PRESS RELEASE

02.05.2016

Erlebnis Europa – Europa Experience
The Exhibition in the European House Berlin

Let’s discover Europe in Berlin: From 12 May onwards, the European House will be inviting people to learn more about the European Union. The permanent exhibition EUROPA EXPERIENCE, designed by ATELIER BRÜCKNER, offers surprisingly direct and fascinating insights into the people, history and politics of the European Union.

In the middle of the government quarter, near the Brandenburg Gate, the large-format, blue and yellow letters "EU" / "EUROPA" draw attention to the new venue. It is situated on the ground floor over an area of 450 square metres in a prominent building located on the corner of Unter den Linden and Wilhelmstrasse. Round media tables and a 360-degree cinema are the characterising elements of the inviting design. Information on the European Parliament and the European Commission is presented vividly and transparently, informatively and as an experience – and all this is done in 24 different languages, the official languages of the EU.

The seemingly distant goings-on in the political arena are brought closer verbally and spatially, for example at the media table "United in Diversity", where Herbert Scheithauer, professor at the Freie Universität Berlin, presents the project "MEDIENHELDEN" (MEDIA HEROES), which is part of the EU DAPHNE programme. It fosters the Internet competence of young people and helps to prevent cyber mobbing. This success story and 90 additional ones convey the shared fundament principles of the EU, its institutions and its programmes. They are each assigned a place on a three-dimensional map of Europe that shows a Europe without borders and can be explored interactively.

Behind the media table, a panorama spreads out expansively. It illustrates the diversity of European landscapes and everyday life on the European continent. Two inhabitants from each EU country have their say: for example, Klaus Vogel from Germany who, on Europe Day in 2015, started the SOS MÉDITERRANÉE project, the purpose of which is to rescue refugees travelling by boat. The interviews are integrated into the landscape image and can be called up on touchscreens.

Additional media stations convey the history of the EU as an evolved coalition of countries, while portraying the tasks of the European Commission and the cooperation within European institutions that consists of the European Commission, the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union.

Each of the 751 MEPs and all 28 EU commissioners have a say in the exhibition, with use being made of both text and images. Visitors can address the parliamentarians as our European representatives by using the media screen to directly send them an e-mail message.

In the 360-degree cinema, exhibition visitors can eventually gain an immersive form of access to the politics of the European Parliament. The film room with its 33 seats takes them right into the middle of the European Parliament, enabling them to virtually sit in the plenum and submerge themselves in the political goings-on. Two speakers provide guidance through the 15-minute film, which is a collage of documentary material, filmed in the plenary assembly rooms of Strasbourg and Brussels. Here, the process of legislation is made comprehensible in a highly compact and descriptive form.

The exhibition enables an emotional and simultaneously intensive insight into the politics of the EU. The visitor obtains answers in a variety of different ways to questions such as: What is European policy? How is it made in 28 countries and 24 languages? And how does our EU Parliament work? Interaction and a personal approach enable an emotional access to the idea of the European Union – and, suddenly, the united Europe comes very close to us.

CONTACT

Europäisches Haus
Unter den Linden 78
10117 Berlin
T. +49 30 2280 2900
www.erlebnis-europa.de

Opening hours:
10 a.m. – 6 p.m. daily
Entrance free.

ATELIER BRÜCKNER GmbH
Claudia Luxbacher, Presse und Kommunikation
T. +49 711 5000 77 126
presse(at)atelier-brueckner.com
www.atelier-brueckner.com