Ukrainians build avant-garde roof at Venice Architecture Biennale – photos
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Sun, 11 May 2025 11:12:39 +0300
On 8 May 2025, the Ukrainian pavilion was opened at the 19th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia.
The exhibition was unveiled as part of the project DAKH Vernacular Hardcore.
Source Ukrainska Pravda.Zhyttia Life Details Tetiana Filevska, the exhibitions commissioner and creative director of the Ukrainian Institute, said in a comment to UP.Kultura Culture that this is the fourth time Ukraine is participating in the Architecture Biennale.
Quote from Tetiana Thanks to volunteers, municipal services and partner organisations, buildings and infrastructure are being restored daily so that Ukrainians can keep living, continue resisting Russian aggression and keep finding new ways of existing in this world.
The DAKH project is precisely about these efforts.
Its about various initiatives that unite people.
Its about preserving our heritage and history.
At the heart of the project is the story and work of Bohdana Kosmina and the lifelong work of her grandmother Tamara Kosmina, who is featured in the project as a virtual avatar with which visitors can interact.
The DAKH Vernacular Hardcore exhibition. All Photos Valentyna Rostovikova, PRYZM photography Details In the concept of the exhibition, the roof is a fundamental element of architecture.
The project explores and compares traditional Ukrainian housing with the urgent vernacular that has emerged through spontaneous, selforganised reconstruction in wartime conditions.
The exhibition team explained Vernacular refers to everyday colloquial language specific to a community and locality a vocabulary without dictionaries or grammar policing.
But it also refers to forms of construction that occur outside professional oversight.
This is architecture without architects.
Thus, the DAKH project simultaneously refers to wartime and postwar reconstruction.
It shows visitors how, despite the danger, Ukrainians continue rebuilding their lives.
We say a roof over ones head when we mean home, comfort, safety, said Ukraines First Lady Olena Zelenska.
But thats exactly what every Russian attack takes from us...
Our education and culture are also losing their roof more than 4,000 educational institutions have already been destroyed by Russian bombs, including 3 universities, 1,419 cultural heritage sites, and 2,233 objects of cultural infrastructure.
Thats why the DAKH Vernacular Hardcore project is so symbolic.
The curators of the national pavilion, Bohdana Kosmina, Micha Murawski and Kateryna Rusetska, explained that the word hardcore in the projects title is used in its original meaning from the vocabulary of vernacular construction, referring to fragments, rubble and broken bricks that together form the foundation.
Elements of the Ukrainian exhibition include DAKH, a dynamic prototype of a Ukrainian roof developed by architect and artist Bohdana Kosmina.
Selected materials from the archive Atlas of Traditional Ukrainian Housing from the Late 19th to the Mid20th Century, a monumental 50year research carried out by three generations of female architects Tamara, Oksana, and Bohdana Kosmina.
An AI avatar of architect and ethnographer Tamara Kosmina 19362016, who studied folk architecture for decades during field expeditions across Ukraine.
Documentation of emergency vernacular architecture and roofing restoration processes in Chernihiv, Kyiv, Kharkiv, Sumy and Zaporizhzhia oblasts.
Places Mykolaiv Oblast a photographic project examining wardesiccated landscapes by artist and writer Yevheniia Bielorusets.
It is dedicated to the workers of Mykolaivvodokanal a water utility service in the city of Mykolayiv, who have been striving since 2022 to restore water supply systems damaged by Russian strikes.
Drone Dome an immersive sound installation curated by Clemens Poole, inspired by the Klyn project, a grassroots dronebuilding initiative led by Kseniia Kalmus.
The exhibition DAKH Vernacular Hardcore is accompanied by a nomadic Planetary Hardcore public programme, which will begin on 10 May at Scuola Grande di San Marco in Venice and later travel to other cities in Ukraine Kyiv, Dnipro and abroad.
What is the Architecture Biennale It is an international exhibition of architecture held every two years in Venice.
Participating countries set up their own national pavilions and present their architectural vision of the present day.
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