U3-CORPORATE CULTURE

Large firms are increasingly assuming the role of quasi public institutions. Business culture is, therefore, becoming a networking culture and a public space. Business consulting is shifting its focus from "market capital" to "social and intellectual" as well as "cultural capital". The Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Kunstoffrecycling (DKR: German Plastic Recycling Company) in Cologne has taken this new shift in emphasis into account and dedicated an innovative project to it in Berlin. An as yet unused station for the planned U3 underground line - an empty concrete tube 300 metres long - was turned into a very special place. The exhibition "Art, Plastic, Recycling Plastic", in which such leading artists as Isa Genzken, Thomas Rentmeister and the stellar art-designer trio Bar+Knell participated, revealed the astonishing aesthetic potential of recycled plastic nowadays. The "tunnel" itself mutated into a total work of art, becoming one of Berlin s most "in" venues.