For the Prix de Rome Architecture 2022 the Mondriaan Fund collaborated with the Creative Industries Fund NL and Het Nieuwe Instituut. The central theme this year was Healing Sites; diverse locations dealing with social trauma. An international jury selected 4 shorlist nominees: Arna Mačkić, Dividual (Andrea Bit and Maciej Wieczorkowski), Lesia Topolnyk, and Studio KIWI (Kim Kool and Willemijn van Manen).
They have spent 4 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. The 4 interpretations of Healing Sites were exhibited at Het Nieuwe Instituut until 9 April 2023 and got accompanied by a publication, published by Jap Sam Books.
On 1 December 2022 we announced the winner of the prize: Lesia Topolnyk!
Winner Prix de Rome Architecture 2022: Lesia Topolnyk
On 1 December 2022 Lesia Topolnyk received the prize from State Secretary Gunay Uslu (Culture and Media). Lesia received the disctinction for her proposal ‘No Innocent Landscape’ on the crashsite of MH17. The prize consists of €40,000 and a choice of residency.
With her design No Innocent Landscape, Topolnyk shows how the landscape that forms the backdrop to such an event is not innocent in itself, but represents a complicated interplay of global and local histories. In this case, Hrabove is not only the site of the attack on MH17, but also of illegal mining activities which negatively impact the region’s nature and environment. Topolnyk uses narrative and construction techniques to deconstruct this relationship in her dark, oppressive design. She argues that trauma processing and reconstruction in such a place can take place only after such a deconstruction, and that architecture can mediate in this.
Nominees
Arna Mačkić made a new interpretation of the building of the International Criminal Tribunal in The Hague which dealt with human rights violations in the former Yugoslavia until 2017.
Dividual (Andrea Bit and Maciej Wieczorkowski) made a new interpretation of the site of the Colony of Benevolence in Veenhuizen (Drenthe), where orphans, underprivileged families and beggars were ‘educated’ through agricultural labour;
Studio KIWI (Kim Kool and Willemijn van Manen) made new interpretations of the 20 tax offices where trust in the Dutch government was systematically violated.
The jury
An international jury selected a shortlist of 4 nominees from a list of 53 architects who have applied for the prize. The jury of the Prix de Rome Architecture 2022 consists of: Afaina de Jong (founder and director AFARAI); Alessandra Covini (co-founder and co-director of Studio Ossidiana, Prix de Rome 2018 winner); Carson Chan (Emilio Ambasz Institute Director at MoMA); Dirk Sijmons (founder of H+N+S Landschapsarchitecten); Jan Jongert (founding partner Superuse Studios); Syb Groeneveld (CEO Creative Industries Fund NL, technical chair).
Collaboration
This year the Prix de Rome Architecture is organized by the Mondriaan Fund in collaboration with the Creative Industries Fund and Het Nieuwe Instituut, on behalf of the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science. An accompanying publication was published by Jap Sam Books.