Opening exhibition Healing Sites Opening exhibition Healing Sites

• 6.30pm - Welcome by Aric Chen, General and Artistic Director of Het Nieuwe Instituut, and panel discussion with nominees, moderated by curator Tijn van de Wijdeven
• 7pm - Drinks
• 7.30-9.30pm - Opening of the exhibition

In the exhibition at Het Nieuwe Instituut, nominees Arna Mačkić, 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.

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?

In addition to the work of the nominees, the exhibition also features historical examples of designs for healing locations of commemoration, encounter and restoration from the National Collection of Dutch Architecture and Urban Planning.

The winner of the prestigious Prix de Rome Architecture 2022 will be announced during a festive evening programme on 1 December. Gunay Uslu, State Secretary for Culture and Media, will present the prize - ¬40,000 and a choice of residency - to the winner.

Zico Lopes of Rotterdam-based office Spatial Codes is responsible for the exhibition's spatial design. Designers Alex Clay and Karin van den Brandt of the Lesley Moore agency provided the graphic design.

The Prix de Rome is the oldest prize in the Netherlands for architects younger than 35. This year the prize is organised by the Mondriaan Fund in collaboration with the Creative Industries Fund NL and Het Nieuwe Instituut, on behalf of the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science. Jap Sam Books is publishing the accompanying publication.