HENN AT THE CONCEPTUAL BIENNALE
HENN at the CONCEPTUAL Biennale
How we helped shape the first edition of Berlin's new design biennale as a founding partner
In October 2025 we were a founding partner of the first CONCEPTUAL Biennale, Berlin's first design biennale, which deliberately does not call itself one. For three days, from 9 to 11 October, San Gimignano Lichtenberg at the Dong Xuan Center turned into a place for art, design and architecture, and right in the middle of it we presented our HENN SOFA.
CONCEPTUAL sees itself as a platform for conceptual, cross disciplinary practice that works through social questions in art, design and architecture. The biennale was initiated by Tina Roeder as artistic and curatorial director, together with Anton Rahlwes and Thilo Reich, who was also responsible for the scenography. As a founding partner we stood alongside USM and Mono, surrounded by a programme of exhibition and a two day roundtable on themes such as concept, format, power and money.
The location itself fitted the idea perfectly. San Gimignano Lichtenberg is a former silo tower behind the Dong Xuan Center, a Vietnamese run commercial complex in the east of Berlin, converted by the architecture office b+ (Arno Brandlhuber). A place that makes migration, urban transformation and production culture visible, and for that very reason a place that suited both the curatorial direction of the biennale and OUT.
Why HENN belongs exactly here
For us HENN is more than a sofa or a seating object. It is a system that encourages communication. Our designer David Wendt describes the design as an engagement with a fundamental need: shelter. The quilted, softly padded covers recall a light down duvet, while the modules can be recombined freely on the principle of Tetris. HENN can be used from every side and connects spaces instead of separating them, exactly the principle the biennale itself pursues: bringing people, disciplines and perspectives together. In a room made for dialogue and community, HENN did not feel like an exhibit. It felt like a place where conversations happened by themselves.
HENN is made, like all of our objects, in Germany, from the seamstress in the Swabian Alb to the master joiner in Bavaria. Taking part in CONCEPTUAL was therefore also a statement for us: craft and conceptual art do not exclude one another. On the contrary, they need each other.
On to the next edition
The first edition of CONCEPTUAL showed how much energy there is in Berlin's design and art scene when it is given the right frame. We are proud to have been part of that first edition as a founding partner, and we are already looking forward to the next.
