With Anh-Linh Ngo, curator and vice-president of the Academy of Arts, and Johanna M. Keller, programme coordinator at the Academy of Arts. Manos Tsangaris, president of the Academy of Arts, will give a welcome address. This will be followed by a guided tour of the exhibition. The exhibition will run from 9 September to 16 December 2026.
Image above: Lebbeus Woods, Transformational City Plan with SCAR Construction, 1993, aus der Serie War and Architecture, Zeichnung mit Grafit, Buntstift, Tinte und elektrostatischer Druck auf Karton, 30,5 × 50,8 cm © Estate of Lebbeus Woods.
Military conflicts and the consequences of the climate crisis are destroying homes, cities and landscapes worldwide. Millions of people are losing their homes. However, the destruction extends far beyond the built environment. It affects social relationships, ways of life and historical contexts. Without coming to terms with this destruction, reconstruction merely perpetuates violence by other means. Its crucial questions therefore arise before any building work even begins. This is the starting point for the exhibition ‘Metaxy: Between Destruction and Reconstruction’. It is dedicated to the ‘in-between’. Metaxy, the ancient Greek word for ‘between’, refers to the space in which societies negotiate the past and the future, guilt and responsibility. Here, reconstruction is not a return to a previous state, but a political decision to uncover the connections that violence has destroyed or obscured.
Taking the Academy building on Hanseatenweg – an exemplary site of post-1945 reconstruction – as its starting point, the exhibition traces the history of the Academy of Arts’ location in the Hansaviertel and presents works from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Germany, Israel, Yemen, Palestine, Poland, Sudan, Syria, Ukraine and the USA. Through their works, international artists and spatial practitioners demonstrate that reconstruction can only be just where the traces of violence and loss are laid bare, without pitting different experiences against one another or trivialising them.
An event space forming part of the exhibition provides a venue for discussions, talks and performances. The programme of events explores the exhibition’s key themes of ‘Floors’, ‘Times’ and ‘Houses’ in greater depth. ZWISCHENSTÜCKE enrich the event programme with a musical and performative dimension. An educational programme featuring guided tours and lecture-performance walks, as well as an issue of ARCH+, explores the exhibition’s themes in greater depth.
Participating artists and spatial practitioners:
Hala Alnaji, Archigrest, Marina Tabassum Architects, Maja Bajević, Karim Bingöl, Centre for Documentary Architecture, Kees Christiaanse, Tiffany Chung, Co-Haty, Salma Samar Damluji, Nir Evron, Ola Hassanain, Paul Hübner, Anton Kolomyeytsev, Omer Krieger, V. Mitch McEwen, megouem, Kioomars Musayyebi, Marina Naprushkina/Neue Nachbarschaft Moabit, Open Group, Ute Richter, Sasha Marianna Salzmann, Immanuel Schumacher, Arinjoy Sen, Nurit Stark, Syrbanism, topoScape, Feda Wardak, Eyal Weizman, Ines Weizman, Julita Wójcik, Lebbeus Woods, Ina Wudtke
“Metaxy: Between Destruction and Reconstruction” is a project by the Academy of Arts in collaboration with ARCH+. As part of Berlin Art Week 2026
Funded by the Federal Cultural Foundation, with support from the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media. The programme of events and the musical interventions ZWISCHENSTÜCKE are being realised with the support of and in cooperation with the KfW Foundation.
Further sponsors: Society of Friends of the Academy of Arts, Hans Sauer Foundation
Partners:
German Commission for UNESCO e. V.; IBA Ukraine; OFFEN FÜR KULTUR / Hansabibliothek (Berlin-Mitte Municipal Library); Royal College of Art; SCHAUSTELLE Post-War Modernism; Spreepark Art Space; Ukrainian Institute in Germany
WHEN?
Exhibition dates: Wednesday 9 September – Sunday 6 December 2026
Opening: 9 September 2026, 6.30 pm
Opening hours: Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, 2 pm – 7 pm; Thursday, 2 pm – 9 pm; Saturday, Sunday, 12 noon – 7 pm
WHERE?
Akademie der Künste
Hanseatenweg 10
10557 Berlin
COSTS?
10 EUR / 7 EUR, free admission for under-18s
