Big opening: 2018.

The new space named OP ENHEIM will be created in an extraordinary, baroque tenement at Plac Solny in Wrocław, the European Capital of Culture 2016. The historical Oppenheims House will hold the exhibition hall, a multifunctional conference hall with a terrace, catering, ‘artist-in-residence’ apartment and offices. It is planned to make the tenement available for the inhabitants of Wrocław and to create the headquarters of cultural, scientific and economic institutions. OP ENHEIM will focus on cultural and art projects, including exhibitions – at the same time making reference to the Polish-German and international dialogue. The multifunctional hall to be created on the top floor of the attic, will make it possible to organise scientific, cultural meetings, small concerts and discussion panels in a unique atmosphere and with a great view of the roofs of the building in the Old Town. On the ground floor and in the basement, there is a traditional, regional, innovative, eco-friendly and healthy catering being planned, related to a cooking school and the academy of tastes propagating the Wrocław manufacture and factories as well as the farms and cooperatives producing eco food in the region of Lower Silesia. The first floor will cover an art gallery focusing on painting and statuary. Under the custody of well-known and appreciated curators from Berlin, the exhibitions being planned will make it possible for the inhabitants of Wrocław and beyond to familiarise with the world culture, above all presenting the works of talented young artists from Berlin and Wrocław.

There was a competition for a design to modernise, reconstruct and extend the tenement. We invited the best known and reputable Design Studios. The selected Architecture Studio is Major Architekci, the laureates of the award in the competition for the Świdnickie Undeprass. The architectonic concepts will be prepared jointly in cooperation with a company known worldwide – J. Mayer H. from Berlin (the winner of Red Dot Design Awards 2012).

OP ENHEIM will support and care about the development of culture between Wrocław and Berlin and will make it possible for the audience to access them – owing to exhibitions and other events. One of the main tasks will be to react to the current events on art and culture at both the places. Support for contemporary art designs will be the main function of the Oppenheims House. The operations will support the bilateral exchange and the development of art network between Wrocław and Berlin. Active exchange of visual art is first of all aimed at mutual opening of young Germans and Poles and to create a long-lasting interest in the German and Polish art and culture. OP ENHEIM will initiate, organise and coordinate projects, also in other places. The goal is common creation of a network with the partners form other institutions of art and culture from Berlin and Wrocław, which usually serves the idea and financing such a support of bilateral art and cultural projects between Germany and Eastern Europe, above all between Germany and Poland.

OP ENHEIM has already started cooperation with DoFA (Lower Silesia Festival of Architecture), the German Forum of Central and Eastern Europe (in Potsdam), the Faculty of Literature of German Studies at the University of Wrocław and other institutions caring about and supporting similar values in the field of art and culture.