11-05-2025
Ukrainians build avant-garde roof at Venice Architecture Biennale
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 (Life)
Details: Tetiana Filevska, the exhibition's commissioner and creative director of the Ukrainian Institute, said in a comment to (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. It's about various initiatives that unite people. It's about preserving our heritage and history. At the heart of the project is the story and work of Bohdana Kosmina and the life-long 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, self-organised 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 one's head' when we mean home, comfort, safety," said Ukraine's First Lady Olena Zelenska. "But that's 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. That's why the DAKH: Vernacular Hardcore project is so symbolic."
The curators of the national pavilion, Bohdana Kosmina, Michał Murawski and Kateryna Rusetska, explained that "the word 'hardcore' in the project's 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 Mid-20th Century, a monumental 50-year research carried out by three generations of female architects: Tamara, Oksana, and Bohdana Kosmina.
An AI avatar of architect and ethnographer Tamara Kosmina (1936-2016), 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 war-desiccated 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 drone-building 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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