Ahead of the opening of the new MVRDV Office in Berlin, in September, the renowned Dutch architecture firm has launched a new exhibition at the Architektur Galerie Berlin, celebrating almost 30 years' worth of work in Germany.
Photography: Jan Bitter | Architektur Galerie Berlin
The walls of MVRDV Haus Berlin form a densely packed archive that shows off both current and past German projects by MVRDV – including unseen projects from our past and newly-revealed future projects. At the same time, a team of MVRDV's architects working on German projects transforms part of the exhibition into a ‘working office' that gives visitors an insight into MVRDV's working methods.
Photography: Till Budde | Architektur Galerie Berlin
MVRDV's relationship with Germany began in their very first project, the Europan 1991 winner Berlin Voids. The project encapsulates ideas that have come to define MVRDV's work as a practice, and soon the bold designs of the newly founded MVRDV office were implemented in Germany.
For the architects, it wasn't important whether their design would be built or not – what mattered was its radicality. This soon changed, at the latest when their Dutch Pavilion for EXPO 2000 in Hannover, designed as a stacked landscape, helped MVRDV to achieve an international breakthrough and become the icon of a new generation of architecture. Since then, MVRDV's bold and sometimes provocative projects have joined the canon of contemporary international architecture.
But there is much more architecture by MVRDV in Germany, some only on paper but much of it realized. For example, the Unterföhring Park Village was completed shortly after Expo 2000, while Werk12 in Munich was completed in 2019. Other projects are currently under construction such as Phase 2 of Hamburg Innovation Port and Zollhafen Mainz, and more designs are in progress, such as the KoolKiel development, Kreativquartier Potsdam, and the recently announced Expo Pavilion 2.0, including renovations and additions to the original Expo 2000 building.
“When we competed in Europan, whether or not the project would be built was not our main priority – being radical was”, says founding partner Jacob Van Rijs. “Now that we've had a chance to work more in Germany and even built some of our designs, we look forward to bringing that radical streak to Berlin on a permanent basis. We hope that sharing our work and working methods in MVRDV Haus Berlin will form the start of productive exchange of ideas between MVRDV and other German architects, clients, officials, and the public”.
MVRDV Haus Berlin is open at the Architektur Galerie Berlin through August 22nd.
The firm's new permanent office near Park am Gleisdreieck will open in September.
Karl-Marx-Allee 96 10243 Berlin
cover photography: courtesy MVRDV
