Cité de l’architecture et du patrimoine
Paris, May 15 – June 3, 2026
On May 15, 2026, the international exhibition Heritage in Resistance: From Timbuktu to Odesa opens at Cité de l’architecture et du patrimoine. The exhibition explores how war targets cultural heritage and examines the forms of resistance, preservation, and recovery that emerge in response to destruction.
Kharkiv School of Architecture is participating in the exhibition as an institution from a country living through full-scale war and one that continuously reflects on the experience of war through educational programs, research projects, and public initiatives.
The exhibition examines how cultural heritage has become a target in armed conflicts across different parts of the world. From Timbuktu to Odesa, from Bamiyan Valley to Gaza, it reveals how the destruction of historic monuments, cities, landscapes, and everyday heritage has become part of military strategy. One of the exhibition’s key reference points is the destruction of the mausoleums of Timbuktu in 2012 — an event after which the deliberate destruction of cultural heritage was recognized for the first time as a war crime by the international community.
The exhibition raises questions not only about loss, but also about what remains after destruction. It highlights architects, researchers, artists, local communities, and civil society organizations that document losses, protect endangered heritage, and work with memory. Through maps, texts, models, photographs, videos, artworks, and digital reconstructions, the exhibition unfolds in three thematic sections: Erasing, Resisting, and Restoring. It invites visitors to see heritage not only as material objects, but also as living environments, memory, and social relationships. At its core is the question of how to imagine the future after destruction.
As part of the exhibition, Kharkiv School of Architecture presents a section from the exhibition Odesa: Topographies of Risk, developed as a result of the second international Building Back Better workshop held in January 2025. The workshop brought together more than 150 architecture and urban design students, faculty members, researchers, and representatives of civil society organizations from Ukraine, Norway, Poland, Ireland, Czechia, and other European countries. Participants worked in Lviv and Warsaw, exploring new ways of mapping risk in architecture and urban environments, with a focus on Odesa and the Black Sea coastal region.
The exhibition will feature the Home studio project, which explored how the very concept of home transforms during wartime. Students examined both the external dimension of home — its relationship to the city, courtyard, streets, and staircases — and its internal dimension, connected to feelings of safety, memory, and belonging. Special attention was given to the emotional aspects of space. Through personal stories shared by residents, students investigated how perceptions of home change under conditions of war and uncertainty. The project highlights that future recovery efforts must address not only physical infrastructure, but also human experience, memory, and emotional connections to place.
The exhibition is organized by Cité de l’architecture et du patrimoine, ICONEM, and a team of curators, researchers, and partner institutions working on the preservation of cultural heritage in times of war.