The Anthropocene

Architecture - durable, useful, beautiful and… incredibly harmful. The construction industry and life-cycle costs generated by buildings are responsible for over ⅓ of world CO2 emissions - one of the main causes of climate change. Cities and buildings nowadays operate in a way that disturbs nature’s cycles, pollutes and devour vast areas of land. On the other hand, humans are unable to function outside of the built environment. Architecture provides proper and safe living conditions, creates spaces of everyday existence for numerous people all over the world.

The Antropocene exhibition draws the context of contemporary challenges to environmental catastrophe and enables us to understand them. We see architecture not only as a result of global and local changes in the relationship between humans and nature, but also as a tool that shapes this relationship. We present contemporary and historical projects, developments and technologies that affect the living environment of all species and entities. We look into the future of architecture and its role in each category of the ecological ceiling through installations by invited designers. They searched for ways to design and operate architecture in such a way that would not only not harm the planet, but also have regenerative potential for the environment. These examples prove that a different architecture is possible.

The exhibition, prepared by the National Institute of Architecture and Urban Planning, had its premiere in autumn 2022 at ZODIAK Warsaw’s Architecture Pavilion. The Wroclaw’s edition of the exhibition will be presented in the historic space of a former church, the arrangement of the exhibition is designed by Malgorzata Kuciewicz and Simone de Iacobis from Warsaw’s architectural office Centrala.

The Anthropocene is an era of humans, an era of anthropogenic changes that result in global climate catastrophe. The name of this exhibition signifies ambivalence - it is both narcissistic (what we present is testament to the human power) and critical towards the current state of the world. We do not, however, intend to instill hopelessness in our visitors. We can still stop (or rather limit) the destruction of our collective home.