After the Russian invasion on February 24th 2022, the Ukrainian architectural education suddenly found itself facing difficult, new challenges. Teaching and practicing architecture changed in the blink of an eye and had to face a new reality. Students and teachers began to scatter around the country and abroad in search of safety and stability. The future of educational institutions became unsure.
In view of these dramatic events, the following questions arose:
• What is the role of architectural education during wartime and after?
• How does this situation influence the teaching aims, topics and results?
• What can we learn from Ukraine`s current experience?
The story of the Kharkiv School of Architecture, comparable in size with the LSA Liechtenstein School of Architecture, tries to find answers to these questions while fighting for survival. Its staff and students have restarted classes in the temporary facilities of an old university cafeteria in Lviv after fleeing the besieged city of Kharkiv at the beginning of the war.
The Vernissage took place on the 8th of November at 6pm with a lecture and open discussion with the co-founder of KhSA, the architect Oleg Drozdov and a part of the teaching staff a KhSA.