Trees rank among Earth's largest, oldest, and most complex living organisms – yet they grow at a measured pace, often requiring decades or centuries to reach full maturity. This timescale transcends human experience, creating a fundamental tension with our accelerating world of social, technological, and ecological change. Today, we need them more urgently than ever: locally, to adapt to a dramatically shifting climate; globally, to arrest – and ultimately reverse – the damage already done.

"Trees, Time, Architecture!" draws on historical and contemporary international examples to explore both the potential and the contradictions embedded in "building with trees" – in architecture and landscape design alike. The exhibition captures a defining tension: the unhurried growth of trees weighed against the pressing need for answers to urgent ecological and social challenges. Trees function as building material in two forms – living, ever-evolving organisms and processed materials shaped by their complex growth processes – each bringing distinct material and aesthetic qualities to the built environment. The exhibition considers both dimensions in full, examining how the entire lifecycle of trees relates to the temporality of functional demands, social shifts, and architectural, urban, and technological evolution. For the first time, an exhibition tackles the interconnected themes of "Tree, Time, Architecture!" through a genuinely holistic, multidimensional lens.

Project examples spanning different cultural contexts and climates reveal a critical truth: we must shift from designing static objects to orchestrating living processes – the only path to fostering a truly durable and generative relationship between trees and architecture. This demands transdisciplinary collaboration: scientific rigor paired with artistic practice, indigenous wisdom, and technological innovation. The experimental structures and technical breakthroughs of construction botany offer compelling evidence of what's possible. Yet these examples also reveal the complex, frequently productive – and occasionally paradoxical – dance between trees and architecture. The exhibition aims to present this captivating relationship in all its contradictions, because only then can we grasp the possibilities and seize the opportunities before us: the chance to build a future where both humans and the vast majority of other species can truly thrive.

The exhibition unfolds through immersive spatial installations and key artworks that make the temporal and spatial dimensions of trees – and their role in global carbon cycles – vividly tangible. Projects are presented through photographs, films, models, and drawings; selected themes are deepened via historical documents, tools, and material specimens. Featured works span from indigenous living architecture crafted from trees, through contemporary artistic investigations, to critical examination of cutting-edge technological advances. The exhibition extends beyond the galleries into the Pinakothek der Moderne's surrounding landscape through actions and site-specific installations. Under the museum's entrance canopy, trees are temporarily staged in a walk-through installation – a deliberate visual paradox that presents them as commodities in stark contrast to their longevity. Through performative activation of this installation, the exhibition invites broader public audiences to engage with these themes in direct, accessible ways.

www.pinakothek-der-moderne.de