Becoming Monument explores how architecture bears witness to ecological catastrophe through the long-term preservation of a farm hut made inaccessible within the radioactive Fukushima “exclusion zone” since the 2011 nuclear accident. This exhibition presents documentation of the hut’s radiation and physical degradation from 2015 to the present, while participating in the ongoing inaccessible exhibition Don’t Follow the Wind. To mark the disaster’s fifteenth anniversary, and make the project publicly accessible, this exhibition presents a life-size, moveable replica of the hut that travels to venues in Japan and beyond. This replica translates the regular recordings of surface radiation into a minimalist color code, narrating the hut’s transformation into a living monument to the Anthropocene. By preserving radioactive dust in situ as a cultural trace rather than erasing it, the project proposes a new architectural paradigm for enduring disaster—challenging conventional notions of purity, resilience, and progress in post-disaster reconstruction.

Nikolaus Hirsch is an architect, curator, and the artistic director of Kanal Architecture in Brussels. He previously served as dean of the Städelschule and director of Portikus in Frankfurt. His architectural work includes the Hinzert Document Center at a former camp for political prisoners and Do We Dream Under The Same Sky (with Rirkrit Tiravanija). His curatorial work includes the 2021 German Pavilion at the 17th International Architecture Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia, Venice and the international exhibition series Do We Dream Under the Same Sky. Hirsch is cofounder of e-flux Architecture and coeditor of the Critical Spatial Practice series at Sternberg Press. He has developed a wide-ranging practice at the intersection of architecture, art, and critical discourse. His work consistently addresses questions of public space, political engagement, and cultural memory. In Becoming Monument, Hirsch contributes architectural expertise, curatorial vision, and critical framing, situating the project’s significance within broader debates around architecture, contamination, and the cultural implications of ecological catastrophe.

Jorge Otero-Pailos is an artist, architect, preservationist, scholar, and educator known for pioneering experimental preservation practices. His wide-ranging artistic practice employs materials such as atmospheric dusts, smells, sounds, and architectural fragments to expand what is valued as cultural heritage and to develop new ways of caring for it. His acclaimed series The Ethics of Dust transformed conservation cleaning techniques into large-scale latex casts, revealing dust as a repository of environmental history and collective memory. Otero-Pailos’s works have been commissioned and exhibited internationally, including by Artangel at the United Kingdom Parliament; La Biennale di Venezia, Venice; Chicago Architecture Biennial; Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A), London; San Francisco Museum of Art; and Hong Kong’s Tai Kwun Centre for Heritage and Arts. As a preservation architect, he has collaborated on landmark restorations including the United States Embassy in Oslo by Eero Saarinen. He is professor and director of historic preservation at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, where he also directs the Preservation Technology Lab.