100 programs related to the theme Confronting Comfort, including workshops, experiments, discussions, screenings, and off-site tours. The Lab also features a cafe operated by the Brooklyn restaurant Roberta's.
A central component of the Lab is Urbanology, a group game played on-site and online. Participants role-play scenarios for city transformation, advocating for education, housing, health care, sustainability, infrastructure, and mobility as they build a city that matches their needs. The Urbanology game experience was developed by Local Projects, and the physical design was created by ZUS [Zones Urbaines Sensibles].
The website and blog at bmwguggenheimlab.org offer many ways to participate in the Lab. Also, visitors may join dedicated social communities on Twitter (@BMWGuggLab, hashtag #BGLab), Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, and Foursquare.
The structure for the first cycle, designed by Atelier Bow-Wow, is a lightweight, compact two-story "traveling toolbox." The lower half of the 2,200-square-foot structure is an open space that can be configured to meet the needs of particular programs. The upper, "toolbox" portion of the structure is loosely wrapped in two layers of semitransparent mesh, which creates a shimmering moiré effect, enabling visitors to view the "tools" that are raised and lowered for programs. This is the first building designed with a structural framework composed of carbon fiber. For an architectural animation: youtube.com/bmwguggenheimlab.
The graphic identity has been developed by Seoul-based graphic designers Sulki & Min.
The BMW Guggenheim Lab is organized by David van der Leer, Assistant Curator, Architecture and Urban Studies, and Maria Nicanor, Assistant Curator, Architecture, Guggenheim Museum. For a complete list of Lab Team and Advisory Committee members, bmwguggenheimlab.org/what-is-the-lab/people. For video interviews with the New York Lab Team: youtube.com/bmwguggenheimlab.
In spring 2012, the BMW Guggenheim Lab will be presented in Berlin, in collaboration with ANCB Metropolitan Laboratory, in Pfefferberg. In winter 2012-13 it will be presented in Mumbai, in collaboration with the Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Museum. The first cycle will culminate with an exhibition of the Lab's results and findings at the Guggenheim Museum in New York in 2013.
For regularly updated programming information, bmwguggenheimlab.org.
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation
Founded in 1937, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation is dedicated to promoting the understanding and appreciation of art, primarily of the modern and contemporary periods, through exhibitions, education programs, research initiatives, and publications. The Guggenheim Foundation owns and operates the Guggenheim Museum in New York and the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, and provides programming and management for the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao. The Deutsche Guggenheim in Berlin is the result of a collaboration between the Guggenheim Foundation and Deutsche Bank. The Guggenheim Abu Dhabi is currently in progress. For more information, guggenheim.org.
BMW's Cultural Commitment
In 2011 the BMW Group is celebrating 40 years of international cultural commitment. During this time the BMW Group has initiated and engaged in over 100 cultural cooperations worldwide. The company focuses its long-term commitment on modern and contemporary art, jazz and classical music, and architecture and design. The BMW Group has been ranked industry leader in the Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes for the last six years. In 1972 three large-scale paintings were created by Gerhard Richter for its Munich headquarters. Since then artists such as Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Olafur Eliasson, Thomas Demand, and Jeff Koons have cooperated with BMW. The company has also commissioned architects such as Karl Schwanzer, Zaha Hadid, and Coop Himmelb(l)au to design corporate buildings and plants. The BMW Group guarantees absolute creative freedom in all the cultural activities in which it is involved, since this is as essential for groundbreaking artistic work as it is for major innovations in business. For more information, bmwgroup.com/culture and bmw.com/bmwguggenheimlab.
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CONTACTS
Betsy Ennis
Guggenheim Museum
212 423 3840
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Melissa Parsoff
Ruder Finn
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Thomas Girst
BMW Group
+49 89 382 20067
thomas.girst@bmw.de