A partial screenshot of some of the events the lab will host.

The New York Times writes today about the Guggenheim’s Pop-Up Urban Laboratory on the East Side of Manhattan.

“New York will be the first stop for the lab on a worldwide tour that will also include Berlin and Mumbai. There will eventually be three labs, each with its own mobile structure designed by a different architect, and each dealing with a separate theme pertaining to urban life — in the case of the lab opening on Wednesday, “Confronting Comfort.” All three will travel to cities around the world, in a project slated to last six years. In each city curators will invite leaders in fields including architecture, art, design, technology, education and science to participate in programs: lectures, workshops, games, performances and film screenings. All events will be free to the public.

The labs are the brainchild of two Guggenheim Museum curators in their early 30s, David van der Leer and Maria Nicanor, who stress that this is not some sort of ephemeral museum.

“It’s a new hybrid, a place where we can learn from each other,” Mr. van der Leer said.”

There’s a cool video on the lab’s website that explains the project.

Why not something like this for the Mission?

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I’ve been a Mission resident since 1998 and a professor emeritus at Berkeley’s J-school since 2019. I got my start in newspapers at the Albuquerque Tribune in the city where I was born and raised. Like many local news outlets, The Tribune no longer exists. I left daily newspapers after working at The New York Times for the business, foreign and city desks. Lucky for all of us, it is still here.

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