The Heritage of the Future – Exhibition Opening

What do we leave behind for future generations? What will our world look like once the present becomes a distant past?

In the exhibition “The Heritage of the Future,” we seek to rethink the concept of “heritage” from the perspective of future generations. It is an attempt to view our present as a historical period in which human activity is reshaping the face of the Earth on an unprecedented scale. Engaging with the concept of the Anthropocene – an era in which humanity has become a geological force shaping the environment – the exhibition presents works that examine how architecture, urban planning, and the built environment are not merely expressions of culture and identity, but also of power relations, political conflict, and ideology, as well as technological, economic, and ecological conditions.

The exhibition is a collective architectural research project emerging from dialogues with 29 local architects who were asked to imagine which spaces, buildings, and ideas might, in the present era, be considered part of Tel Aviv and Yafa’s future heritage. Through the works and conversations, personal worldviews emerge that seek to situate the area within wider geographies and imaginaries, alongside wider questions of responsibility, memory, and the future.

The Liebling Haus apartment becomes a future archaeological site, layered with disappointment, hope, and memory. In place of architectural plans, models, and renderings, the works on view offer a different perspective on the story that the field of architecture chooses to tell about itself – at times poetic, at times critical, at times unsettling. The stories behind the works are shared by the exhibiting architects in their own voices.

Each room of the apartment addresses a different theme: the relationship between nature and culture; national and pre-national identity and branding; the infrastructures of modernity; and the nightmares of war. In a reality of ongoing war, the attempt to imagine possible futures and shared pasts has never been more complex – or more needed.

Curators: Friedrich von Borries, Sabrina Cegla

Assistant Curator: Amalia Arieli

Exhibition Design: Friedrich von Borries

Assistant Exhibition Design: Emma Alraun

Graphic Design: Tim Ballaschke

Exhibition Installation: Aya Zeiger

Production: Amalia Arieli, Talya Horowitz

Text editing: Stav Axenfeld, Zipa Kempinsky

English translation: Sivan Raveh

Jakob Brossmann, Ruth Abrahams, Moritz Ahlert, Or Aleksandrowicz, Tula Amir, Yonatan Cohen, Oren Eldar, Edith Kofsky, Shira Gleitman, Sharon Golan, Jeremie Hoffmann, Elad Horn, Lev Pavlov, Christina Eidenzon, Paul Kearns, Shira Levy Benyemini, Vika Libman, Yuval Avraham, Adva Matar, Lou Moria, Yael Moria (studio MA), Yasmina Nusseibeh, Deborah Pinto Fdeda, Ifat Finkelman, Ori Scialom, Hila Shemer, Aiman Tabony, Els Verbakel.