BWGTBLD is more than an office – there, creativity is 'meant to be shared'

The origins of BWGTBLD, the production business Philipp Ramhofer set up in 2012, are humble as they are personal: the founder's own bedroom in the small German city of Solingen. Visiting the firm's current headquarters, a majestic Berlin townhouse on Neue Schönhauser Straße 13, the difference appears stark – yet Ramhofer's relationship with his workspace is just as intimate, despite the seemingly grander setting.

The building sits in the fashionable Mitte neighbourhood, a handsome, early 1890s structure designed by architect Alfred Messel. It was originally built as a communal dining hall for Berlin workers, a revolutionary concept for its time. It has since changed hands and had different lives, from a cafe to a cinema and was eventually listed for its beautiful architecture. When Ramhofer acquired it, he envisioned not just a workspace for his thriving business, but also an opportunity to celebrate art and the creativity BWGTBLD represents.

'I'm very sensitive to spaces. To me a space is one of the highest art forms there is, up there with music and film. An office can be a devastating place. In the worst case it drains every bit of creativity out of you. So I asked myself, what would have to change to create the exact opposite: a place that infuses you with energy and creativity, that sparks rather than depletes,' he says.

'The building was a good foundation. It's an Alfred Messel house from the 1890s, originally Berlin's first communal dining hall for working people, later a cinema, so it already had more character than anything we could have designed. My ideal way to show the space for the first time is empty, late at night, when it feels like a gallery. I put on a playlist, light an incense, dim the lights, and we walk from room to room. Its in this setting that you can really get an impression for the core of the company's DNA. It's also, frankly, very selfish. It would kill me to work out of a conventional advertising office.'

In short, BWGTBLD is not just another office. Set against the structure's neo-renaissance architecture is a slew of artworks by names established and emerging, in all different shapes, media and sizes. The idea, the founder explains, is to create something where creativity in its different forms merges and flows together, and what might be perceived as a conventional office during the working day can become an art gallery at chosen times of the year.

Every three months or so, on select weekends, the property becomes a museum to visit, with organised, bookable sessions and art tours led by Ramhofer himself and BWGTBLD's in-house curator. The pieces on display come mostly from the founder's own collection - he has been collecting for over four years now.

'The first "real" piece, in the sense of a serious gallery and a serious artist, was a Wolfgang Tillmans from Galerie Buchholz, followed by Tim Breuer from Tramps and Raphaela Simon painting from Max Hetzler. I decided early to collect only what I truly love and would actually hang. I would never acquire something as an investment that I don't want to live with every day,' he explains.

'What attracts me is hard to articulate. In painting it's bodies, mostly. Figures pressed into each other, faces, skin. It leans heavy and dark, strong emotion over anything light or decorative but then in photography it's the opposite. Nothing dark, snapshots, intimacy, people caught in a moment. And it isn't only painting and photography. With design it's different again. There I go for material and a bit of humour. Almost everything is a type of metal, Frederik Fialin's brushed aluminium and stainless steel tables, EJR Barnes' polished steel Parasol Lamp, Mario Tsai's Pagoda, and then the USM cabinets in orange and green against it,mixed with 70s pieces like a Bellini Area lamp. And things that play with you, like Illya Goldman Gubin's bench, which is a crumpled cardboard moving box cast in resin, it looks like it's about to be thrown out and it weighs a ton.'

He continues: 'Where I find the pieces depends on what they are. For painting, photography, vessels, it's mostly galleries, and some of those artists have become friends over the years. For design, lamps, tables, the occasional sculpture, it's largely Instagram. My feed is nothing but design and young, emerging artists. And then online auctions. I'll go through thousands of lots looking for the strange thing nobody else noticed. That's how I ended up with a two-by-four-metre painting for my office. Sometimes it's shit, sometimes you get lucky. With the established artists, I wait for a show and buy there. So it's both planned and impulsive.'

There is no particular rotation or a strict plan as to how the collection grows. When a new piece is acquired, room is made for it. Some things might never move, but some might also shift according to the mood or the changing needs of each room. Specially commissioned pieces also adorn certain areas, created specifically for their spot. And when desired, specific shows are mounted, working with external galleries or particular artists, so the whole is kept alive year-round.

Ramhofer is behind the styling and the curation's oversight. Taking a deep, personal interest in how it all comes together and where everything sits, he is a keen maestro of space and interiors. Much of the furniture is made bespoke by Frederik Fialin, such as the long Manta Manta table, the reception desk, and a wall sculpture. Lamps are by EJR Barnes, and it all works with an Erco lighting system for the art. There is also a Yasmin Bawa-commissioned hempcrete wall relief.

As to why open his space to the wider public? He explains: 'I'm bored by most spaces right now. Instagram and the algorithm have flattened taste into a single, agreeable look and I see it even in the work of good interior designers, a lot of it plays it safe, chasing whatever the interior accounts happen to be pushing that month. It's hard not to fall for it yourself when we all drink from the same feeds and mood boards. That's why I love to go back to books and I love looking at collectors' houses from the 80s and 90s, it's wild how nobody would dare to live like that anymore.'

'I suspect it's the same reason we keep returning to architects like Lina Bo Bardi, to Niemeyer, to Bofill. Individuals, not consensus. Strange, personal places that still refuse to look like anything else. But I'm also not free of it myself, of course we didn't invent the metal look, it's been everywhere the last few years. But then I'm still excited that Frederik Fialin made us something like the Manta Manta table, in a shape and a size I've never seen anywhere before. I hold an almost spiritual belief that people are meant to create, and that what they create is meant to be shared.'

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