UN CITIES
“Everything will be all right - you know when?
When people, just people, stop thinking of the United Nations
as a weird Picasso abstraction and see it as
a drawing they made themselves.”
Dag Hammarskjöl (UN Secretary-General, 1953-1961)
UN CITIES brings together the architecture and vision of the United Nations across the globe, turning its many sites into a network of spaces where global ideals take form. UN CITIES stands for cities within cities, the whole world in many places at once.
According to official terminology, the UN headquarters are not located within their respective host countries, but are merely surrounded by them. The United Nations maintains headquarters in New York, Geneva, Vienna, and Nairobi, along with numerous UN sites across the globe. These places tell stories of crises and solutions, of negotiations and progress, of the search for cohesion in a world full of differences. They stand for cooperation, diversity and a common desire for understanding and embody internationality at its core. Although this vision is almost 80 years old, its aspirations are more relevant than ever. How can these initial ideas be revitalized in a time that needs them more urgently than ever before?
For many, the United Nations will remain an abstract figure in 2026. What once began with optimism and a grand vision has lost some of its brilliance over the decades. The architecture of these places is symbolic: intended as a sign of openness and dialog, they often appear hermetically enclosed. Their secure structures - high fences, guard posts, concrete barriers - reflect the fragility of the vision. This contradiction raises questions: How can an open dialog be made possible under such conditions? How visible and approachable is the idea of the international community? What role does architecture play in the perception of global institutions? And how could a reorientation of architecture convey the right message?
This is where the UN CITIES project comes in. It explores the architecture of UN buildings as the visual language of an international community. It addresses the question of how architecture itself can be a form of international dialog and cultural synthesis. Although these buildings undeniably carry a touch of retro-futurism, they embody an idea that goes far beyond international style.
What makes these places so special? Is it the architecture itself that makes us think with its monumentality? Or is it the invisible narrative inherent in these buildings - the hopes associated with them, the forces that shake them? How can a place reflect the dynamics of world politics? And what role does its architecture play in the way we perceive these institutions? How does a building reflect a collective mindset? What is the true value of a place in the global age?
UN CITIES makes the architecture of the UN tangible in a new way: In a multi-channel video installation, the UN headquarters are deconstructed and merged into a visual and conceptual synthesis. The montage of fragmented views creates a new, hybrid structure - an image in motion. The composition resembles a mosaic that consists of many individual parts, but only comes together as a whole through the viewer’s perception: Each individual constructs their own image of the UN and relates their own perspective to the big questions of our time.
UN CITIES is a reflection on the role of architecture as a carrier of ideologies, as a projection surface for hopes and as a silent witness to a changing world order. It is an attempt to make the invisible DNA of these places visible and to understand them as dynamic, living entities. The United Nations is not a static construct, but an ongoing movement, an organic network of visions, ideas and actions.
At a time when global challenges are more urgent than ever, UN CITIES calls for the architecture of the United Nations to be seen not as untouchable symbolism, but as a space that affects us all - and in which we can all participate. The project is not a nostalgic look back, but a plea for a renewed vision. It invites us to see the UN not as a distant institution, but as a shared project - a visual reflection on a world in transition and an idea that can grow with it.
Even if UN CITIES ultimately remains as abstract as a Picasso painting, it offers essential insights into the world of the United Nations. Like a kaleidoscope, it brings together fragments from various UN sites to form a constantly shifting visual composition – one that invites each viewer to construct their own interpretation. In the end, it’s not the images that remain, but the idea on which they are based: the bigger picture.
UN CITIES, Multi-channel Moving Image Installation
(Conceptual sketch, 2026)
UN CITIES explores the architecture and visual language of the United Nations—not as a series of monuments, but as a functional infrastructure and interconnected network.
A kaleidoscope of internationalism unfolds: an ever-shifting landscape of negotiation in which architecture becomes an organic threshold between openness and control, the global and the local, idealism and bureaucracy.
Combining images from major UN headquarters and offices worldwide, UN CITIES takes the form of a multi-channel moving-image installation. Through algorithmic composition, ever-shifting visual formations emerge—an image in motion, a continuously renewing structure that, like the United Nations itself, operates as a living organism.
Fragmented perspectives dissolve into a hybrid experience. Viewers become co-architects, assembling their own image of the UN through shifting layers of space, form, and narrative.
Funded by the Federal Ministry of Housing, Arts, Culture, Media and Sport, Republic of Austria and Kultur Burgenland.