Participatory City BMW Guggenheim Lab Exhibit to Open in October

BMW Guggenheim Lab in New York City

The Guggenheim Museum announced plans for a new exhibit called Participatory City: 100 Urban Trends from the BMW Guggenheim Lab.  The exhibit examines two years of urban design innovations inspired by trends seen in New York, Berlin, and Mumbai.  It will open October 11, 2013 and run until January 5, 2014.

Participatory City will showcase drawings, sketches, short videos and renderings using a digital-only installation.  Architects, graphic designers and team members who helped bring the BMW Guggenheim Lab’s architectural visions to life will also give talks and presentations.

The BMW Guggenheim Lab first opened in New York in August 2011, and explored the theme of “Confronting Comfort” throughout the city.  It then moved to Berlin the following June 15, with the theme “Making,” emphasizing the role citizens play in shaping cities.  In its third iteration, the Lab opened in Mumbai in December 2012, where it explored “Privacy” and issues of the public space.

Each of the three labs was designed to serve as a combination think tank, community center, and public gathering space and occupied three 5,000-square-foot (464-square-meter) pop-up structures.

Both in New York, Berlin, and Mumbai as well as online, the BMW Guggenheim Lab has attracted tens of thousands of viewers and has been recognized as an exemplary project by the United Nations.  Maria Nicanor, the exhibit’s curator, says that the lab’s goal has been to engage the public in a global conversations about what cities are and what they can aspire to be.

Separately, BMW said it has ended its support of the project, which was to have gone through 2016, after this exhibit closes.