Bauhaus Week takes place Aug. 31–Sept. 8 in Berlin. The highlight for many will be “original Bauhaus” on Sept. 6, when the long-awaited Humboldt Forum opens its doors. This year marks the 100th anniversary of the Bauhaus movement, and the city’s program includes exhibitions, talks and events celebrating its influence on design, architecture and cultural life. In September the new Futurium also opens, a multidisciplinary venue designed to bring together politics, society, art and business.
From Sept. 12–15, the iconic space of Tempelhof Airport hosts Berlin Art Week. The festival combines major exhibitions with artist talks, performances and visits to independent project rooms. More than ten countries will be represented, presenting a broad spectrum of contemporary and modern art that ranges from installations and painting to performance and multimedia works.
Notable exhibitions across the city include “East Berlin – Half a Capital,” on view May 11–Nov. 9 at the Ephraim-Palais. The show traces the history of East Berlin—the capital of the GDR—from the late 1960s through reunification in 1990, offering photographs, documents and personal stories that illuminate everyday life and urban change. On June 28 the Museum Europäischer Kulturen opens a presentation of objects from ethnological collections that reflect cultural exchange and the process of reunification, highlighting material connections between formerly divided East and West.
Also worth a visit is The Parliament of Trees, a new memorial installation that combines living trees with salvaged elements of the city’s former border defenses. Sixteen trees symbolize Germany’s federal states and stand alongside 58 original sections of the Berlin Wall. Some wall segments have been worked on by artists, while others remain untouched, creating a powerful contrast between creative reinterpretation and raw historical material.