BMW Guggenheim Lab

The BMW Guggenheim Lab was a collaboration between the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation and the BMW Group between 2011 and 2013. Part urban think tank, part community center and part gathering space, the interdisciplinary mobile laboratory explored issues of urban life through public programming and discourse.McHugh, Sharon
"BMW Guggenheim Lab to Launch in NYC"
''World Architecture News'', May 17, 2011, accessed January 23, 2012

An advisory committee chose the interdisciplinary team that operated the lab in each city. The lab was expected to travel to nine cities over the course of six years. In 2013, however, BMW ended its support after the lab had traveled to only three cities, New York, Berlin and Mumbai; the project ended in 2014 with an exhibition in New York.Vogel, Carol
"BMW Ends Support for Guggenheim Lab Project"
''The New York Times'', July 2, 2013

Concept, organization and structures

The concept behind the lab was developed by David van der Leer, assistant curator, architecture and urban studies, and Maria Nicanor, assistant curator, architecture, of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. The lab's advisory committee was composed of internationally renowned experts in a range of fields and nominated members for each city's lab team, an interdisciplinary group that helped to create the programming for that location.Carol Vogel, "A Lab on a Mission", ''The New York Times'', May 6, 2011"Six-Year Collaboration to Examine Contemporary Urban Issues in Nine Cities Around the World – International Advisory Committee Selects New York BMW Guggenheim Lab Team – Design of First Mobile Laboratory", Associated Press, May 6, 2011

Three different structures were intended to house the lab over the life of the project, each of which could be moved and was intended to travel to three cities. Only one structure was built, however, designed by the Tokyo-based architecture firm Atelier Bow-Wow. Seoul-based graphic designers Sulki & Min created the graphic identity for the project, including an interactive logo that changed over the course of the project."BMW Guggenheim Lab to Launch in New York City on August 3 Before Traveling to Berlin and Asia"
, Guggenheim Foundation, May 6, 2011, accessed January 23, 2012Vogel, Carol

''The New York Times'', October 27, 2011, accessed January 23, 2012

The lab's three-city cycle was designed around the theme ''Confronting Comfort'', which explored ways of making urban environments more responsive to people's needs, striking a balance between individual and collective comfort, and promoting environmental and social responsibility. The program was designed to proactively engage residents from each city and participants on the Internet and from around the world, in free programs and experiments, and it addressed ideas and issues of particular relevance to each city."What Is the Lab?"
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. Retrieved April 9, 2012 The Advisory Committee members were Daniel Barenboim, Elizabeth Diller, Nicholas Humphrey, Muchadeyi Masunda, Enrique Peñalosa, Juliet Schor, Rirkrit Tiravanija and Wang Shi (entrepreneur), Wang Shi.

New York City

The lab was open from August 3 to October 16, 2011, in New York City's East Village, Manhattan, East Village, and was attended by over 54,000 visitors from 60 countries. Members of the New York Lab Team were Omar Freilla, founder and coordinator of Green Worker Cooperatives, Bronx, New York; Charles Montgomery, Canadian journalist and urban experimentalist; Olatunbosun Obayomi, Nigerian microbiologist and inventor; and architects and urbanists Elma van Boxel and Kristian Koreman, founders of Zones Urbaines Sensible, Rotterdam.

Berlin

From June 15 to July 29, 2012, the lab was open in Pfefferberg, a complex of galleries and artist studios in Prenzlauer Berg, Berlin. Members of the Berlin Lab were José Gómez-Márquez, program director for the Innovations in International Health Initiative (IIH) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); Italian architect and engineer Carlo Ratti, who directs the MIT Senseable City Lab; Berlin-based artist Corinne Rose, who works with photography and video and teaches at the Bern University of the Arts, Switzerland; and Rachel Smith, principal transport planner with AECOM, based in Brisbane."BMW Guggenheim Lab Berlin to Open in May 2012"
Dexigner, November 9, 2011, accessed January 23, 2012 The programming of the Berlin Lab focused on four main topics: Empowerment Technologies (Gómez-Márquez), Dynamic Connections (Smith), Urban Micro-Lens (Rose) and the Senseable (SENSEable) City (Ratti).

Mumbai

The lab opened in Mumbai, India on December 9, 2012 and ran until January 20, 2013. The central location was on the grounds of the Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Museum in Mumbai’s Byculla neighborhood, with additional satellite locations around the city. The lab's team consisted of Aisha Dasgupta, a British demographer based in Malawi; Neville Mars, a Dutch architect based in China; Trupti Amritwar Vaitla, an architect and urban transport designer from Mumbai; and Héctor Zamora, a Mexican artist based in Brazil. Along with neighborhood-specific public programming, the Mumbai Lab program included participatory research studies and design projects, including a competition to redesign Mumbai's Kala Nagar Junction.

Final exhibition

The program concluded with an exhibition, ''Participatory City: 100 Urban Trends from the BMW Guggenheim Lab'', which was on view at the New York museum from October 2013 through January 5, 2014. The exhibition featured photos and videos from the Lab's public programs and displayed 100 terms representing the "most-talked about words" during the Lab's activities in New York, Berlin and Mumbai.BMW Guggenheim Lab Comes to an Early End
Architectural Record, October 17, 2013.

References

External links

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Information from the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation

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Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation
Traveling exhibits
Urban planning