The Architects
or How to Exhibit Failed Hopes
Exhibition 
September 12, 2026 – February 27, 2027
station urbaner kulturen/nGbK Hellersdorf, Auerbacher Ring 41 (Entrance on Kastanienboulevard), 12619 Berlin

Opening: September 12, 2026, 5 pm
with the artists

Special opening hours during Berlin Art Week:
Sat 5–10 pm | Sun 3–7 pm

In the 1980s, a distinctly East German engagement with postmodernism developed in the GDR – even though it was not permitted to be called that there. Its leading figures belonged to a bohemian subculture that emerged in the shadow of a repressive state which was increasingly losing its authority.

One of them was the architect Michael Kny. As part of a collective led by Wolf-Rüdiger Eisentraut, he and his partner Thomas Weber designed several buildings for the new center of Marzahn in the 1980s. Within the framework of standardized construction, they sought their own forms and deviated from the normed buildings of the GDR by using unusual combinations of industrially manufactured components.

Kny also became the inspiration for Peter Kahane’s DEFA feature film Die Architekten (The Architects, 1989/90), which exemplifies the crisis in the GDR’s construction industry. The exhibition The Architects takes the film and its real-life inspiration as its starting point and brings together architecture, film, photography and art. Historical documents, models and photographs are juxtaposed with Wenke Seemann’s artistic collages of large housing estates, Sonya Schönberger’s video interviews with those involved, Ulrich Wüst’s portrait series and Michael Kny’s painting Breughels Babylon vollendet (Breughel’s Babylon Completed). Together, they reveal a network of ideas, friendships and artistic practices whose influence extends right up to the present day.

With contributions by: Peter Kahane, Michael Kny & Thomas Weber, Thomas Knauf, Andreas Köfer, Christa Köfer, Tamás Kahane, Rita Feldmeier, Ute Lubosch, Sabine Bondzin, Michaela Schudek, Wolfgang Kil, Ulrich Wüst, Wenke Seemann, Sonya Schönberger, Rolf Biebl & Susanne Rast, Helga Paris, Gisela Stappenbeck, Jürgen Habermas/Hilmer & Sattler, and many more.

nGbK work group station urbaner kulturen: Juan Camilo Alfonso, Jochen Becker, Eva Hertzsch, Constanze Musterer, Adam Page, Katharina Ziemke

The exhibition was realized by Jochen Becker (station urbaner kulturen) in collaboration with Jesko Fezer and Andreas Müller (Kooperative für Darstellungspolitik), Madeleine Stöber (exhibition design), and Antonia Suarez Bergmann (assistant). Special thanks to the Berlinische Galerie Archives, the Potsdam Film Museum Archives, the DEFA Foundation, and the Archives Arch+/Nikolaus Kuhnert.