Michael Wolf: Life in Cities

At that time, the Ura­nia, a Berlin cul­tur­al cen­ter with great appeal, was embark­ing on new shores. Under the direc­tion of Direc­tor Ulrich Weigand, an exhi­bi­tion was staged for the first time in the halls pre­vi­ous­ly used as event spaces. Our office advised on the pro­jec­t’s devel­op­ment and devel­oped options for imple­ment­ing this pro­gram change pro­fes­sion­al­ly at a muse­um lev­el. Among oth­er things, the task was to design an effec­tive graph­ic guid­ance sys­tem for vis­i­tors to nav­i­gate their way into this unfa­mil­iar ter­ri­to­ry, along the foy­er, the new urban gar­den­ing areas, the entrance hall of the old build­ing, and the stair­wells to the exhi­bi­tion spaces on the sec­ond floor.

The hori­zon­less and panoram­ic moment in Wolf’s works is the sub­tle sceno­graph­ic motif of the Ura­ni­a’s largest exhi­bi­tion space. Inter­pret­ing the col­or spec­trum of the sky­scrap­ers, col­ored cords guide vis­i­tors from the entrance through the ground floor and up into the exhi­bi­tion spaces. Columns, ste­les, and trees wrapped in cords con­nect the spaces and link the groups of works. In the stair­well, the taut cords form a sculp­tur­al fig­ure that guides the way through the wind­ing old build­ing of the Urania.

With our scenog­ra­phy, we paid great trib­ute to Michael Wolf as a pho­to­graph­ic por­traitist and chron­i­cler of the 21^st cen­tu­ry in our first exhi­bi­tion project. The par­tic­u­lar chal­lenge of the scenog­ra­phy lay in the high­ly diverse for­mats of his pho­to­graph­ic series, which were often placed freely in the space like actors. Free­stand­ing walls formed soli­tary inter­ven­tions and, like Wolf’s pho­tographs, for­bid the per­cep­tion of a horizon.