The Prix de Rome is the Netherlands’ oldest and most prestigious architecture prize for architects under 35. Het Nieuwe Instituut presents the nominated architect’s submissions for the 2022 Architecture Prix de Rome from November 18 to April 2023.
Arna Mačkić, Dividual (Andrea Bit and Maciej Wieczorkowski), Lesia Topolnyk, and Studio KIWI (Kim Kool and Willemijn van Manen) respond to the theme Healing Sites. This year’s competition considers architecture’s response to the climate emergency and growing inequality. Capitalism, colonialism, and imperialism have damaged, destroyed or even eradicated entire ecosystems.
The exhibition’s four proposals each address a site of social trauma. The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and the wreckage of flight MH17. The site of the Colony of Benevolence in Veenhuizen in Drenthe is also a site. Here, orphans, underprivileged families, and beggars got an education through agricultural labor. The last proposal is for the service desks of the Dutch Tax and Customs Administration.
Accompanying the nominees’ models, images and films are historical examples from the National Collection of Dutch Architecture and Urban Planning and documentation of this year’s Prix de Rome’s process. Thus reflecting on the architect’s changing societal role in relation to the Healing Sites theme.
The exhibition’s spatial design is by Zico Lopes of Rotterdam-based practice Spatial Codes. Alex Clay and Karin van den Brandt of Lesley Moore design studio are responsible for its graphic design.
The winner of the prestigious prize will be announced on 1 December 2022 at Het Nieuwe Instituut. Gunay Uslu, Secretary of State for Culture and Media, will present the prize, worth €40,000, to one of the shortlisted nominees based on the presentation of the projects in the exhibition.
