Coping with Destruction

Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion, Ukraine’s cities have suffered untold damage. Rebuilding is a matter of both immediate measures and long-term strategies. The urgent needs are to make buildings liveable again, restore infrastructure, and house displaced persons, but the longer-term aim is to make cities suitable for life in the twenty-first century. Based on a workshop held at Leipzig City Hall in April 2025, this book looks, among other things, at: How damaged buildings can be restored even as hostilities continue, and the importance of such rehabilitation as a social and political issue; How dependence on large-scale technical infrastructure can be reduced by new forms of settlement and energy; Treatment of Ukraine’s architectural monuments, and the possibility of giving protective status to late-Soviet residential districts as ‘everyday heritage’. The question of Ukraine’s survival and renewal cannot be ignored: it is inseparable from the question of Europe’s own resilience in a world that is becoming increasingly high-risk. This architectural guide is part of the Histories of Ukrainian Architecture programme initiated by Berlin-based DOM publishers in response to Russia’s attack on Ukraine’s sovereignty on 24 February 2022.