The act of caring is an integral part of architecture, the primary function of which is to provide protection. In the context of Russia’s unprovoked war against Ukraine, everything has become vulnerable. To ensure that the magnitude of this challenge is met with a rapid and dignified response, we need a new coordinate system, with new agents of change. How does the war change the role of architects? What methods and motives do we have for care in architecture? How can care in architecture become our new normal? How can we find beauty in spaces of care? Care has its own beauty. It means recognizing the challenge, taking the responsibility and daring to take action. Stories of emerging ideas, actions and decisions perform diverse ways of creating spaces of care. This serves to remind us of the fundamental purpose of architecture, and the extension of what an architect's role should be in a society—even without war. care collective aims to create conditions where stories about care can be heard. To achieve this goal in the context of Before the Future, care collective has issued an open invitation and is actively disseminating information about the opportunity to join the collective with stories and projects that the initiative hopes to bring to public attention.

The project is co-funded by the European Union

In their book Critical Care: Architecture and Urbanism for a Broken Planet [1], curators Elke Krasny and Angelika Fitz argue that the current state of the planet — the climate crisis and various forms of social and spatial exclusion — is a consequence of a lack of care. But the pressure to optimize and capitalize time and resources does not take into account the externalities that are now fatal to us. Referring to the political philosopher Joan Tronto, the authors define care as “a species activity that includes everything that we do to maintain, continue, and repair our 'world' so that we can live in it as well as possible. That world includes our bodies, our selves, and our environment, all of which we seek to interweave in a complex, life-sustaining web” [2]. The notion of this “life-affirming network” also reflects the original notion of architecture as a shelter that no longer confronts nature but is an interconnected environment for living; a habitat for life that combines local and planetary aspects.

Every society shows care according to its standards of living and its understanding of “the best,” says Joan Tronto [3], a professor of women's and political studies. In order to assess whether care is conducted good or bad, it is necessary to pay attention to the standard of "good life" and the standard of care. Then this question becomes very political. What we care about determines what kind of society we are.

J. Tronto also identified five aspects of caring that help explain the nature of this phenomenon: caring about, caring for, care giving, care receiving, and caring with.

Caring about means that we are attentive to the needs that need to be met. Before the process of caring can begin, the need for care must be recognized.

Caring for is the phase of caring that deals with accepting and sharing responsibility. Once someone has noticed a need for care, they must take responsibility for it.

Care giving requires attention to the acts of care themselves. For example, if a building is intended to serve as a shelter, how does it do so? How are materials and workers selected, transported, and used? Are workers protected and cared for during the construction process?

Care receiving. What happens next when care is completed? Because care processes are ongoing, everyone involved is affected and transformed in some way during the process. How well have the needs that started the change been met?

Caring with. Caregiving in all its forms creates a safe environment. When care needs are reliably met, over time, people may feel grateful to those around them who provide this ongoing care. In such cases, it becomes a way to strengthen solidarity and trust between people. Over time, caring can become the norm in society.

In the Beauty of Care project, stories are revealed through different aspects of the phenomenon of care and are told through a metaphorical reproduction of the processes that unite them and the symbolic objects that appear in individual projects.

A community exists when it remembers. When it can tell a story about itself, imagine the future, touch the stones on which time has left its mark. But we in Ukraine are now at a point of time rupture. Russia wants to convince the world that we will not exist, do not exist, and have never existed. Our Time is out of joint. We hold in our hands the wreckage of the destroyed world we love. We are trying to understand what we must not lose in order to remain ourselves.

Our world is destroyed — it will never return to the point "before the war". Entire cities are physically destroyed — they have ceased to exist. Part of the country has turned into a Wild Field. Where will our memory take root? After all, we cannot even touch some of the places of our memory because they are still in the hands of the enemy. Thus, the focal point of our project is the Mariupol Drama Theater, which was hit by the Russian Army with a bomb in March 2022. The remains of the theater, where hundreds of people died, were first covered with plaques with portraits of Russian writers, before the building was demolished. We are asking ourselves whether the theater will be rebuilt when we return to Mariupol. But is such reconstruction not an immoral act — by restoring the building, one might allege that we are making the crime disappear, as if it never existed. What then should the architecture of commemoration look like?

As long as we live in a time warp, we cannot follow the normal path of commemoration. Our path now is to create an imaginary architecture of memory, to outline the emptiness that cannot be filled. We can build models of the lost world in virtual space. Here and now, Ukrainian memorials cannot be embodied in something tangible. From what should we build? How and where do we draw the contours of what cannot be lost? In this wasteland of a destroyed world, we draw an image of the future with sound. What is more intangible than sound? This is the only way Ukrainian memorials can be today.

In a torn time, memory ceases to be linear. History crumbles into fragments that we hold in our hands and carefully put together into a new whole. What was once in the past appears right in front of our eyes, and we recognize ourselves in a new way, in the mirror of the distant past. The former Wild Field was swept by waves of military clashes, interventions of industrial breakthroughs, the Soviet project of building a "new world" out of "nothing". Against the backdrop of the torn time of this war, we recognize fragments of the past in a new way.

When the war is over, how will we remember everything that happened? Our first commemorative gesture is to talk about what cannot be lost. We do not just cry over our losses. Our feeling is not only grief. It is love and desire for the future. While we are defending our future, our memorials are being built in atopia. Only here do we find a foothold.

The statement on commemoration is the result of a joint interdisciplinary reflection by architects, artists, and researchers of collective memory. The projects presented in the joint statement include spatial research and artistic gestures, united by the search for a language of commemoration of the Russian-Ukrainian War, and an idea of what war memorials are today.

“The Day of Wrath from the Machine”

Sasha Kurmaz

4-channel spatial audio installation, 21 min, 2023

installation created in collaboration with Alexey Shmurak (composition) and Oleksandr Chornyi (sound production)

This art project is the result of the joint reflection of the What Cannot Be Lost collective. What can a memorial be for people who are still in the middle of a war? When the world is collapsing every day, it is impossible to build memorials of marble or bronze. But the work of memory requires the development of an idea of a memorial, at least in an imaginary or virtual space. If the CST proposed a spatial study in a virtual architectural form, and Oleksandr Burlaka imagined a spatial and temporal model, the artist Sasha Kurmaz went the route of creating a memorial beyond the idea of materiality. Sound can carry a powerful message, but it is devoid of materiality. In collaboration with the composer Alexey Shmurak, Kurmaz creates a sound memorial born out of the memory of the genocide and crimes against humanity committed by the Russian Army in Ukraine.

According to Shmurak: “The title of the work refers simultaneously to two well known Latin expressions — Dies Irae (Day of Wrath) and Deus ex Machina (God from the Machine). These expressions have an opposite mood; while the Day of Wrath refers to judgment, punishment, the inevitability of catastrophe, and non-empathy; Deus ex Machina refers to unexpected, miraculous salvation, the intervention of higher forces.”

In a musical composition, this title has a multilayered meaning. Firstly, the sound itself is emphatically artificial, sometimes as if it were a toy, not fully alive; this is how an inanimate being (golem? homunculus? artificial intelligence?) might feel, given the task of being convincing, angry, empathetic, emotionally intelligent.

The sounds of the composition are sometimes threatening and physically striking, sometimes trying to evoke empathy, sometimes soothing and lulling; the music balances between dramatic, comic, and therapeutic effects, but always maintains a certain distance.

In Old Testament mythology, the Day of Wrath is a day of condemnation for some and salvation for others; but is such condemnation and salvation possible in reality? Not unless it involves a "god from a machine," an expression from the professional jargon of screenwriters that means a clumsy attempt by the author to quickly and easily resolve the situation in favor of one of the parties.

In the context of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, occupation crimes, sadism, mass deaths, and destruction of culture, the scale of events, both quantitative and qualitative, is such that it seems to cause psychological and mental trauma even without direct physical intervention. The impossibility, inadmissibility, and inappropriateness of a direct statement gives rise to a specific statement, one that requires additional efforts to experience, perceive, and understand.

The composition ends with a long, calm episode of a therapeutic nature. This is a prediction of inevitable reflection, a long period of trauma treatment and acceptance of the irreversibility of the new reality.

This spatial research project is based on the visualization of several layers of the history of the Ukrainian steppe, which in the Middle Ages was perceived as a Wild Field, a dangerous space in which only armed people could exist, who, in one way or another, built their lives. At the same time, it was the territory of trade routes that were fundamentally important for European history. The first map of this space was created in the 16th century, during the reign of Ivan the Terrible. The project explores old maps that show the Wild Field. On these maps, we recognize the landscape of modern Ukraine.

The Wild Field became a thing of the past when the Industrial Revolution unfolded in these territories. In the 1870s, Scottish businessman John Hughes launched the development of capitalist industry here, which started coal mining and metal production. Later, the Soviet industrialization project was built on this potential.

When we look at the drone footage of the industrialized steppes of the Northern Pryazovia region, and overlay it with maps from the 17th century, we recognize the contours of the same space. All the rivers marked in the 17th century exist on today's maps. Today's traveler has the opportunity to follow the same paths that the people of the 17th century followed.

The historical stratification of roads, rivers, and settlements later became the core of the region's urbanization and coal mining patterns.

The Russian invasion of 2022–2023 suddenly revealed the medieval meanings of the Wild Field on the modern map. In July 2022, Ukrainian photographer and Armed Forces soldier Volodymyr Ianovych filmed the fields of the Kherson region: individual people trying to escape the Russian occupation on foot along a soggy road. Steppe paths and ravines have regained their military meanings.

Oleksandr Burlaka was caught off guard by the thought of how the unchanged landscape he filmed two years ago had radically changed its meaning. The space under the shell of modern infrastructure suddenly reveals the geography and roadmap of centuries of warfare.

Last year, the Theater of Hopes and Expectations in Düsseldorf was created from the discarded remnants of sets from various German theaters. From August to November 2022, repurposed set pieces became the walls for program of talks, exhibitions, screenings, and fundraisers.

Upon the project’s completion, the Theater was dismantled and the materials shipped to Ukraine. On the initiative of the volunteer group Livyj Bereh, it is currently being rebuilt into a new home for the Honchar family in the Kyiv region, whose prior residence was destroyed by the russian tank in the Spring of 2022.

The idea of reuse was further developed in cooperation with the Open for Maintenance project of the German Pavilion at the Architecture Biennale 2023, which uses the leftover exhibition materials from the Biennale Arte 2022 to create social infrastructures in Venice.

At the suggestion of the Prykarpattian Theater, their materials and workshop were also utilized to build the showcase to exhibit artifacts presented by the Theater of Hopes and Expectations in the Ukrainian Pavilion as part of the collective statement What Cannot Be Lost.

The Ukrainian pavilion at the Biennale features documentation of the Theater of Hopes and Expectations project. The project included the creation of the Theater of Hopes and Expectations pavilion from the remains of German theater sets in the Volksgarten Park in Düsseldorf during August–September 2022. The Theater hosted discussions, exhibitions, film screenings, and concerts by Ukrainian authors. After the project was completed, the construction was dismantled and moved to Ukraine. At the initiative of the Livyi Bereh (Left Bank) volunteer group, the Theater is currently being rebuilt into a home for the Honchar family from the village of Sloboda-Kukharska in Kyiv region. Their home was destroyed by a Russian tank in the spring of 2022.

Investigating the attack on the Mariupol Drama Theater, one of the many crimes committed by the Russian army against Mariupol and its communities, the Center for Spatial Technologies collected and analyzed eyewitness accounts, surviving images, information from social media, satellite imagery, and 3D models of the theater. Building upon this plexus of elements, “City in the Theater” offers a look at the building as something more than a target on military radar, instead it becomes an embodiment of the collective memory of the witnesses to the attack. In doing so, it underscores the significance of this crime in the broader context of Russia’s war against Ukraine.

During the exhibition, the film will be complemented by spatial interviews with witnesses, presented for the first time.

Ukraine is currently in a process of deconstruction—reflecting on its past, analyzing the present, and setting the direction for the future. Is there a future for cities that no longer exist? Does it make sense to restore Mariinka, Bakhmut or Vuhledar? What are the guiding parameters in making such decisions: economic indicators? geography? prospects for rapid development? activity level of the community? historical value? Reconstruction encourages new construction, and Ukraine is already being called "the largest construction site of Europe." Construction giants are already developing strategies to enter the Ukrainian market. But is it fair to build in the midst of the climate crisis? Who will then be responsible for carbon emissions and environmental impact? Would it be possible to rebuild cities without having to create new buildings? In the post-industrial context, when some cities are shrinking and have a large number of vacant spaces, can they become centers of recovery? And if so, when will people who have fled their homes return? What are the conditions for this? Is it enough to bring peace to a city for people to return? Will they still come back after three, five, ten—or even more—years of war? Will it be possible to find social ties that were once lost? Will Ukrainian cities be populated by completely new people? After all, changes in Ukraine may well affect the patterns of global migration, which is becoming more active due to the climate crisis. Perhaps Ukraine could gain significance in terms of global migration, and welcome people from the climate-risk countries? If so, could demographic changes in Ukraine prompt a search for connections with the context of the countries of the Global South and the emergence of a reflection on Ukraine's colonial past? And with that, a path to rethinking and the beginning of the post-colonial chapter of Ukraine's history?We have reached the point where every question only begets new ones. But, if questions are all we have now, perhaps they themselves can be our building material? By exploring the complexity of the topic of post-war recovery, we want to immerse the visitors of the La Biennale Architettura di Venezia 2023 in the context of Ukraine today through the exhibition of reflections by Ukrainian architects, entrepreneurs, and politicians and engage them in a common reflection and dialogue about reconstruction. We invite visitors to answer questions or ask their own questions, and to engage in a common reflection on the restoration of Ukraine, gradually materializing its future.

How to achieve lasting peace?

What will happen after lasting peace is achieved?

What will happen after the war?

After the war, Ukraine is going to be rebuilding its infrastructure, economy, repatriating its citizens, healing its society, restoring the natural environment… What else will need to be done?

What do you want to see in Ukraine when you visit it after the Ukrainian victory?

What exactly do you think creates a sense of security?

What exactly do you think creates a sense of home?

What do you think is the most important thing that should happen after the war?

Where should reconstruction begin?

How should reconstruction end?

What should be rebuilt first?

What should be done with the destroyed cities that are not mentioned in the media?

Should cities and villages that have been completely destroyed be rebuilt at all?

Do cities and villages that have been completely destroyed need to be rebuilt in the same place?

How do we decide between rebuilding destroyed cities and villages and facilitating the assimilation of IDPs into surviving cities and villages?

Should the surviving cities be densified?

How can the public be involved in the recovery process?

How can we maintain contact with our native natural landscapes while they are inaccessible due to mines and other fallout from the war?

How can we move past the mono-image of Ukraine as a country at war in the future?

How many Ukrainians will return after the victory and how many will settle abroad?

Will Ukraine gain significance in terms of global migration?

How will the cities that have been completely destroyed establish their right to rebuild? How will their relevance be evaluated?

How can individual people personally help contribute to the rebuilding of Ukraine?

Should we begin rebuilding now, or wait for Ukraine's victory?

Should the Kakhovka Dam be rebuilt?

How do we decide what to prioritize between the natural environment or global food security?

Ukraine's population is decreasing—will it be necessary to build at all?

What will happen to our soil after the war? That in which food was grown. Much of it has been polluted after the explosions and can no longer be used for agriculture. 

What will happen to our forests? Those that burned in the fighting or were mined. Now people are forbidden to go there because of the danger. Wild animals, however, still come there, unwittingly demining what is left of the forests.

What will happen to our rivers and seas? The russians have destroyed large industrial facilities and sewage treatment plants that protected rivers and groundwater from pollution. Water from the occupied regions flows into the Azov and Black Seas, and then into the Mediterranean and on to the world ocean. 

About a third of our territories are no longer habitable or safe for human use. Maybe this is our chance to return 30% of these territories to nature. This is exactly what the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 requires. If not for the war, this goal would seem unattainable. But what will this 30% be like?

The project is funded with the financial support of Heinrich Boell Foundation, Office Kyiv, Ukraine

As long as the march continues, the future will exist. Collective action allows for multivocal statements about the commons. The mass-scale human chain and miners' marches in the 1990s, the Orange Revolution of 2004 and the Maidan Revolution of 2013–14, the urban initiatives March for Kyiv in 2021, as well as many other collective actions of different scales—all of these made possible the existence of the future and its shared visions. Collective actions create continuums in moments of rupture. After Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, alternative forms of collective spatial practices emerged. The challenges of the destruction and contingencies that come with unjustified war, along with simultaneous processes of immediate recovery, have become preconditions for the development of a new architectural discourse. This discourse develops as a part of an emergent global commons—but only as long as the march continues.