Layers
of Identity

The 2026 Annual Architecture Exhibition questions the conventional idea that architectural identity can befirmly defined by appearance or by the architect’s intentions.

Instead of a static, restrictive and one-dimensional concept of identity, the exhibition focuses on an under-standing of identity as a dynamic and ever-changing process. Architectural identity is understood as histor-ically and culturally fluid. It emerges within a multi-layered context and changes with the social, political,economic, and cultural conditions and ideals of its time.

Architecture therefore does not possess a stable, given and timeless essence - or a clearly identifiable “truecore” - but is continuously reinterpreted and transformed. The exhibition examines which conditions shapearchitectural identity today and how ecological, institutional, political, and social layers influence it.Developing and actively promoting a values-based building culture within a broad public discourse is oneof the most pressing tasks facing the planning profession. In doing so, the focus should be placed more onfuture challenges and design possibilities than on a short-sighted, backward-looking perspective.