The window display is on view 24/7.

The exhibition Open Archive for Urbanism, which was on view at the station urbaner kulturen in the spring of 2026, will continue over the summer with a window display. Works by Michele Galassi and Gertraude Pohl explore how built environments, architecture, and the city shape social participation, identity, and a sense of belonging.

In his work, Michele Galassi captures uprooted communities, lives on the margins of society, and forms of collective resilience. His long-term projects address topics such as homelessness, social vulnerability, and inclusive theater. The window display features a work from Galassi’s photo series Die Winterreise (The Winter Journey), which was created in a Berlin shelter for formerly homeless people. The series explores questions of exclusion, conformity, and opportunities for people whose life paths diverge from societal norms.

Through her “percent for art” projects, Gertraude Pohl helped shape the visual identity of many public buildings in the GDR. To this end, she developed comprehensive concepts for color, materials, and space, as well as a distinctive abstract formal language. The station urbaner kulturen now presents a series of her colorful murals created from modular concrete blocks: The playful messages—created between 1977 and 1986—on industrially built “Kinderkombinationen” (kindergarten) playgrounds in Berlin’s Marzahn and Lichtenberg districts, as well as the freestanding partition walls made of double-sided precast concrete blocks, which served to separate residential neighborhoods from the street space in World War II-devastated Frankfurt/Oder.

Michele Galassi (born in Italy in 1976) trained at the ISFCI in Rome before earning his master’s degree in photojournalism. He has lived in Berlin since 2011 and has been deepening his photographic practice through studies in digital photography, media, and film production. His more recent works include a documentary on the exodus from Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia (2023), the protests in Tbilisi, Georgia (2024), as well as inclusive theater communities and everyday life in war-torn Ukraine (2025/26).

Gertraude Pohl (born 1940 in Zittau) is a visual artist and designer. Among her most important works are her contribution to the overall color and material design of the Palace of the Republic (1973–1976), as well as the design of the natural stone floor in its main foyer, the interior design, and a large-scale ceramic and glass mural at the Interhotel Stadt Berlin (now the Park Inn at Alexanderplatz), large-scale enamel murals for the Stern Radio Factory in Berlin-Marzahn, as well as individual murals created using various techniques. After German reunification, she carried out numerous projects involving art in public spaces.

nGbK work group station urbaner kulturen: Juan Camilo Alfonso, Jochen Becker, Eva Hertzsch, Constanze Musterer, Adam Page, Katharina Ziemke