What role can architecture and city planning play in conflict areas? The exhibition “The Good Cause -Architecture for Peace” focused on a special kind of architecture and city planning that is far from star architects and opera houses but was deeply involved in creating trust, ownership and security in areas hit by war, conflicts or other violent events.

The exhibition “The Good Cause” showed a number of cases where architecture and urban planning has helped to stabilize such conflicts and support peace keeping operations. To put it on other words where architecture actively supported the transition from negative to positive peace. For example the case from Rwanda where a football stadion is built to create community after the civil war or a park in Afghanistan where people can find tranquility under the cherry trees in an otherwise turbulent country.  At the same time the exhibition looked on the general correlation between how people act and how the surroundings are shaped.

“The Good Cause” also showed some thought-provoking facts on war and peace – how many wars have there been since the Second World War? And is there a correlation between the places where there have been peace keeping operations? The visitors could experience an exhibition that showed architecture in a good cause.