From 20 May 2026 to 3 January 2027, the international exhibition Heritage in Resistance: From Timbuktu to Odesa is taking place at the Institut d’architecture et du patrimoine in Paris. It is dedicated to how war destroys cultural heritage and what architectural and social forms of resistance, preservation and reconstruction emerge in response.
The Kharkiv School of Architecture is part of the exhibition with the project Odesa: Topographies of Risks.
The project is the result of the second international workshop Building Back Better, held in January 2025. It brought together more than 150 architecture and urban design students, lecturers, researchers and NGO representatives from Ukraine, Norway, Poland, Ireland, the Czech Republic and other European countries. Participants worked in Lviv and Warsaw, exploring new ways of representing risk in architecture and urban environments, with a focus on Odesa and the Black Sea coastal region.
In Paris, the exhibition also features the “Home” studio project. Students explored the transformation of the very concept of home under conditions of war, analysing two spatial dimensions:
The external dimension: connections with the city, courtyard, street and stairwell spaces.
The internal dimension: feelings of safety, memory and belonging.
Special attention was given to the emotional aspects of space. Through personal stories of residents, students studied how the perception of home changes under conditions of war and uncertainty.