Nieuwe Instituut appoints Sofie De Caigny as Head of CollectionNieuwe Instituut appoints Sofie De Caigny as Head of Collection

Sofie De Caigny is looking forward with great enthusiasm to taking care of the collection and the Sonneveld House. She sees a lot of opportunities and challenges for the special collection, which is also highly appreciated internationally. Together with the team at Nieuwe Instituut, she wants to work on the further safeguarding of the collection, both digital and analogue. In addition, there are opportunities to make the collection more widely known to the general public and to activate it within the design community.

Aric Chen, general and artistic director, Nieuwe Instituut: “We are thrilled that Sofie will be joining the Nieuwe Instituut team. With her deep background in architectural archives and institutions, combined with a generous, open attitude and outward-facing commitment to the field and its broader relevance, we look forward to her significant role in taking the collection, and the institute, into its next chapter."

Aukje Bolle, Managing Director, Nieuwe Instituut: “We are delighted with Sofie's arrival. With her knowledge and experience, she will make a major positive contribution to the preservation and accessibility of the national collection.”

In recent years, Sofie De Caigny has worked as a visiting professor of Architectural Criticism, Architectural Actualia and Art History at the University of Antwerp; visiting professor of Cultural Studies at the University of Hasselt; director of the Flanders Architecture Institute; Secretary-General of the International Confederation of Architectural Museums. In addition to her role at Nieuwe Instituut, Sofie De Caigny is chair of the Committee for Environmental Quality and Cultural Heritage of the City of Rotterdam and a member of the Architecture Committee – Creative Industries Fund NL.

The 4 million items National Collection for Dutch Architecture and Urban Planning is one of the largest architecture collections in the world. It includes models and drawings to photographs and digital files and includes some 700 archives, ranging from those of H.P. Berlage, J.J.P Oud and Theo van Doesburg to Herman Hertzberger, Rem Koolhaas and MVRDV. Disclosing Architecture - an innovative six-year conservation, digitization, and interface program - is coming to a close, while squat archives and feminist activist architecture have expanded the parameters of the collection, alongside the development of archival tools for embedding multiplicity of interpretations and narratives.

Contact: Robin van Essel, Press Officer +31 (0)6 3803 9218, r.vanessel@nieuweinstituut.nl

Nieuwe Instituut is the Netherlands’ national museum and institute for architecture, design and digital culture, located in Rotterdam’s Museumpark. Through exhibitions, events, research and other national and international initiatives, we show how design ideas contribute positively to urgent societal and ecological challenges. We don’t just want to imagine a better future, we want to test it and put it into practice. Nieuwe Instituut is a hospitable and lively place, where various designers, thinkers and the public meet. Multivocality is also the foundation of the Zoöp, our organisational model in which non-human life has a voice. Nieuwe Instituut is also responsible for the management, conservation and accessibility of the National Collection for Dutch Architecture and Urban Planning, one of the largest architectural collections in the world, and the Sonneveld House Museum, an icon of Dutch functionalist architecture dating from 1933.