Edited by Michał Murawski

The guide to the Ukrainian Pavilion at the 19th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia. “Dakh” in Ukrainian means “roof”. The roof is the most basic form of architecture. It provides shelter from the fickle elements and it cocoons the mundane routines of everyday life. But in the perilous conjuncture of full-scale war—a fight fought in large part in the skies, by drones and missiles—the roof also becomes the first point of impact for hostile projectiles.

DAKH: Vernacular Hardcore juxtaposes the “heritage vernacular” of traditional Ukrainian village housing with the “emergency vernacular” of self-organised reconstruction work carried out under wartime conditions. We understand “hardcore” in its original sense as a (vernacular) builders’ word, which refers to the assorted bits of debris and clinker that are crunched together to form a building foundation. We appeal for an ethics—and politics—of rebuilding, which is rooted in the fragile, but unyielding, hardcore of the Ukrainian (and planetary) commons; and which makes manifest the structures of care, repair, solidarity—and resistance—that sustain it.

With contributions by Uwe Bermeitinger, Bogdana Kosmina, Kateryna Rusetska, Oksana Kosmina, Kseniia Kalmus, Ihor Okuniev, Vladyslav Sharapa, Ada Wordsworth, Yevgenia Belorusets, and Clemens Poole.

Proceeds from the sale of dakh will be distributed between the volunteer organisations KHARPP, Livij Bereh, and Klyn.