One of the “questions” concerning the Humboldt Forum that the German Green Party (Fraktion BÜNDNIS 90/DIE GRÜNEN) put before the German Parliament, the “Deutscher Bundestag” on 2 July 2019 was:
Question 22: “What is the current state of the considerations on the part of the Federal Government for the greening of the facades, to install a so-called Humboldt Jungle?”
Publication 19/11306 Answer @ Deutscher Bundestag, German Federal Government, Germany, 2 July 2019
On 24 September 2019 Spain’s Supreme Court approved unanimously the exhumation of the former dictator Franco from the underground basilica of Valle de los Caídos mausoleum. Hybrid Space Lab’s project “Deep Space: Re-signifying Valle de los Caídos” investigating what transformations are still needed at the Valle de los Caídos so as not to create a cenotaph – an empty burial monument – is becoming increasingly urgent.
Opening, Exhibition, Lecture, Discussion, Finissage & Public Space Exhibition on Facade: Lost Memory – Recovered Memory @ Goethe Institut, Madrid, 5 June 2019 until Franco’s Exhumation
“What happens when an object loses its original purpose? Why does architecture find itself displaced, unwanted and repurposed?
Buildings and physical infrastructure possess a longue durée that is fundamental to their spatial and political impact.
But their long-term pretension can also become their undoing: politics, society, media and culture change faster than bricks and concrete.
Structures can usually adjust only in very expensive ways: with renovation or destruction.
History leaves behind either heritage or rubble, both a sort of an architectural ‘living dead’.
Lecture @ NONUMENT! Symposium, Prague, 14 June 2019
Article “We come for the place, not for Franco “: El Valle de los Caídos, a tourist site almost like the others” by journalist Juliette Campion, France Televisions.
Publication, Juliette Campion @ France TV Info, Paris, 10 June 2019
Deep Space is an international project to re-think the burial site of former dictator Franco.Deep Space, presented at the Goethe Institut in Madrid, uses augmented reality to change the totalitarian nature of the Spanish Civil War monument the Valley of the Fallen.
Publication, Peio H. Riaño @ El País, Madrid, 6 June 2019
Public space installation, lecture and panel discussion together with Miquel Gonzalez, Photographer, Emilio Silva, Journalist, Prof. Gutmaro Gomez Bravo and Hybrid Space Lab at the Goethe Institut in Madrid.
Opening, Exhibition, Lecture & Discussion Lost Memory – Recovered Memory, Deep Space @ Goethe Institut, Madrid, 5 June 2019
Hybrid Space Lab unleashed and subsequently curated a heated discourse around this utopian proposition. The combination of tabloid-friendly imagery with international expertise on greening cities and climate change proved to be a highly effective strategy.
Publication Make City, Francesca Ferguson, MAKE_SHIFT @ Make City, Berlin, May 2019
At the Art Museum of China the exhibition space will be transformed into a creative laboratory, an interdisciplinary platform co-developed by international artists, creative thinkers, independent scholars, urban planners and stakeholders. It is a union, a mini co-op city inside a skyscraper.
Exhibition GreenTopia @ Art Museum of China, Greater Bay Area, Shenzhen, P.R. China, 15 March-15 April 2019
The documentary “Fabric” that Hybrid Space Lab produced for “documenta 14” in 2017 and that narrates a Middle Eastern family story as well as the history of the industrial complex that today houses the Athens School of Fine Arts is part of major Greek archives.
Archive Fabric @ documenta 14, Athens School of Fine Art, Athens, 15 February 2019
Working on places of conflict can be extremely challenging.Architecture practice Hybrid Space Lab takes a rather unique approach for the re-signification of the controversial site of Valle de los Caídos in Madrid, the burial ground of Spain’s dictator Francisco Franco and 33,000 victims of the country’s brutal civil war.
Article by Elena Rossoni @ Bnieuws TU Delft, The Netherlands, 5 February 2019
Deep Space: re-signifying Valle de los Caídos is presented on 25 January 2019 at the transmediale in Berlin, Germany.
Lecture & Discussion @ transmediale, Berlin, 3 February 2019
Deep Space: re-signifying Valle de los Caídos is presented on 25 January 2019 at the TRACES Conference in Milan, Italy.
Lecture & Discussion @ TRACES, Politecnico di Milano School of Architecture, via Ampère 2, Milan, 25 January 2019
Frans Vogelaar wants to give the Valley of the Fallen in Spain, one of the most controversial places in the world, new meaning. How does the founder of the Berlin design lab and think tank Hybrid Space Lab think to do that with use of digital technology?
Article Deep Space @ Het Financieele Dagblad, the Netherlands, January 2019
The Valley of the Fallen, the shrine of Franco’s dictatorship, is still dividing Spain.
With the words “Die heiße Asche des Diktators”, in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) of November 1st 2018, journalist Paul Ingendaay captures the toxicity of the highly divisive Francoist Memorial at Valle de los Caídos, as well as the urgency of Hybrid Space Lab’s workshop Deep Space: Re-signifying Valle de los Caídos.
Article The Hot Ashes of the Dictator, Paul Ingendaay @ Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Frankfurt am Main, Germany, 1 November 2018
Catalan journalist Sílvia Marimon Molas describes in her article “The Gaze of European Experts” in the Catalan newspaper ARA on 31st October 2018 the workshop “Deep Space: Re-signifying Valle de los Caídos” participants’ visit to the site and the necessity of a change of the monument’s narrative.
Publication The Gaze of European Experts, Sílvia Marimon @ ARA Catalonia, Spain, 31 October 2018
In the chapter “International Developments; The Schlossplatz and the Museum Island in Berlin” Humboldt Volcano is mentioned as the example of the rethinking of the Humboldt Forum.
Publication The Vienna Hofburg since 1918 @ Institute of Art and Music Historical Research, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna, Austria, 1 October 2018
How is Berlin becoming a socially just smart city?
The Make City Festival discussed ideas like the Humboldt Volcano at the Humboldt Forum designed by Hybrid Space Lab.
Publication, Susanne Isabel Yacoub @ Garten + Landschaft, Germany, 15 August 2018
Berlin urgently needs new ideas, impulses and visions.
Humboldt Volcano was the featured image in the article by TIP Magazine.
Publication, Iris Braun @ TIP, Berlin, 14 June 2018
We are honored to join Sir Peter Cook, architect and writer, founder of Archigram, we will present GRÜNtopia.
MakeCity the Festival for Architecture and Urban Alternatives in Berlin brings together architect, planners, civic groups and developers in a citywide conversation on thinking and making city differently.
Discussion Panel @ MakeCity Festivalzentrum, Tschechisches Zentrum, Berlin, 16 June 2018
The “MakeCity 2018” architecture festival with 250 events in 18 days aims to make architecture in the capital more transparent and invites people to join in the conversation and help develop it
Article @ YEAST, Germany, 15 June 2018
With the increasing urbanization and the virulent climate crisis, interest in nature is also growing. In various formats, such as talks, discussions, guided tours, exhibitions, workshops, open-house events and more, the public is invited to think of green and gray infrastructure in the city. Something like this: what if we were to look at urban space from the perspective of animals and plants?
Publication @ Baunetz, Germany, 15 June 2018
A two week program explores how the VOID in the center of the Embassy’s premises can function as a pleasurable communication space by playing, dancing, lounging, exchanging, enjoying.
Opening & Press Conference Public Pop-Up Park @ Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Berlin, 15 June 2018
Reading, Presentation & Discussion Alexander von Humboldt and Humboldt Volcano @ Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, MakeCity Festival, Berlin, 15 June 2018
The “MakeCity 2018” architecture festival with 250 events in 18 days aims to make architecture in the capital more transparent and invites people to join in the conversation and help develop it.
Publication Rethinking Berlin @ Berliner Kurier, Berlin, 14 June 2018
The architecture festival MakeCity will take place in 2018 under the motto Berlin Remixing | City New Mixed.
Publication, Elena Markus @ Detail, Germany, 14 juni 2018
It must be a very special event when Ada Colau, former city activist and since 2015 Mayor of Barcelona, and Sadiq Aman Khan, London’s first Muslim city head, travel to Berlin without being invited by the Governing Mayor.
Nevertheless, both will be in town on Thursday – and will open the second Make City Festival with building senator Katrin Lompscher and other guests.
The theme of the 18-day event is “City Remixed”.
Publication, Uwe Rada @ TAZ, Berlin, 11 juni 2018
Rüdiger Schaper, author and head of the cultural department of the Berlin “Tagesspiegel” presents his biography on Alexander von Humboldt and discusses Hybrid Space Lab’s Humboldt Volcano project during our Studio Talk @ MakeCity Festival. Moderation is by Merlijn Schoonenboom, historian and journalist.
Studio Talk, Reading, Presentation & Discussion @ MakeCity Festival, Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Berlin, 5 June 2018
Lucas Verweij will moderate presentations and a panel discussion with leading artists and architects from the Netherlands and Germany who work at the interface of architecture, theatre, and material & surface design in the public space and develop remarkable, often participatory concepts.
The Mart Stam Talks are organized by the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, the Mart Stam Stiftung für Kunst + Gestaltung and the Weissensee Kunsthochschule Berlin.
Lectures & Panel Mart Stam Talks @ Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Berlin, 29 June 2018
Affect Space refers to self-mediated leisure spaces that act as affective backdrops for digital self-activation.
Hybrid Space Lab presents Deep Space in this context.
Lecture & Discussion Affect Space, Transmediale Festival Face Value, @ Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, 4 February 2018
The Swiss architectural magazine Archithese published “Humboldt-Dschungel” as part of the issue on “Ruines”.
How would it be if the Berlin City Palace grew huge trees, sprouted up exotic plants and toppled a waterfall?
The Think Tank Hybrid Space Lab presents a refreshingly ruinous idea in the discussion about the controversial reconstruction.
Publication Humboldt Jungle @ archithese, Architecture Magazine, Switzerland, 15 January 2018
The Dutch and Flemish cultural association “Berlijnse Avonden e.V” presents Humboldt Jungle and Humboldt Volcano and invites you on January 6 to the studio of Elizabeth Sikiaridi and Frans Vogelaar, the architects for the new Berlin city palace – the Humboldt Forum – the Humboldt Volcano and the Humboldt Jungle have been designed.
Lecture & Discussion @ Berlijnse Avonden e.V., Berlin, 6 January 2018
What are engaging, inclusive, and sustainable hybrid formats and spaces for art and culture?
For the German Federal Cultural Fund Hybrid Space Lab developed a workshop on the hybrid future of culture.
Hybrid Workshop “The Future is not Digital. Hybrid is the Future!” @ Kulturstiftung des Bundes, HoloLab – dive in Program for Digital Interaction, Halle an der Saale, Germany 14 October 2021
In our globalized world the accelerating speed of socio-political and cultural change collides with the longue-durée of heritage sites and territories. As social and political contexts around places with a public meaning change, controversies often arise.
Publication Re-Charting Places @ Contested Spaces – Concerted Projects: Designs for Vulnerable Memories, Lettera Ventidue Edizioni, Syracuse, Italy, April 2021
For the German Federal Cultural Foundation Hybrid Space Lab developed Co-Creating Hybrid Culture that addresses the augmenting of physical cultural sites and practices through digital spaces via transdisciplinary co-creating events.
Keynote Future Cultural Space @ Kulturstiftung des Bundes, HoloLab – dive in Program for Digital Interaction, Halle an der Saale, Germany, 16.00 – 17.00, 22 September 2021
Research & Concept @ German Federal Cultural Foundation, Halle an der Saale, Germany, 2021
Human activity and its far-reaching interactions have always transformed territories by moving people, plants, goods and animals. As such, territories have become richly stratified – and interactions are always mutual and two-way. Countries and cities projecting their influence elsewhere have, in turn, been transformed by external inputs.
Voiced Space is conceptualized by Hybrid Space Lab for Nieuwe Instituut the Dutch institute for Architecture, Design and Digital Culture.
Lectures, Workshops & Conference International Research Program @ Het Nieuwe Instituut, Rotterdam, 2019~2022
Lecture @ Media Architecture Biennial 2020, Amsterdam, 29 June-3 Juli 2020
Lecture & Workshop @ Media Architecture Biennial 2021, Amsterdam, 27 June-2 July 2021
By unlocking the potential laying at the intersection between arts, technology, memory studies and sciences, Deep Space has cracked open the interwoven, historically painful meanings of the controversial monument Valle de los Caídos, envisioning its possible futures, once Franco’s remains will be exhumed from the site.
Exhibition, Lecture & Discussion 5 June 2019 @ Goethe Institut, Madrid, 5 June 2019
Article “Creative Crossovers: Negotiating Past and Future” in the University of Southern California Public Diplomacy Magazine issue summer 2019.Monuments stand as a tangible testimony to what is untouchable: memory and history in their collective dimension.As vehicles of meaning, monuments are ambassadors affecting the public negotiation of narratives
Article Creative Crossovers @ Public Diplomacy Magazine, University of Southern California, USC Annenberg, USC Centre on Public Diplomacy, USC Masters of Public Diplomacy Program, USA, 7 June 2019
How can design research contribute to the collective processing of contested heritage?How to re-signify traditional physical monuments and heritage with the help of creative visions and hybrid (combined physical and digital) tools?
Voiced Space is conceptualized by Hybrid Space Lab for Nieuwe Instituut the Dutch institute for Architecture, Design and Digital Culture.
Research @ Het Nieuwe Instituut, Rotterdam, 2019
As a consequence of the more than 65 years long near absence of human activity, the Korean DMZ land strip has become a verdant 984 square kilometers nature reserve where endangered flora and fauna species had the chance to regain space.
The Korean DMZ has become a testimony to unintentional beauty. Thriving vegetation and undisturbed wildlife now cover the painful, conflict-born void along the military demarcation.
Over the last few years, it has gathered international attention due to its symbolic value as well as to individual and bilateral bids by North and South Korea securing UNESCO Biosphere status for areas of the DMZ.
Workshop DMZpace @ DMZ, CCL, Seoul National University, Seoul, South Korea, 30 May-3 June 2010Exhibition @ Yeonnamjang Gallery Seoul, 2 May-17 May 2020
Exhibition @ Korean Cultural Center Paris, 10 September-6 November 2020
What’s the future like? For professionals in the exhibition business this is a very relevant and difficult problem. Because the future does not give us any objects yet.
Lecture Future Heritage Szenografie Colloquium 2019 @ DASA, Dortmund, Germany, 23-24 January 2019
Deep Space is a long-term investigative program initiated to deal with politics of memory, controversial space and monuments, digitalization and heritage.
Deep Space: re-signifying Valle de los Caídos aims at developing creative processes, concepts, and ideas that can break through and transform the symbolic power of the place.
Workshop Deep Space: re-signifying Valle de los Caídos @ Medialab Prado & Valle de los Caídos, Madrid, 25-27 October 2018
Opening, Exhibition, Lecture & Discussion Lost Memory – Recovered Memory @ Goethe Institut & Fundación Pablo Iglesias, Madrid, 5 June 2019
Workshop & Lecture @ ISEA 2022 Symposium “Possibilities” Heritage and Futures, Centre de Cultura Contemporània, Barcelona, 12 June & 14 2022
The documentary Fabric presents the history of the building complex that houses today the Athens School of Fine Arts, one the main venues of documenta 14 in Athens. It also narrates a family history that spans more than over 100 years and starting in Cappadocia in Central Anatolia, continues via Beirut and Istanbul (Constantinople) arriving in Athens in the 1920ies.
Documentary Video Fabric @ documenta 14, Athens School of Fine Arts, Peiraios Street 256, Athens, 8 April-17 July 2017
Transforming the facade of the Humboldt Forum into a living organism.
The newspaper Der Tagesspiegel, which appears during the 9th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art, publishes in Der Tagespiegel Kunst 2016 magazine an interview with Hybrid Space Lab.
The interview on the projects Humboldt Volcano and Humboldt Jungle addresses the changing role of design in times of crisis.
Interview Expanding the Design Zone, Der Tagesspiegel Kunst 2016, Bettina Homann @ Der Tagesspiegel, Berlin, 20 September 2016
A vertical jungle in a greenhouse pavilion clings to the Berlin Humboldt Forum. A trail leads from the underground to the roof of the Humboldt Forum, opening up stacked gardens and pop-up restaurants dedicated respectively to world flora and world cuisines.
A jungle for the façade of the Berlin Humboldt Forum!