2024 RA Dorfman Prize to Ukraine's Livyj Bereh
John Hill
1. November 2024
Photo courtesy of Livyj Bereh
During a special event held at the Royal Academy of Arts on October 31, Livyj Bereh, the volunteer group that has been rebuilding roofs in Ukraine since May 2002, was awarded the 2024 Royal Academy Dorfman Prize, which aims “to celebrate new ideas and practices that highlight the future potential of architecture.”
Last night's announcement took place about a month after Cris Ballester Parets was named the 2024 RA Architecture Prize winner and the four finalists for the RA Dorfman Award were revealed: b+ (Germany), Livyj Bereh (Ukraine), Salima Naji (Morocco), and TEN (Switzerland and Serbia). The four finalists gave short lectures about their work during last night's event at Burlington Gardens and the winner was crowned at the end of the evening, when they were given the £10,000 prize and celebrated with the RA Architecture winner.
Livyj Bereh translates to “left bank” and refers to the bank of the Dnipro River where the group began their volunteer work in May 2022, just a few months after Russia invaded Ukraine. Since then, the Kyiv-based group has restored more than 380 roofs of damaged homes, schools, and community buildings in the Charkiv, Černihiv, and Kyiv regions, according to their website. Their material of choice is simple corrugated metal roofing, installed for approximately €2000 per roof.
“Without a jacket, bread, tablecloth, bouquet of flowers and a cross,” the 2023 film that World-Architects saw at the Constructing Hope: Ukraine exhibition earlier this year and recommends watching, “depicts villagers living in the border areas of Kharkiv oblast, their houses shelled by Russian troops, and the volunteer organization Livyj Bereh, that simultaneously rebuilding the damaged roofs.”
Photo courtesy of Livyj Bereh
“We are honored to receive this Prize and thank you for your support. For our team, it is so significant that we receive the understanding of the importance of our work and the recognition of us as a volunteering group.”
Livyj Berek was part of the exhibition Constructing Hope: Ukraine at the Center for Architecture, which we visited earlier this year. (Photo: John Hill/World-Architects)
“Livyj Bereh’s repair of roofs destroyed by the war in Ukraine provides homes, schools and hospitals, delivering an essential and urgent response to the survival of communities. Their use of modest black corrugated metal roofs produces an architectural act of collective care and resistance across the country, as powerful as any civic monument and documented with the unflinching eye of the greatest war art.”*The international jury for the 2024 RA Dorfman Award:
- Tom Emerson and Stephanie Macdonald (chairs), 6a architects
- Stéphanie Bru, Bruther
- Goshka Macuga, artist
- Níall McLaughlin, Níall McLaughlin Architects
- Marina Otero, architect and researcher
- Vicky Richardson, former Head of Architecture and Drue Heinz Curator at the RA