Prix de Rome Architecture 2022

Trauma

In the exhibition at Het Nieuwe Instituut, nominees Arna Mackic, Dividual (Andrea Bit and Maciej Wieczorkowski), Lesia Topolnyk, and Studio KIWI (Kim Kool and Willemijn van Manen) present four different interpretations of Healing Sites, the central theme of the Prix de Rome Architecture 2022. The nominees have been selected by the international jury of the Prix on the basis of their design proposals for several different locations touched by social trauma. They have spent four months researching the fraught history of these places, the healing potential of spatial design, and the role they themselves play in society as architects, landscape architects and urban planners. Each tries to work in a way that restores their chosen building site, despite – or perhaps because of – its oppressive legacy.

Healing sites

How do the nominees shape their chosen locations – the building of the International Criminal Tribunal in The Hague which dealt with human rights violations in the former Yugoslavia until 2017; the site of the Colony of Benevolence in Veenhuizen (Drenthe), where orphans, underprivileged families and beggars were ‘educated’ through agricultural labour.; the Ukrainian village of Hrabove, where wreckage from the passenger flight MH17 fell after it was shot down; and the 20 tax offices where trust in the Dutch government was systematically violated – into Healing Sites?

Historical

As context, a selection of historical examples of Prix de Rome entries from the National Collection of Dutch Architecture and Urban Planning are on view, along with the history of the Prix de Rome. The exhibition therefore also offers a reflection on the changing role of the architect in society.