Museum Sundays are for Everyone

Poster promoting Museumssonntag Berlin

© Jan Kapitän

Over 60 Berliner museums are part of Museumssonntag Berlin, an initiative of the Berliner Senate Administration for Culture and Europe and the Commissioner for Culture and Media. By waiving the admission fee on every first Sunday of the month, Berlin aims to engage a larger audience with the city’s rich and diverse cultural landscape and the immense variety of topics offered by local institutions – from fine arts to history and everyday culture. Special workshops, tours and other program highlights in each museum invite visitors of all ages to participate. 
Museumssonntag Berlin is a model project accompanied by a large-scale study researching the impact of admission-free Sundays on the cultural participation of the urban population.

Spot On the Vitra Schaudepot

Reiko Tanabe Portrait

Reiko Tanabe © SHINCHOSHA

Chair by Inga Sempe

Inga Sempé © Ligne Roset

Today, museums are fittingly encouraged to reevaluate the focus of their work, given it is also their collections that shape relevance, status, and success of artists and designers. With the new collection presentation at the Vitra Schaudepot, the museum is exploring the role of women in furniture design while also questioning the museum’s own practice. “Spot On: Women Designers in the Collection” seeks to strengthen awareness of female designers’ works and to give them an equal voice in public discourse. Featured designers are Inga Sempé, Reiko Tanabe, Matali Crasset, and Gunjan Gupta among others.

All That is Light

Light by As a Ceremony

© Daniel Farò

Light by As a Ceremony

© Daniel Farò

detail as a ceremony light, bureau n

© Daniel Farò

Light by As a Ceremony

© Daniel Farò

Alessia Pegorin and Antonia Insunza are As A Ceremony. Both architects by trade, they design interiors, luminaires, and light itself. Practicing extensive research and considering the users’ well-being as much as the potential impact on the environment, the designers implement their holistic approach into all their projects. Unique objects and interiors, reflecting on design conventions and the meaning of light within urban life, are one of the results.

Revitalising Work Spaces: Hospitality Meets the Office

© Vitra

© Vitra

Vitras Club Office

© Vitra

Although now is not the first time that we need to reinvent our work environment, we might find ourselves asking what it is we expect and need from our offices today. Vitra’s answer is the Club Office. Usually, clubs are formed by like-minded people who get together to collaborate, exchange knowledge, and create. The Club Office shares the same spirit: it is a place of social belonging and identification, inviting people (back) to the heart of the organisation and once again bringing them together. By combining office elements with a hospitable atmosphere, the club fosters moments of serendipity and helps shape collective knowledge, while still offering flexible workspaces and meeting areas.

An Amplifier of Public Space

© Bettina Pousttchi

Amplifier, a site specific work by Bettina Pousttchi, draws on Karl Friedrich Schinkel’s 19th century architecture of the Berlin Concert Hall. A frontal view of the portico reveals five photographically printed columns between the six familiar Ionic columns. Unlike the historic ones, Bettina Pousttchi’s columns extend beyond the first pediment, leading directly to the portico’s higher second pediment. By altering the familiar dimensions, the installation changes the real perception of the building, creating a new experience of its own.

Cinema dates in Siemensstadt with Hans Scharoun

Balconies in Siemensstadt, Berlin

Siemensstadt in Berlin

Laura Horelli – Helsinki Shipyard (14/17min) 2003 Courtesy of the artist

Adrian Paci „The Column“, 2013 Courtesy of the artist, Galerie Peter Kilchmann und Kaufmann Repetto

How can motion picture best present a discourse on labour? Set against the architectural backdrop of Berlin’s reform settlement Siemensstadt, the online film series, KINO SIEMENSSTADT – The complex of Labour, explores this very question through a ten-week online series. Together with the accompanying exhibition Anette Rose, Techno Textiles at Scharaun Project Space for Art and Architecture invites artists to reflect on the subject of ‘work’ through film and video set in the local context of Siemensstadt as a working-class neighbourhood.

2038, ENTERING A NEW SERENITY

Still from 2038 © The New Serenity

Inside the German Pavilion © Federico Torra

© Federico Torra

The German contribution to the 17th Architecture Biennale tunes in from the year 2038 to tell the story of a world, in which everything, though imperfect, has been made better in a profound way. Based on the collective knowledge from international experts across the fields of architecture, art, ecology, economy, philosophy, politics, science and technology, 2038 illustrates, through a series of films, an emergence from crises into a world of radical democracy and viable solutions for co-existence. 

HYBRID GALLERY WEEKEND

Ashley Hans Scheirl at Galerie CRONE, “Synapse Trading”, 2021

Heiner Franzen at Ebensperger, Installation view, Courtesy Ebenperger, Photo: Ludger Paffrath

Agnes Schere at ChertLüdde,  “Bonbonniere”, 2021, Courtesy of ChertLüdde and Agnes Scherer Berlin, Photo: Trevor Lloyd 

Susan Philipsz, Three channel sound installation and three silos, “Slow Fresh Fount”, installation view at Konrad Fischer Galerie Berlin, 2021, Courtesy the artist and Konrad Fischer Galerie, Photo: Roman März

On the occasion of the 17th Gallery Weekend, 49 Berlin galleries presented high-calibre exhibitions, featuring both established and up and coming artists to a local and international public. Despite all odds, the presentation was accessible both on-site and online through an all-encompassing digital format, which allowed Gallery Weekend exhibitions to be fully explored remotely for the very first time. Bureau N was involved in the realisation of the online double including a web journal, commissioned features with galleries and art-world persona, Instagram TV exhibition previews and the moderation of live tours across all participating galleries.

LIFE IN CONTINUOUS TRANSFORMATION

Olafur Eliasson, Life, 2021, Installation view: Fondation Beyeler, Riehen/Basel, 2021, Courtesy of the artist; neugerriemschneider, Berlin; Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York / Los Angeles © 2021 Olafur Eliasson, Photo: Pati Grabowicz

Olafur Eliasson, Life, 2021, Installation view: Fondation Beyeler, Riehen/Basel, 2021, Courtesy of the artist; neugerriemschneider, Berlin; Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York / Los Angeles © 2021 Olafur Eliasson, Photo: Pati Grabowicz

Olafur Eliasson, Life, 2021, Installation view: Fondation Beyeler, Riehen/Basel, 2021, Courtesy of the artist; neugerriemschneider, Berlin; Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York / Los Angeles © 2021 Olafur Eliasson, Photo: Mark Niedermann

In times of social distancing and spatial boundaries, can we give up human control and embrace a biocentric perspective in its place? LIFE by Olafur Eliasson entangles the Fondation Beyeler with everything that is usually kept outside: microorganisms, non-human species, the weather, the climate. Space has been made for others as bright green water, infused with uranine, now floods the exhibition halls. Inside, delicate floating plants coexist with the park’s insects, bats and birds. Emerging in March and fading away in July, the artwork can be experienced from sunrise to sunset, for there are no fixed opening or closing hours.

TWO COUNTRIES, ONE (DESIGN) HISTORY

Red Garden Egg Chair designed by Peter Ghyczy

Peter Ghyczy, untitled (called “Garden Egg Chair” / “Senftenberger Egg”), 1968, © Vitra Design Museum, Photo: Jürgen Hans

Women biting 80s knit swetaer, Fashion Design Advertisment by Claudia Skoda, from circa 1978

Claudia Skoda, knitwear design from the collection “Fruits”, ca. 1978 (model Irene Staub alias Lady Shiva), © Luciano Castelli, courtesy of Claudia Skoda

Braun Calculator designed by Dieter Rams

Dieter Rams and Dietrich Lubs, calculator “ET 33”, 1977, © Vitra Design Museum, Photo: Andreas Sütterlin

More than thirty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Vitra Design Museum presents the first overview of post-war design in the two Germanies. “German Design 1949–1989: Two Countries, One History” offers a comparative selection of design from East and West Germany and explores ideological and aesthetic differences as well as parallels and interrelations between East and West. Exhibits range from iconic pieces of furniture and lamps to graphic, industrial, and interior design to fashions, textiles, and personal ornaments.

ANYTHING GOES?

John Hejduk with Moritz Müller, Residential complex with studio tower, Charlottenstraße 96–98, 1988, Photo: © Hélène Binet

Postcard “750 Jahre Berlin – Friedrichstadtpalast”, Date (Post stamp): 17.02.1987, Privately owned, Photo: © Unknown Photographer (ADN)

Berlin boasts a unique concentration of noteworthy buildings from the 1980s. At the time, radical new concepts, colourful diversity and a certain aesthetic randomness challenged previous ideas of living in the modern city. Widely labelled “postmodern”, it drew on structural typologies and stylistic devices from the past and tested alternative urban lifestyles. The exhibition ANYTHING GOES? BERLIN ARCHITECTURE IN THE 1980s at Berlinische Galerie explores what and who shaped these buildings and visions developed for the divided city in the last decade before the fall of the Wall.

BRIEF BUT INTENSE: THE ERA OF THE MEMPHIS GROUP

Sottsass Associati, Interior for an exhibition on Italian Design in Tokyo, 1984 © Photo: Marirosa Ballo © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2021 for all designs by Ettore Sottsass

Karl Lagerfeld’s Monte Carlo Apartment with designs by Memphis, Monaco, 1982 © Jacques Schumacher © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2021 for all designs by Ettore Sottsass

Nathalie du Pasquier, drawing of an interior, 1982 © Nathalie du Pasquier

With the exhibition MEMPHIS: 40 YEARS OF KITSCH AND ELEGANCE the Vitra Design Museum Gallery celebrates the fortieth anniversary of the group’s foundation through its creations. Interior objects, drawings, and further archival material give insight into the world of Memphis, whose design, seemingly having walked straight off the pages of a comic book, gave rise to a completely new look in which popular culture, advertising aesthetics, and post-modernism merged in a crazy medley. The exhibition is a homage to the brief but intense era of the Memphis group, whose energy and creative drive has lost none of its fascinations.

DANCE TILI YOU POPO

© Saeed Kakavand

© Saeed Kakavand

© Saeed Kakavand

© Saeed Kakavand

The exhibition TIEFSCHWARZ shows the influence the DJ duo, composed by the brothers Ali and Basti Schwarz, had on the electronic music scene of Stuttgart and beyond. Shaping the nightlife of the 1990s, their clubs On-U and Red Dog became the epicentres of the creative, art and gallery scene. More than two decades later, StadtPalais – Museum für Stuttgart welcomes them back home and revisits their influence on the city’s subcultural history.

AN ECLECTIC SEASIDE STAY

eclectic interior of ammos hotel

© Tom Parker

greek food on a table

© Tom Parker

© James Bedford 

© James Bedford 

On the shoreline just outside Chania, Crete, Ammos is home to a cheerful blend of bold fabrics, sweeping marble bookshelves, contemporary seating objects and anyone who comes to stay. The owner-operated boutique hotel reflects the energetic personality of the host and his team, eager to flaunt the island’s multifaceted appeal. The onsite taverna serves up an impressive spread of Greek specialities in close collaboration with a familiar network of local producers.

SERIAL HOUSING RELOADED: LION FEUCHTWANGER 61

© Filippo Bolognese für Euroboden

rendering of courtyard

© Filippo Bolognese für Euroboden

rendering of balconies

© Filippo Bolognese für Euroboden

Critically acclaimed for their “Wohnregal” in Berlin, architects FAR frohn&rojas are now advancing their take on prefabricated building on a larger scale: together with Euroboden, they are planning an exciting urban building structure comprised of 124 flexible apartments and outdoor communal spaces. Surrounded by a GDR housing estate and the lush greenery of Berlin’s Kaulsdorf district, the project gives way to a highly contemporary reinterpretation of serial building – providing a wide range in residential layouts for its occupancy.