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SYD MEAD - FUTURE CITIES
November 1, 2019
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Exhibition at the O&O DEPOT Gallery
November 14, 2019 to January 16, 2020
Mon – Fri 3 pm – 7 pm and by appointment
O&O DEPOT, Leibnizstr. 60, 10629 Berlin-Charlottenburg
The first solo exhibition in Germany of works by Syd Mead, the visionary of utopian film worlds and futuristic designs, will be on display at the O&O Depot Gallery from November 14, 2019. Since the 1970s, Syd Mead, who created groundbreaking designs for companies such as Ford, Chrysler, Philips Electronics, and Sony, has worked for Hollywood. He created pioneering and breathtaking worlds for legendary science fiction films, which continue to have a lasting influence on film, industrial, and game designers, as well as architects and urban planners.
When O&O Baukunst won the competition for the Urban Center Am Gleisdreieck in Berlin against international competition, it was clear to the project's architect, Markus Penell (O&O Baukunst), that he wanted to make inspiring concepts of visionary urban development tangible beyond purely architectural means. The idea arose to bring Syd Mead, one of the most important visionaries for the city of the future, to Berlin for an exclusive presentation of his work. In cooperation with entrepreneur Marc F. Kimmich (COPRO) and curator Boris Hars-Tschachotin, O&O Baukunst was able to realize a prestigious exhibition entitled SYD MEAD - FUTURE CITIES.
Syd Mead
Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Tron, Blade Runner, Aliens, Mission to Mars, and Elysium are among Syd Mead's best-known productions, for which he developed entire cities and mobility concepts featuring flying cars, autonomous vehicles, and spaceships. His visions continue to profoundly shape the popular image of the future. In his designs, he foresaw many technological advancements that have since become reality or are on the verge of doing so.
Syd Mead's visual worlds are always characterized by functionality and usually a positive vision of the future. However, for the dystopian cult film Blade Runner, Syd Mead designed the vision of a bold and apocalyptic city where towering skyscrapers dominate the skyline. Now, in November 2019, fiction intersects with the present, as the 1982 film is set in Los Angeles in 2019.
The Exhibition
In the exhibition SYD MEAD – FUTURE CITIES, O&O Depot brings together a selection of his iconic drawings and gouaches, focusing on urban spaces, including motifs for Blade Runner. A total of 33 original works offer an exclusive glimpse into the creative world of Syd Mead. Furthermore, Syd Mead speaks about his work, his inspiration, and his career in a brand-new short documentary.
O&O Depot / O&O Baukunst
It is fitting that Syd Mead's work has found a temporary home in the gallery of the architecture firm O&O Baukunst. Syd Mead's futuristic urban worlds have always been designed with the premise of what is technically feasible in mind. O&O Baukunst also feels connected to this visionary aesthetic coupled with practicality. With its beginnings in the artist collective Haus-Rucker-Co, which caused a sensation with works such as Oasis No. 7 (documenta 5, Kassel 1972) and developed utopian architectural concepts, O&O Baukunst continues to pursue a forward-looking, visionary approach to urban planning. Its conceptually artistic approach combines futuristic elements with the demands of contemporary urban development. This is currently illustrated by the Urbane Mitte Am Gleisdreieck project in Berlin, which was awarded to O&O Baukunst.
The Curator
The exhibition concept was developed by Boris Hars-Tschachotin, an expert in film production design, who also curated the major Ken Adam retrospective for the German Film Archive (Kinemathek). He is the author of the book *Der Bildbau im Film: Metropolis, Dr. Strangelove und Troy* (Image Construction in Film: Metropolis, Dr. Strangelove and Troy), which explores the significance of production design for film. As a director, he has made a name for himself with award-winning films such as *Sergej in der Urne* (Sergei in the Urn) and *Lurch*.
News & Press
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