Prior to BMW Guggenheim Lab’s opening on
June 15, an exhibition featuring the ideas and work of Atelier Bow-Wow, the
Lab’s architect, opened in Berlin on May 22. Organized by Aedes Architecture
Forum, In the State of
Spatial Practice: Public Space by Atelier Bow-Wow focuses on the
firm’s projects in urban and public spaces, such as Miyashita Park and Kitamoto
KAO Project, both in Tokyo, and the traveling BMW Guggenheim Lab. The
exhibition runs through July 5, and is located adjacent to the Lab space in
Pfefferberg.
Established in Tokyo in 1992 by the
husband-and-wife team of Yoshiharu Tsukamoto and Momoyo Kaijima, Atelier
Bow-Wow is best known for its surprising, idiosyncratic, yet highly usable
residential projects in dense urban environments. For the Lab’s temporary structure,
which they envisioned as a “traveling toolbox,” the lower half of the
structure—a present-day version of the Mediterranean loggia—is left open at
most times. The upper part of the structure houses a flexible rigging system
and is wrapped in a semitransparent mesh. Through this external skin, visitors
will be able to catch glimpses of the extensive apparatus of tools that will be
lowered or raised from the fully enclosed toolbox canopy.
BMW
Guggenheim Lab Logo Finalist for Design Award
The judges for the 2012 International
Design Communication Awards have named the BMW Guggenheim Lab logo to its shortlist
of finalists in the
category for “Best Logo.” Winners will be announced during an award ceremony in
New York on June 28, and will be on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art,
New York, on June 29. Designed by Sulki & Min from Seoul, South
Korea, the interactive logo invites submissions to the question, how would you
improve comfort in the city? Ever-changing throughout the course of the Lab’s
first two-year cycle, the logo is a metaphorical and virtual representation of
worldwide interaction with the theme of Confronting Comfort and the
larger discourse about cities and urban life.
Installation of the BMW Guggenheim Lab in Berlin. Photo courtesy NUSSLI Group