20 years of Zentrum Paul Klee and Creaviva

20 Jahre Zentrum Paul Klee und Creaviva, Illustration: Alice Kolb

In 2025 the Zentrum Paul Klee and Creaviva are celebrating their twenty-year existence. For the occasion, the cultural centre invites you to varied Jubilee programme with high-calibre exhibitions and special highlights in the fields of music, literature, art education and the Fruchtland agricultural project.

Highlights of the anniversary year

Exhibitions
You can look forward to exhibitions on Le Corbusier, Anni Albers, Rose Wylie and Gego (Getrud Goldschmidt) - and our permanent exhibition Kosmos Klee with ‘Cover Star’ Paul Klee.
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Concerts
World-class concerts - from Grigory Sokolov to Angela Hewitt. With Claude Eichenberger and Rolf Romei performing Mahler's Lied der Erde with the BSO Chamber Ensemble, we present a special highlight.
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Readings
With readings by Margrit Schriber, Martin R. Dean and Ulrike Draesner, you can expect exciting biographies and, with Dörte Hansen, a "Spiegel" bestselling author.
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The programme begins with the major exhibition Le Corbusier. The Order of Things, which opened in February and will be on show until 22 June. Le Corbusier, like Paul Klee in his day, crossed genre boundaries and shaped the architecture, design and visual art of the 20th century more than any other.
With Anni Albers. Constructing Textiles (7.11.2025−22.2.2026) the big autumn exhibition is devoted to another artistic border-crosser between textile and architecture, between weaving and building. In the summer exhibition an impressive contemporary painter is presented, who proves that creativity is a principle: the works of ninety-year-old Rose Wylie (19.7.−5.10.2025) testify to a deep understanding of pop culture, literature and the zeitgeist, and are also full of subversive humour. In the constantly changing permanent exhibition Kosmos Klee we focus on Paul Klee’s relationship with music, Klee as ‘Cover Star’, i.e. Klee being chosen by many 20th-century philosophical authors to appear on their book covers, as well as a small concentrated exhibition of the German-Venezuelan artist Gertrud Goldschmidt, known as Gego.
With the interactive exhibitions, the family morning on Sunday and the daily Open Studios, Creaviva is establishing creative hands-on access for all generations to the three big special exhibitions and the permanent Paul Klee exhibition. To coincide with the 20th anniversary, the courses for adults also focus on 20 artistic techniques. And in order to actively involve the voices of the future, from the Jubilee year onwards Creaviva is accompanied by a children’s council.
Many outstanding personalities have been engaged in the fields of music and literature: with Maestro Grigory Sokolov we welcome one of the most important contemporary pianists to Bern. The first concertmaster of the Berlin Philharmonic, Daishin Kashimoto, plays in a trio with Claudio Bohórquez and Eric Le Sage, and the Canadian Bach specialist Angela Hewitt travels with Bach’s musical monument The Well-Tempered Clavier. With Claude Eichenberger and Rolf Romei, who are presenting Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde with the BSO Chamber Ensemble, the Zentrum Paul Klee presents a particular highlight on Sunday, 15 June 2025.

In the field of literature, book enthusiasts can expect exciting biographers with Margrit Schriber, Martin R. Dean and Ulrike Draesner, and with Dörte Hansen a Spiegel bestselling author.
Participation and cultural involvement are important corner-stones of the work of the Zentrum Paul Klee. Over the past few years many projects have been launched together with the neighbourhood, for example paul&ich and the community garden. Together we want this collaboration to go on growing. In the public workshop Paul Klee & Neighbourhood, the Zentrum Paul Klee has thought about previous developments and future collaborative work with the quarter. The programme of the Jubilee weekend in June is also assembled and put into operation together with the residents and associations of the quarter.
With the project paul & bitzius, we have launched another participative and future-oriented project intended to establish the Zentrum Paul Klee as an out-of-school place of learning. In various subjects, the Bitzius School, an immediate neighbour of the Zentrum Paul Klee, will explore the Zentrum Paul Klee as an out-of-school place of learning.

Quo vadis, Klee?
Sunday, 15 June 2025 at 11:00
Zentrum Paul Klee

In the specialist workshop Quo vadis, Klee? curators and museum directors from both home and abroad reflect on where the engagement with the work and reception of Paul Klee should develop in future, the role played by global perspectives, and ways in which research can be relevant for society in our programmes. On Sunday, 15 June at 11:00 the results will be presented at a public panel.

- Sébastien Delot, Paris
- Yilmaz Dziewior, Director Museum Ludwig, Cologne
- Tone Hansen, Director Munch Museum, Oslo
- Shanay Jhaveri, Head of Visual Arts, Barbican London
- Matthias Mühling, Director Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich
- Florence Ostende, Head of Artistic Department MUDAM, Luxembourg
- Maria Stavrinaki, Prof., Université de Lausanne, Art Contemporain
- Fabienne Eggelhöfer, Chief Curator, Zentrum Paul Klee
- Martin Waldmeier, Curator, Zentrum Paul Klee
- Toni Hildebrandt, Research Associate, Zentrum Paul Klee
- Nina Zimmer, Director Kunstmuseum Bern - Zentrum Paul Klee

Jubilee weekend

The highlight of the Jubilee year is the Jubilee weekend on Saturday and Sunday, 21 and 22 June 2025. The Zentrum Paul Klee and Creaviva invite you to two free days with a full programme:

Programme on Saturday, 21 June 2025

Saturday starts with a slackline show above the Zentrum Paul Klee and various short guided tours of the exhibitions and continues into the evening with live acts by the winners of the music context and the dj programme, under the motto ‘Me at 20.’ In Creaviva, visitors can create their own art cards from pressed flowers and leaves in the blooming card workshop, and in the fabric art studio, geometric fabrics are artistically worked on to form a huge collective work.

When	What	Where
10:00 – 20:00	Free admission to all exhibitions Interactive exhibition at Creaviva	Exhibition rooms, Creaviva
from 12:00	Beer mobile with Pauls Festbier from the Lohnbrauerei brewery BBQ food truck from Firechef Bar by Schöngrün in cooperation with Matte Distillery	Outdoor area
12:00 – 20:00	Short guided tours in Kosmos Klee. The Collection Short guided tours in Le Corbusier. The Order of Things Short guided tours of architecture and FRUCHTLAND	Meeting point at the ticket office
12:00 – 20:00	Blooming card workshop Fabric art in the studio	Creaviva
15:30 – 18:00	Live at Klee - Music Contest: short live acts by the three finalists	Auditorium
18:00 – 24:00	Music & Cocktails DJ Stage with: Dianabelle Kid Silly Seba Campos	Outdoor area

Programme on Sunday, 22 June 2025

Sunday offers a wide range of events for families, with sketch crawls, chalk-spraying actions, fresh vegetable soup in the community garden, balloon trips over the Zentrum Paul Klee and guided tours. In Creaviva, visitors can create their own art cards from pressed flowers and leaves in the blooming card workshop, and in the fabric art studio, geometric fabrics are artistically worked on to form a huge collective work.

When	What	Where
10:00 – 18:00	Free admission to all exhibitions Interactive exhibition at Creaviva Blooming card workshop Fabric art in the studio	Exhibition rooms, Creaviva
from 10:00	Beer mobile with Pauls Festbier from the Lohnbrauerei brewery BBQ food truck from Firechef Bar by Schöngrün in cooperation with Matte Distillery	Outdoor area
10:00 – 18:00	Take a ride in a hot air balloon	Outdoor area
10:00 – 17:00	Short guided tours in Kosmos Klee. The Collection Short guided tours in Le Corbusier. The Order of Things Short guided tours of architecture and FRUCHTLAND	Meeting point at the ticket office
11:00	Film Münter & Kandinsky (Marcus O. Rosenmüller, 2024, 126')
16:00 – 17:00	Anniversary cake: try all the cakes baked by the Quartier for the birthday of the Zentrum Paul Klee
18:00	End of the event

Free entrance for to all exhibitions

Are you also celebrating your 20th birthday in 2025? Anyone born in 2005 has free admission to the exhibitions at the Zentrum Paul Klee all year round! Simply show an official ID at the ticket desk and benefit from free admission.

Music Contest: Live at Klee

To coincide with the Jubilee year, the Zentrum Paul Klee is organising a music contest. The competition offers musical talents, whether solo or in a group, whether acoustic or semi-acoustic, the opportunity to be evaluated by a specialist jury. Prizes will be performances at the 2026 Museum Night in the Zentrum Paul Klee, in the Mühle Hunziken and in the Gustav im Bierhübeli Bern. Applications are open until 30 April 2025. All information and registration at

zpk.org/musiccontest

Paul’s festival beer – brewed with barley grown at the Zentrum Paul Klee

In 2024 we planted brewing barley in the big field in Fruchtland around the Zentrum Paul Klee. To coincide with the Jubilee, the Zentrum Paul Klee, along with the Bern Lohnbrauerei, is brewing an aromatic beer that can be tasted and, from the summer, bought in the museum shop and the museum café as well as the Schöngrün restaurant.

20 years in figures

around 3.1 million visitors
over 100 exhibitions
more than 20,000 guided tours
around 30,000 Creaviva workshops
60 interactive Creaviva exhibitions
around 140,000 pupils in class groups
approx. 760 concerts
almost 700 readings
over 3,000 meetings, congresses and events
744 expert reports
58 catalogues and own publications

Foundation
The Zentrum Paul Klee opened on 20 June 2005. With the new cultural institution, Paul Klee was given a monument with international appeal in the city of Bern, where he spent half of his life.
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Creaviva
Creaviva in the Zentrum Paul Klee is Bern's competence center for analog art education with international reach. It promotes the interactive transfer of knowledge with a variety of artistic offerings in the studio.
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Architecture
With the Zentrum Paul Klee, Italian star architect Renzo Piano has created a light-flooded landscape sculpture made of glass and concrete. The building with the three iconic hills is located in the east of Bern.
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