BMW Guggenheim Lab to Launch in New York in August, will Then Travel Worldwide
May 7, 2011 by All Art News
Filed under Museums & Galleries
NEW YORK, NY.- The BMW Guggenheim Lab is a mobile laboratory that will travel to nine major cities worldwide over six years. Led by international, interdisciplinary teams of emerging talents in the areas of urbanism, architecture, art, design, science, technology, education, and sustainability, the BMW Guggenheim Lab will address issues of contemporary urban life through programs and public discourse. Its goal is the exploration of new ideas, experimentation, and ultimately the creation of forward-thinking solutions for urban life.
Over the six-year migration of the BMW Guggenheim Lab, there will be three distinct mobile structures and thematic cycles. Each structure will be designed by a different architect, and each will travel to three cities around the globe. The theme of the first two-year cycle of the BMW Guggenheim Lab is Confronting Comfort, exploring notions of individual and collective comfort and the urgent need for environmental and social responsibility. Cycle 1 of the BMW Guggenheim Lab launches in New York City from August 3 to October 16, 2011, before traveling to Berlin and a city in Asia, to be announced later this year. Cycle 1 concludes with an exhibition presented at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York in 2013. Two additional two-year cycles will follow, each with a new mobile structure and theme, concluding in the fall of 2016.
- BMW GUGGENHEIM LAB. Architects’ model, New York City site. View from Houston Street, showing a workshop setting. Photo: courtesy Atelier Bow-Wow.
Part urban think tank, part community center and public gathering space, the BMW Guggenheim Lab is conceived to engage public discourse in cities around the world and through the BMW Guggenheim Lab website and online social communities.
The public is invited to attend free programs developed by the BMW Guggenheim Lab (BGL) Team in each BMW Guggenheim Lab location. In addition, the BMW Guggenheim Lab website and social communities will provide opportunities for participants around the world to engage in the ideas and experiments generated by the BGL Team.
The theme for Cycle 1 of the BMW Guggenheim Lab is Confronting Comfort. In New York, Berlin, and Asia, the BMW Guggenheim Lab will explore how urban environments can be made more responsive to people’s needs, how people can feel at ease in an urban environment, and how to find a balance between notions of modern comfort and the urgent need for environmental and social responsibility.
