The completion of Frizz23 in Kreuzberg is a milestone in Berlin’s real estate enterprise. This residential and commercial project is the fruit of a tireless collaboration between local actors, district authorities, the Berlin Senate, FORUM Berufsbildung and Deadline Architects. More than a private facility for investor-owners, Frizz23 is an accessible bottom-up structure aiming to counteract the impending gentrification in this area and project a different image about development strategies in Berlin.

Grill Royal has long been a fixture on the Berlin fine-dining scene. In 2016, its intimate French offshoot opened under the direction of Jeanne Tremsal, in leafy Charlottenburg on the ground floor of a Wilhelminian period-building. The menu offers Grill Royal classics mixed with French elegance – fresh fish, oysters, and modern interpretations of principals in the French cuisine, such as coq au vin, all of which is complemented by a fine selection of wines.

Featuring some 100 works and numerous original plaster figures by Alberto Giacometti and Francis Bacon, some of which were never on display before, the Bacon Giacometti exhibition at Fondation Beyeler sheds light on the complex relationship between the two artists. Featuring four main thematic sections, a particular focus investigates the distinct isolation of space, subjects enclosed in cage-like entities.

Certain works of art are historically important but no longer offer us experiential quality. Louise Bourgeois, whose life spanned the 20th century used art as a way to understand herself, inventing distinct visual worlds of emotion and raw self-expression, such as the arresting structures of her famous Cells. Schinkel Pavillon invites us to revisit the last two decades of her life through a focused selection of works presented in diverse media forms. 

In conjunction with the Milan Design Week 2018, Vitra presents Typecasting, a panorama of 200 objects, curated by Robert Stadler. The Austrian designer looks at furniture outside conventional categories, such as their functional uses or historical origins. Instead, he regards them as characters, arranged in groups that reflect discernable behavioural patterns and personality types in contemporary society. 

Pin-up girls, comic book heroes and supermarket products collide. A diverse mix of structures brushed in colour to make the history of Pop Art. Eduardo Paolozzi’s pictorial worlds, man and machine in action are inspired by the artist’s fascinations with science and technology. This exhibition makes a close-up on his experimental work between the 1940s and the 1970s and his productive year in Berlin in 1975. 

Night Fever is the first exhibition to offer a comprehensive overview on designing nightclubs. From Radical Design clubs of the 1960s to the legendary Studio 54 in New York and more recent concepts by the OMA architecture studio for the Ministry of Sound in London, this exhibition features films, original photographs, posters, flyers and garments, to take visitors on a fascinating tour into the glamorous, avant-garde energies of nightlife.

Years after a joint partnership between Verner Panton and Vitra, the Panton Chair was launched into production in 1967, to be the first all-plastic cantilever chair to be manufactured in one piece. Created with a revolutionary technique even by today’s standards, its unique design symbolized an era. Now, 50 years later, Vitra celebrates this timeless icon by releasing two limited editions that bring lustre and luminosity to its original curves: a Panton Chrome and a Panton Glow. 

Tucked away between two older buildings, vGGG is a stylish housing cooperative project consisting of three residential units. The building’s location is crucial to its aesthetic preferences: Ohmstrasse, a quiet haven of sorts, dates back to the “founding era” of Berlin, which makes the realisation of modernist architecture a bit of a challenge. To resolve this, Gonzalez Haase’s creative design approach conceived the building from the inside out, allowing it to genuinely interact with its environment. 

Be it through gender, sexuality, or by looking into the ability of architecture to influence our spacial movements, Monica Bonvicini continually explores themes of power and control. Conceived for the large exhibition hall of the Berlinische Galerie, Bonvicini’s new installation examines the meanings of the term “façade” in the built environment. The site of the installation itself here becomes a scene to experiment with the boundaries between the artwork and the spectator.

Design doesn’t only apply to graphics, objects, user interfaces or spaces, it also relates to social processes and complex systems. Democracy is one such system, a structured process, not a given. The 5th edition of the exhibition series Design Display examines how design intersects with democracy to make changes in society. On one side of the exhibition, PlanBude promotes ideas of public inclusion in design. On the other side, blockchain technology is presented in light of its infinite online applications. 

As real estate prices in big cities continue to skyrocket, conventional ideas of housing development prove unable to meet demands. The reaction to these challenges has been a silent revolution in contemporary architecture towards collective building and living. Using models, films, and walk-in displays, Vitra Design Museum’s exhibition Together! The New Architecture of the Collective addresses this global phenomenon by presenting an array of key collective projects from Europe, Asia, and the United States. 

It is customary to describe Grill Royal as an institution – much more than a luxe restaurant boasting one of the city’s most extensive steak menus, it is an open and dynamic meeting place, exuding an offbeat sense of intimacy. The vision of owners, Boris Radczun and Stephan Landwehr, was seemingly straightforward; a restaurant where one could dine exquisitely, in good company, stumbling on an unlikely location along the Spree. A special treat is the extensive wine listed, hand-selected by Andrea Kauk and her team of sommeliers.

Internationally renowned industrial designers Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec reveal the results of their ongoing research at the Vitra Fire Station in Rêveries Urbaines. The exhibition lists new forms and concepts in what can be seen as a wide-ranging study of possible development solutions for cities. Unlike the duo’s usual domestic approach to design and focus on the individual, the exhibited propositions focus on public spaces and the relationship between residents and the city.

Fifteen years in the making, the recently acquired U-bahn expansion of Dusseldorf’s Wehrhahn lineis a refreshing approach to inner-city mobility and a nod to the future possibilities of public transport aesthetics. Collectively designed by artists, architects and engineers from the very outset, the ambitious project offers an unparalleled art and architecture experience to commuters who are invited to immerse themselves in soundscapes, geometric animations and sculptural installations.