Hybrid Heritage @ Beijing Design Week 2015

Hybrid Space Lab is participating in the eCommemoration Convention 2022 at the Körber Stiftung.
The Körber Stiftung eCommemoration Program brings together international historians, museum makers, digital pioneers, and creatives to shape innovative and digital memory culture.

Participation @ eCommemoration Convention 2022, Körber Stiftung, 29- 30 September 2022

Article by Sílvia Marimon Molas in the leading Catalan newspaper ARA on how Spanish authorities are relocating symbols of the dictatorship.
“It (Augmented Reality app) would make visible what Franco wanted to hide and would bring out everything that is hidden and buried in the Valley, transforming the totalitarian story into a polyphonic memory,” says Vogelaar.
This could be a tool as long as there is no physical transformation of the Valley, but archaeologist Alfredo González Rubial, who has excavated Cuelgamuros to trace the lives of prisoners who did slave work there, believes the monument cannot be left as it is.

Article by Sílvia Marimon Molas @ ARA Catalan Newspaper, Barcelona, Spain, 16 July 2022

Lecture at the UNA University PhD Workshop Heritage Hybridizations: Concepts, Scales and Spaces.

Keynote Hybrid Space @ Culture at the digital cultural innovation program dive in , Bundeskulturstiftung, Germany, 22 September 2021

Keynote Hybrid Space @ Culture @ Dive In,  Bundeskulturstiftung, Halle an der Saale, Germany, 22 September 2021

Hybrid Space Lab is invited to develop ideas for artistic intervention possibilities at the Bismarck Monument in the Alter Elbpark in Hamburg and to suggest ways in which the monument could be set in a new context.

Panel Discussion @ Ministry of Culture and Media, Hamburg, Germany, 16 September 2021

Lecture at Berlin Questions Conference for the Immediate Present.

Lecture @ Berlin Questions Conference for the Immediate Present, Berlin, Germany 14 August 2021

Our whole sense of reality is shaped by our hybrid existence.Hybridity is a multifaceted notion, as we are experiencing a proliferation of hybridization in all dimensions of our contemporary life.This is discussed in an article on Hybrid Space, published by the Lithuanian Union of Architects.

Publication Hybrid Space @ Regeneration [and its Discontents], Lithuanian Union of Architects, Vilnius, Lithuania, 4 June 2021

We need a fresh, radically innovative and solutions-oriented approach to address the various forms of contested heritage sites in a way that is fit for the 21st century: Article on Hybrid Space Lab’s work on contested monuments, is published in Italy.

Re-Charting Places  @ Contested Spaces – Concerted Projects: Designs for Vulnerable Memories, LetteraVentidue Edizioni, Italy, April 2021

Hjärnstorm, the Swedish independent journal of art, literature, philosophy published an article on Deep Space.

Deep Space @ Art Journal Hjärnstorm, Stockholm, Sweden, 5 January 2021

Hybrid Space Lab analyzed “Valley of the Fallen” near Madrid – the pompous tomb for the fascist dictator Francisco Franco. They suggest leaving it unchanged but covering it with a new critical layer. Using augmented reality, they want to make hidden layers visible and write history from the victims’ perspective.

Deep Space @ Archithese, Switzerland, 25 November 2020

Hybrid Space Lab contributes to the international conference »Practices of Inheritance – Metaphors, Materializations, Power Constellations« of the »IDENTITY AND HERITAGE« research cluster of the Bauhaus University Weimar and Technical University Berlin.

Hybrid Identity @ Bauhaus University, 19 November 2020

The Paris exhibition “Negotiating Borders – Real DMZ Project” features Hybrid Space Lab’s DMZpace, a project deploying the potential of the border area as a site of both historical wounds and flourishing nature.

Exhibition @ Korean Cultural Center Paris, 10 September – 6 November 2020

Hybrid Space Lab contributes to the International Master Class Artistic Research, pioneering developments of immersive 360° concepts and narratives.

Masterclass @ Film University Babelsberg, Potsdam, Germany, 7-18 September 2020

The Valle de los Caídos is highly controversial as a memorial of the fallen of the Spanish Civil War: for a long time, it mainly served the glorification of the dictator Franco. The “Deep Space” project wants to show visitors also the site’s dark side.

Interview @ Deutschlandfunk Kultur, Germany, 6 August 2020

Berlin’s contribution to the debate on monuments: What to do with Franco’s mausoleum?
Do not destroy it, says the Berlin office Hybrid Space Lab as it lays out ideas for a new way of dealing with the controversial Franco memorial in the “Valley of the Fallen” near Madrid.

Article @ Der Tagesspiegel, Berlin, Germany 16 July 2020

Monuments are Vehicles of Meaning. Elizabeth Sikiaridi and Frans Vogelaar research how to negotiate monuments’ narratives and how to bring criticism.

Interview @ TAZ, Berlin, Germany 14 Juli 2020

As in the 21^st Century the world develops a deeper understanding of heritage, digital technology is ever more present in our reading of the past. Hybrid Space Lab’s lecture Hybrid Heritage addresses how to best unlock the unique potentialities of this interdisciplinary and technological moment.

Lecture @ AMPS, University of Kent, 29-30 June 2020

Professor Sharon Macdonald, Alexander von Humboldt Professor of Social Anthropology at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, refers to our Humboldt Jungle project as an example and an inspiration for the creative appropriation and transformation of the Humboldt Forum.

Publication @ Humboldt Forum website, Germany, 15 June 2020

Featured in the “DMZ Landscape: Cheorwon” exhibition in Seoul, Hybrid Space Lab’s DMZpace project unfolds the potential of the no-man’s-land border area to overcome the tension between its historical wounds and the thriving nature. Opening up scenarios for reconciliation and dialogue through the mediation of a now lush natural biotope, the project unveils the contradictions hidden behind the visible landscape at the Korean Demilitarized Zone.

DMZpace @ Yeonnamjang Underground Gallery, Seoul, 2 May 2020

Humboldt Jungle and Humboldt Volcano are mentioned by author and historian Merlijn Schoonenboom in the book on identity “Een kleine geschiedenis van de grootse Duitse worsteling”.

Book “A small history of the great German struggle” @ Publisher Querido, Amsterdam, 5 December 2019

The Mart Stam Stiftung frequently organizes symposia in cooperation with the Royal Dutch Embassy of Berlin. The aim is to create a dialog on interdisciplinary themes in the field of art and design in the Netherlands and Germany by juxtaposing cultural differences.

Poster @ Berlin, 15 November 2019

Hybrid Space Lab plan is in line with the undoubtedly most important question for contemporary cultural identity: the relationship between tradition and innovation. Their idea of ​​a growing green world around the castle is the portrayal of the idea of ​​tradition as a dynamic phenomenon.

Publication @ A small history of the biggest German struggle, Merlijn Schoonenboom, 11 November 2019

Instead of creating a gap in this highly symbolic place, the international think tank Hybrid Space Lab represents the impetus to explore alternative memory narratives to the previously totalitarian narrative of the Valle de los Caídos.

The Valley of the Fallen without Franco: the fate of the other 33,847 dead”
This is the title of the article by journalist Sílvia Marimom Molas in the Catalan Newspaper ARA on the future of the Valle de los Caídos with an interview on Deep Space.

In the article “Without Franco, what to do with the colossal Valle de los Caídos?” for HuffPost, Anthony Berthelier describes the project “Deep Space: re-signifying Valle de los Caídos” with its creative approach for addressing controversial history and contested heritage.

Publication”Without Franco, what to do with the colossal Valle de los Caídos?” @ Huffington Post, France, 24 October 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.

Exhibition @ Goethe Institut Madrid, 5 June 2019 until Franco’s Exhumation

The main Berlin newspaper Der Tagesspiegel, published an article on the Green party questions on the implementation of the Humboldt Jungle raised in the Bundestag, the German parliament.
“And in order to honor their name, the Greens asked for the “state of the considerations (…), a greenery, a so-called Humboldt Jungle, to be installed”. The brief reply: “Further measures on the facades are not provided.”

Publication @ Tagesspiegel, Germany, 19 July 2019

The Valley of the Fallen is a large memorial erected near Madrid in the mountain range of the Sierra de Guadarrama on the initiative of the dictator Francisco Franco. It is dedicated to the fallen of the Spanish Civil War. Within the scope of the project “Deep Space” it is proposed to transform the monument by digital means.

Publication @ Magazine for Architecture and City Marlowes, Germany, 16 July 2019

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 Answer 19/11306, @ Deutscher Bundestag, Germany, 19 July 2019

“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 @ NONUMENTS!  Symposium, Prague, 13.10-14.30, 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 @ France TV, Paris, 10 June 2019

Article “Creative Crossovers: Negotiating Past and Future” in the University of Southern California Public Diplomacy Magazine issue summer 2019.

Article @ Public Diplomacy Magazine, University of California, 7 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 @ El País, Madrid,  6 June 2019

Opening, lecture and panel discussion “Lost Memory – Recovered Memory” at the Goethe Institut in Madrid with Miquel Gonzalez, Photographer, Emilio Silva , Journalist , Prof. Elizabeth Sikiaridi & Prof. Frans Vogelaar, Hybrid Space Laband Prof. Gutmaro Gomez Bravo, Contemporary History, Universidad Complutense de Madrid on Wednesday 5 June 2019 at the Goethe Institut in Madrid.

Opening, Lecture & Panel Discussion @ 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.

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 @ Athens School of Fine Art Athens, Greece, 15 February 2019

Working on places of conflict can be extremely challenging. As soon as a polarised discussion is addressed with a proposal, it is bound to cause some sort of backlash by at least one of the affected parties. There is no clear way out of it. Or is there? 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.

Deep Space: re-signifying Valle de los Caídos is presented on 25 January 2019 at the TRACES Conference in Milan, Italy.

Lecture, Discussion @ TRACES, Milan, Italy, 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?

The Valley of the Fallen, the shrine of Franco’s dictatorship, is still dividing Spain. A workshop wants to crossfade it with new projections.

Article by Paul Ingendaay @ Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 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.

Article by Sílvia Marimon @ ARA, 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,  @ Institut für kunst- und musikhistorische Forschungen, Austrian Academy of Sciences , 2018

How is Berlin becoming a socially just smart city?
The Make City Festival discussed ideas like a Volcano at the Humboldt Forum designed by Hybrid Space Lab.

Publication @ Garten + Landschaft, Germany, 15 August 2018

The museum space (1600 sqm) will be transformed into a creative laboratory, an interdisciplinary platform co-developed by international artists, creative thinkers, independent scholars, urban planners and stakeholders, a mini co-op city inside a skyscraper.

Exhibition @ Art Museum of China, Greater Bay Area, Shenzhen, China, 15 March-15 April 2019

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

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 @ Berliner Kurier, Berlin, 14 June 2018

Berlin urgently needs new ideas, impulses and visions.

Publication by Iris Braun @ TIP, Berlin, 14 June 2018

The architecture festival MakeCity will take place in 2018 under the motto Berlin Remixing | City New Mixed.

Article by Elena Markus @ Detail, Deutschland, 14 June 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 @ TAZ, Berlin, 11 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

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.

Reading, Presentation & Discussion, biography on Alexander von Humboldt and GRÜNtopia, Studio Talk, @ Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Klosterstraße 50, Berlin, 19.30-21.00, 15 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.

Like Space kick’s off project for the Affect Space 2 year long project initiated and organised by Eric Kluitenberg at the Transmediale Festival “Face Value” on 4 February 2018 at the HKW in Berlin.

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, 15 Januari 2018, Archithese, Swiss architectural magazine  Humboldt Dschungel” as part of “Ruines”

The documentary “Fabric” which we made for the documenta 14 is now part of the archive of the Foundation of the Hellenic World and of the collection of the Hellenic Cosmos Cultural Centre.

Archive, Foundation of the Hellenic World, Athens, 14 December 2017

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 @ Hybrid Space Lab, Berlin, Germany, 6 January 2016

Like Space refers to self-mediated leisure spaces that act as affective backdrops for digital self-enactment.
Hybrid Space Lab is leading a master class in Madrid in 2018 and organizing an international conference and a master class with public interventions and pop-up exhibition in Berlin in 2019.

Conference, Master Class, Lecture  @ Berlin, The Hague, Madrid, Rotterdam, 2018-2019

Hybrid Space Lab developed Humboldt Volcano the utopia of an extension to the Humboldt Forum: a vertical jungle consisting of terraces, a roof garden and a winter garden, referring to the explorer Alexander von Humboldt.

Social Design Award @ Spiegel, Germany, 29 September-26 October 2017,

Adam Szymczyk, director of documenta 14, refers to the documentary Fabric in the documenta 14 magazine South.
17 September 2017

Publication @ documenta 14 #4 South, issue #9, documenta 14, Kassel, Germany/Athens, Greece, 17 September-28 October 2017

Only a few construction projects in Germany are more controversial than the rebuilding of the city palace in Berlin. With this daring plan, the Dutch professor Frans Vogelaar manages to break open the jammed discussion.

Publication @ duitslandnieuws.nl, 15 September 2017

Only a few construction projects in Germany are more controversial than the rebuilding of the City Palace in Berlin. With a bold plan, the Dutch professor Frans Vogelaar knows how to break the stuck debate.In the heart of Berlin one of the most controversial buildings of the moment stands out: the rebuilding of the Berliner Stadtschloss.

Publication @ Duitslandnieuws, Berlin, 17 September 2017

Rüdiger Schaper, head of the cultural section of the German newspaper Der Tagesspiegel presents the Humboldt Volcano in an article entitled “Welcome to the Jungle – rescheduling is not forbidden, there is still time. The article, which gives an overview of the current discussion about the Humboldt Forum, is illustrated with a large-scale image of Humboldt Volcano. Humboldt Volcano acts as a symbol and icon for a better Humboldt Forum.

Humboldt Volcano @ Der Tagesspiegel, 1 September 2017

In Deutsche Bauzeitung the author Bernhard Schulz, who is editor in the culture edition of Tagesspiegel Berlin publishes an article on the reconstruction of the Berlin City Palace. The article also refers to Humboldt Volcano.

Article Fake Architecture, Bernhard Schulz @ DB Deutsche Bauzeitung, Germany, 1 September-1 October 2017

Publication of the research on the Athens “Rex” theater and cinema complex in the Greek daily “Kathimerini”. The research on “Rex” was done in preparation of the documentary “Fabric” that is screened at the Athens School of Fine Arts in the framework of documenta 14 from April to July 2017.

“Fabric” features the life cycle of “Greek Spinning and Weaving Mills”, but at the same time it is the narration of the greater framework in which the bourgeois citizens of the Ottoman Empire acted.

Reconciling supporters and opponents of “Humboldt Forum”, the Humboldt Jungle and Humboldt Volcano received a strong positive reception in the Berlin cultural world.

24 January 2017, @ Kathimerini, Greek Newspaper

Humboldt Volcano and Humboldt Jungle are part of the exhibition “Palace.City.Berlin.” in Ephraim Palais in Berlin. The exhibition is devoted to the Berlin Palace and its significance for the city and its inhabitants.

Ephraim Palais, Berlin, 25 November 2016-23 April 2017

Humboldt Jungle press, radio and WEB publications.

Awareness Campaign Humboldt Dschungel @ Press, Germany, International, 2015-2016

Berliner Kurier, the Berlin newspaper, publishes an article by Stefanie Hildebrandt on Humboldt Dschungel.
A new green proposal for the design of the facade of the Berlin city Palace causes a lot of rustling in the urban jungle and the forest of the press.

Humboldt Dschungel @ Berliner Kurier, 20 February 2016

DIE ZEIT, the German weekly newspaper publishes an article by Dr. Werner Bloch on Humboldt Dschungel.
Berlin discusses a big idea: the Humboldt Dschungel.
It is the idea to elicit from the bold cultural monster, the Humboldt Forum, something more playful, rampant, outlandish…Is Humboldt Dschungel the better Humboldt Forum?

Humboldt Dschungel @ DIE ZEIT, 16 February 2016

German radio presents interviews and discussions on Hybrid Space Lab’s Humboldt Jungle proposal for the future of the Humboldt Forum in Berlin.

Humboldt Dschungel @ MDR Figaro & WDR3 & Deutschlandfunk & Ö1 ORF1 & SWR2 & SR2, Deutschland, 11-19 Februar 2016

How do we save the Humboldt Forum? Experts involved in culture and politics discuss Humboldt Dschungel.

Lectures, Discussion & Dinner @ Alte Tankstelle, Berlin, 29 January 2016

Humboldt Dschungel symbolises the origin of the future collections in the Humboldt Forum. At the same time, Humboldt Dschungel stands for an innovative Germany in which the city is rethought.

Expert Meeting Humboldt Jungle @ GRÜN.kulturell Kulturcontainer, Politics meets culture: ANAlyseS, ideaS, CoNcePts, Berlin, 9 July 2015

At the Berlin Castle, where the baroque façade is still missing, “Humboldt Jungle” is to grow.
On Tuesday evening, the project initiators spoke to experts and representatives of the various castle initiatives about possible implementations.

Humboldt Dschungel @ TAZ, Berlin, 8 July 2015