Rebuilding is Not a Metaphor

‘Rebuilding is Not a Metaphor – Voices reshaping the Built Environment around the World’ is a publication collecting written and visual essays from international practitioners actively contributing to the ongoing rebuilding of their local communities. 

Rebuilding is Not a Metaphor is a book that brings together voices and projects from around the world, all of which are working with reconstruction in practice. 

The book features contributions from people who, in their own local communities, are actively engaged in rebuilding as a way of life. Across geographical, political, and cultural differences, there are common experiences and insights that point to a possible shared understanding of what rebuilding can be today.

The publication is intended as a platform for knowledge exchange, focusing on sustainable and locally rooted approaches. It shows how reconstruction can be a collective and inclusive project that is both locally based and globally engaged. 

While some communities face urgent reconstruction as a result of destruction, war, or displacement, there are others where threats are less visible but no less serious. Communities can be threatened by social polarization, disease, mental distress, or construction that no longer supports people's ability to thrive —but instead exacerbates the problems it was meant to alleviate. 

This publication is an attempt to create common ground between widely different practices – through hope, beauty and the joy of doing something meaningful in a time marked by uncertainty. Reconstruction can and should be rooted in care, understanding, and aesthetic quality. The goal is to show that it is possible—and necessary—to rethink how we rebuild worlds, places, and relationships with the ambition of doing better.

Rebuilding is Not a Metaphor was initiated by the Royal Danish Academy – Institute of Architecture and Technology and it is published by Danish Architectural Press with international distribution. The aim is to strengthen knowledge sharing, raise the level of ambition for reconstruction in the built environment, and inspire new generations to take part in this agenda. 

The book consists of 19 contributions – visual, written, or combined – from profiles involved in reconstruction from around the world:
Alessandra Gola, Abdal Rahman Kittana, Anna Mette Exner, Rizvi Hassan, Ramatu Aliyu, Khwaja Fatmi, Kainat Azadzoi, Corrin Chan, Yasmeen Lari, Maria Cynthia Y. Funk, Anna Aslaug Lund, Leena Shibeika, Marwa Al-Sabouni, Ðoàn Thanh Hà, Ruchi Varma, Hassan Chaachouh, Asbjørn Lund, Søren Nielsen, María Fernanda Rivera Flores, Adam Linde Nielsen, Natalie Mossin, Bhawna Jaimini, Ingeborg Hau. 

The book is edited by urbanist and writer Bhawna Jaimini together with curator and architectural historian Ingeborg Hau.