Prix de Rome 2014 : architectuur / architecture

The Assignment Prix de Rome architecture 2014 : The eight nominated architects received a fictional assignment for the area where Hoogstraat and Binnenrotte intersect in Rotterdam. An international jury challenged the participants to come up with a vision to turn Hoogstraat into a vibrant, mixed-use city street. An intervention at Binnenrotte is intended to breathe life back into the old dam and connect with the history of Rotterdam.

Architect Donna van Milligen Bielke (NL, 1983) was presented with the Prix de Rome Architecture 2014. Van Milligen Bielke won the prize for Cabinet of Curiosities, her project for the Hoogstraat in Rotterdam. The international jury awarded the prize to Donna van Milligen Bielke for her radical and poetical proposal. She responds to the situation of decline and renewal in Rotterdam by enclosing the cacophony of solitary architectural icons in the Laurenskwartier. Various iconic structures are placed in individual containers, resulting in exciting new public interspaces. By putting each history in a different container, banality and serenity coalesce in this radical plan while the vast emptiness of the Binnenrotte is quietly ritualized.