BMW Guggenheim Lab.
Encouraging dialogue and creating solutions for urban life.
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.
Concept
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 of the BMW Guggenheim Lab launches in New York City from August 3 to October 16, 2011, before traveling to the Pfefferberg complex in Berlin in late spring 2012 and a city in Asia, to be announced later this year.
Architecture
With a structural skeleton built of carbon fiber, the lightweight and compact BMW Guggenheim Lab for the first cycle has been designed by Atelier Bow-Wow as a “traveling toolbox.” The lower half of the structure, a present-day version of the Mediterranean loggia, will be left open at most times. Its stagelike atmosphere will change often throughout the run of the BMW Guggenheim Lab and will draw its energy from the programs developed by the BMW Guggenheim Lab Team.
Engagement
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 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 BMW Guggenheim Lab Team.
Graphic Identity
The graphic identity of the BMW Guggenheim Lab includes an interactive logo created by graphic designers Sulki & Min from Seoul, South Korea. Unlike traditional logos, Sulki & Min’s design will grow and change through audience interaction over the course of the BMW Guggenheim Lab’s first two-year cycle. Just as the BMW Guggenheim Lab will be a space for the exchange of ideas, its logo will become the metaphorical and virtual representation of worldwide interaction with the theme of Confronting Comfort and the larger discourse about cities and urban life.
