From 1897 to 1945 the building at Kantstrasse 79 in the district of Berlin Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf served as a courthouse. After 1945 it was used as a municipal land title archive and for administration of estates. From 2010 to 2015 the building stood empty. But on November 6, Vancouver-based Bocci will open a new chapter in both the building’s history and the company’s own by opening its first European studio.
In its first decade, Bocci has investigated the chemical, physical, and mechanical qualities of materials as principal generators of form through an ongoing program of analog experiments. In each case, invented fabrication techniques are structured to emphasize and challenge specific attributes of a material and to respond to the ‘Gestalt’ of the produced artefact. Some of these experiments yield products that enter the Bocci catalogue.
Founded in 2005 under the creative directorship of Omer Arbel, Bocci begins its second decade at Kantstrasse 79 this November by inhabiting the 2,200-square-metre historic courthouse and making it a working laboratory, production hub, studio and archive.
