Lower East

Urban Safari Berlin

In September 2019 we arranged and hosted a “Bauhaus Safari“ in Berlin and Dessau for a group of danish architects from the studio Mejeriet.

We had three wonderful days together, celebrating the 100 year anniversary of the birth of the Bauhaus movement – and exploring the Bauhaus history; visiting the new Bauhaus Museum Dessau, checked out the Bauhaus Building that housed the Bauhaus school from 1926 to 1932, and were on guided tours in the Masters’ Houses. We attended exhibitions in Berlin like; ‘Original Bauhaus’ in Berlinische Gallerie and ‘Bauhaus and modernism in Berlin and Tel Aviv’ at ‘Freiraum in der Box’. We also visited the Mies van der Rohe Haus, had a sunny walk in the Onkel Toms Hütte area, where several Bauhaus houses are build – and had a little ‘detour’ to the Corbusierhaus in Berlin-Charlottenburg.

All ‘supported’ with a lot of walks, talks and discussions – delicious food and splendid wines. The safari ended with a very cosy dinner in Camillo’s Kitchen.

Give us a call or an email if you want us to arrange a tour in Berlin for you and your company or organisation. We do architecture, design, start-up, Bauhaus and food safaris in the lively and inspiring city.

js@lowereastlab.de

 

 

Baushaus inspiration

We are in the planning of an Urban Safari in Berlin and Dessau – a larger group of architects will be coming to Berlin later this month. We are arranging and hosting the three day tour with Bauhaus as the overall theme. Celebrating – like more or less the rest of the world – the 100 year anniversary of the birth of the Bauhaus movement.

We’ll be going to Dessau, to check out the Bauhaus Building that housed the Bauhaus school there from 1926 to 1932, and be on a guided tour in the Masters’ Houses. The group will also pay visit to the total new Bauhaus Museum Dessau (opening September 8th). When back in Berlin, we will see the exhibition ‘Original Bauhaus’ in Berlinische Gallerie, visit the Mies van der Rohe Haus, check out the Onkel Toms Hütte area, where several Bauhaus houses are build, go to exhibitions like ‘Bauhaus and modernism in Berlin and Tel Aviv’ – and a lot more – and of course talk, eat, drink, discuss and hopefully be inspired a lot.

A few pictures from our recent research:

new bauhaus posters

The Bauhaus-Archiv Museum in Berlin just had a new corporate identity, created by the Stuttgart-based design agency L2M3.

New website, new typeface, new logo – and this absolute wonderful quartet of posters; Oskar Schlemmer’s “Triadic Ballet”, Marcel Breuer’s world-famous tubular steel chair, the building of the Bauhaus-Archiv – a work by Bauhaus founder Walter Gropius and Marianne Brandt’s tea infuser and strainer.

 

 Link to the Bauhaus website.

Zentrum Paul Klee. Bern

Right now there are two exhibitions at Zentrum Paul Klee in Bern, Switzerland. Lower East rushed through the museum/kulturhaus, we suddenly had that one extra hour to spend with Meister Paul Klee. The first exhibition, Master Klee! Teacher at the Bauhaus, “is organised in accordance with the 24 chapters of Klee’s teaching. For each chapter a selection of the notes is displayed. Klee’s attitude is, that it is not the final form that is important, but the path to its achievement, which runs as a dominant idea through his teaching. He constantly emphasised that a form does not exist, but becomes. Therefore he researched its interior and its formation. Using existing growth phenomena in nature he illustrated particularly at the start of his teaching activity the forming of abstract constructions.“ (text from Zentrum Paul Klee).

You will probably need more time than half an hour to dig into this stuff. We used the most of our time there focusing on four-five fantastic pictures, where balance and construction seemed to be the theme.

“Five aspects are of great significance both in Klee’s work as well as in his teaching: Nature, colour, rhythm, movement and construction. A selection of works shows, that Klee was occupied with these themes already before, during and after his activity at the Bauhaus.“ (text from Zentrum Paul Klee).

The other exhibition was quite big, quite lively and quite colorful. Wauh! Higher beings – Sigmar Polke and Paul Klee. And the graphics at the walls was just stunning, we were not allowed to take pictures there, we succeeded with a few anyway.

The two artists never met, Klee died in 1940 and Polke was born in 1941.
“Not in every respect, but still with reference to many artistic concepts, Klee and Polke can be considered as related spirits. They are linked by the way they critically analysed their era and world through their artistic activity, as well as the ambiguity and latent irony always present in their works. At the same time they both retain the awareness that artistic work remains entirely inexplicable and expresses also something slightly profane, just pure matter. In this way incredible analogies are to be found in their works. The bringing together of Polke and Klee in the exhibition Higher beings is then also much more than a private association of the curator. Each œuvre reflects in the light of the other protagonist in such a way, that our vision is freshly directed and makes the new visible.“ (text from Zentrum Paul Klee).

Meister Klee! runs until January 6, 2013 and Higher beings – Sigmar Polke and Paul Klee until October 7, 2012

More info at the Zentrum Paul Klee webpage.

Next step Bauhaus

Last week Lower East facilitated a Bauhaus workshop at Borups Højskole Copenhagen in the Next Step class. The students were introduced to the Bauhaus movement by a presentation and a movie about the Bauhaus school. We followed in the footsteps of the famous Bauhaus designers and the Next Step students created amazing work inspired by the Bauhaus philosophy – starting up with exercises on simple geometrical forms – ending up with great experiments and designs of playful 3-dimensional calendars, architectural sketches, a mobile of Bauhaus letters, cool playing cards, amazing counting books for children, a great multifunctional chair/bench/resting place and a fabulous jumping jack. At the end of the week the students created an exhibition. We had a good vibe in the class in the universe of primary colors – red, blue, yellow – triangles, squares and circles. Thank you all for your great involvement, enthusiasm and sharing your thoughts and ideas with us. We are looking forward to seeing some of you this week in Berlin and visiting the Bauhaus Archive with you.

Britz area Berlin

We went to visit the Britz housing area in Neukölln, Berlin. Architects Bruno Taut and Martin Wagner. Great architecture and a nice place to live we presume. We are not quite sure how many of the buildings are designed by Taut and Wagner, but take a look at the great colours, rythms…..we like it!