Imagining sustainable futures in Berlin

The Futurium in Berlin hosts exhibitions about desirable future concepts, tests them out in a lab and then creates a forum for dialogue

- Mala Kumar

The cruise on the river Spree in Berlin offers a view of a shimmering building. “That’s the Futurium,” says my daughter, “we'll go there tomorrow.” The next day, a burst of yellow and red panicles of amaranth welcomes us at the forecourt of this “house of the futures”.

This independent not-for-profit space, which opened in 2019, houses exhibitions with living scenarios about foreseeable and desirable future concepts, a lab to try them out and a forum for joint dialogue.

Currently, the Futurium is hosting Super-Land, a multilevel installation featuring 240 edible and insect-friendly species such as the amaranth. This is in sync with the current thematic focus on future fields. “We chose to make our project quite low-tech and base it on healthy soil and permaculture principles. The forest garden seemed to be a perfect match,” says artist Benjamin Frick, who has collaborated with landscape designers Katharina Bohme and Lulu Dombois of Parzelle X.