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BMW Guggenheim LabBerlinDesign architect: Atelier Bow-WowExterior viewPhoto: Christian RichtersCopyright Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation

BERLIN -- (Marketwire) -- 06/15/12 -- The BMW Guggenheim Lab opens today in Berlin, the second stop on the project's six-year global tour. Offering free programs from June 15 to July 29, 2012, the BMW Guggenheim Lab Berlin is a temporary public space and online forum encouraging open dialogue about issues related to urban life.

A local think tank with a global perspective, the BMW Guggenheim Lab Berlin focuses on practical making and doing, with programs designed to empower residents with tools and ideas to actively engage in city change. The Lab is located in Prenzlauer Berg at Schönhauser Allee 176 in the Pfefferberg complex, a converted nineteenth-century brewery. The Lab is open Wednesday through Sunday, and all programs are offered in German or in English with German translation.

The BMW Guggenheim Lab Berlin is presented in cooperation with ANCB The Metropolitan Laboratory.

BMW Guggenheim Lab Berlin Programming
Under the umbrella of Confronting Comfort, the theme of the Lab's first two-year cycle, programming for the Berlin Lab focuses on the importance of "doing and making" to bring about city change. Programs have been developed by the Berlin Lab Team (José Gómez-Márquez, Carlo Ratti, Corinne Rose, and Rachel Smith), an international, multidisciplinary group of innovators and experts led by Guggenheim curator Maria Nicanor, with contributions from local organizations. The schedule, available on the BMW Guggenheim Lab website, will include more than one hundred events at the Pfefferberg site and throughout the city.

"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," said 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."

Programs concentrate on four main topics:

Empowerment Technologies (June 15-24)
José Gómez-Márquez, a pioneer in the field of health technology, will lead a series of "do-it-yourself" workshops focused on building one's own city by "hacking" and transforming urban spaces.

Dynamic Connections (June 27-July 6)
Transportation planner Rachel Smith will lead programs focused on sustainable mobility and community-building.