Trees are an emotional matter. To this day, I still feel a twinge of sadness when I think back to the moment my grandparents cut down the massive cherry tree in their garden, the one we used to play in. My friend, the tree, was gone—just as Alexandra had sung in her famous Schlager in 1968. Undeniably, trees are deeply connected to the relationships between humans and their habitats: as material resources, as natural shelters, and in the urgent context of climate change.

 “Trees, Time, Architecture” thus attempts to present both a historical and contemporary survey of the use of trees—as living entities, not merely dead wood—in the built environment. Its design unfolds didactically, moving from problems to solutions. The first hall addresses the well-known exploitative treatment of forests, featuring a large block of coal placed illustratively at its center. The second room holds a vast collection of architectural case studies, from the canonical Nordic Pavilion in Venice and Frei Otto’s Ökohäuser to more recent approaches, such as AI-engineered structures made from residual cut branches. Displaying an array of delicate wire models, the final chapter highlights the work of the co-curating Office for Living Architecture and its professorship at TUM, culminating in what is arguably its key reference: the living root bridges of several Indian communities, true examples of engineered yet organic structures.

Referencing Siegfried Giedion’s “Space, Time, and Architecture,” the exhibition updates his claims about understanding architecture in a “new” space-time continuum, weaving together science, technology, and art. By pointing to selected Indigenous techniques as model solutions, practical approaches to building that once seemed utopian come into view. Nonetheless, one is left with the same unease that once unsettled the modernist Giedion: Can we produce humane technologies? And if so, will they truly save us from what we fear?

sba.