Heritage of the Future

Curators: Friedrich von Borries, Sabrina Cegla

Starting Point: Rethinking Heritage

Architecture and the built environment carry the stories and beliefs of the time they were created. They represent culture, political conflicts, power structures, and technological, economic and ecological conditions. In this exhibition, we aim to reflect on what we leave for generations to come, so we initiated a thought experiment: How does our view of the present shift if we imagine ourselves as future beings looking back at our own past?

Context: A Conflicted Geography

We are living through an ongoing war. The challenge of imagining potential shared futures and pasts for this region has never been more difficult, or more needed. In line with current investigations into the era of man (the Anthropocene), this thought experiment visualizes the effects of human activity in shaping the face of the planet: not only as a physical force shaping the built environment, but also as a cultural, political, and social mechanism that influences how we imagine the future, interpret the past, and experience the present. Architecture plays a decisive role in this process.

Process: A Series of Dialogues

This exhibition is a collective architectural research project, emerging from dialogues with 28 local architects who joined us in this curatorial experiment. Their images and visions, presented here, offer multiple, decentralized perspectives on built heritage. Their contributions tell stories not only of Tel Aviv and Jaffa’s future heritage but also of their personal worldviews, thus seeking to situate the area within wider geographies and imaginaries. You can hear the architects introduce their work in their own voices by scanning the QR codes on the wall labels.

Display: Shifting Perspectives

To truly change our perspective, we must re-examine how we represent our world. As a conceptual exercise, this exhibition avoids displaying architecture as a representation of a finished physical reality: no plans, no scale models or renderings, but rather poetic approaches to the possibility of a new self-perception. The Liebling Haus apartment becomes a future archaeological site, layered with thoughts and memories. Some are optimistic, some pessimistic, others provocative, critical and uncomfortable. It is a call for a new understanding of ourselves and our roles.

Ruth Abraham, Moritz Ahlert; Or Aleksandrowicz; Tula Amir; Jakob Brossmann; 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, Galia Gur Zeev;

Yasmina Nusseibeh; Deborah Pinto Fdeda, Ifat Finkelman; Ori Scialom; Hila Shemer, Ofir Shachamorov; Aiman Tabony; Els Verbakel

A collaboration between Liebling Haus and the University of Fine Arts Hamburg (HFBK)

Many thanks to the generous supporters of this exhibition:

The Ministry of Science, Research and Equality Hamburg (BWFG); Goethe Institute; Dizengof Center

Thanks: Martin Hershenzon and the entire Liebling Haus team.