Prix de Rome Architecture 2022

The proposal for the Prix de Rome is a plea for the establishment of a new international institute: The Public Center for Architectural Disaster and Collective Healing.

Architecture can be used consciously and unconsciously to dislocate and destroy human relationships and the environment. This architectural disaster. Think of the damage to nature and homes caused by gas extraction in Groningen, destruction caused by war in Gaza, lack of humane housing for refugees, or the demolition of social housing in cities.

As architects, landscape architects or urban planners, we often adopt a neutral position, thinking that the causes of these disasters are beyond our control. But where architecture is involved in disasters, our responsibility to relate to these disasters and their causes immediately starts. Because if intervening with or in architecture can cause architectural disaster, it can also achieve the opposite: connecting and building human and ecological relationships.

The institute is making an attempt to do so. Cases of architectural disasters are examined. Those involved in architectural disaster – victims, those responsible and involved communities – come together under the guidance of a team of researchers and mediators to enter a process of healing.

The Public Centre for Architectural Disaster and Collective Healing uses the building that housed the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia between 2009 and 2017. The building was designed in 1953 by architect Ad van der Steur for an insurance company. During the past decades, it was not open to the public; what happened inside, happened behind closed doors. The building, which in its architecture represented monumentality, authority, security, secretiveness and a traditional justice system, will literally make room for a new function.

The plan for the existing building shows both a break from it and reconciliation with it. The building will be dissected and transformed into a large, inclined square that provides insight into its former function as tribunal. Between and on the remaining walls, a new floor will be made of pulverised concrete, obtained from the demolished parts. By polishing the floor, traces of the severed walls and built-in furniture will reappear as a memento. On top of and recessed into the square is the new programme, consisting of pavilions, a hall for mediation and a knowledge centre. Each structure fulfils a specific function, but there is no planned walking route; visitors can wander freely.