After having been nominated for the Archiprix in 2013 and winning the prestigious Prix de Rome in 2014, it was announced in April of this year that alumna Donna van Milligen Bielke had also won the Young Maaskant Prize (Jonge Maaskantprijs). On Friday 15 November 2019, this prize was presented to her by the Mayor of Rotterdam Ahmed Aboutaleb, who is also the chairman of the Stichting Rotterdam-Maaskant (Rotterdam-Maaskant Foundation).

Reversed Boogie Woogie
Donna van Milligen Bielke had already shown that she dares to swim against the current during her Master in Architecture at the Amsterdam Academy of Architecture. The graduation project Reversed Boogie Woogie concerned a (fictional) plan for a new development to replace the Stopera, according to her "a building that wants to be public, but mainly blocks public space”.

Young Maaskant Prize
The Young Maaskant Prize has been awarded in odd years since 1985. It is an incentive award for young architects, landscape architects and urban designers aged 35 or younger, where the architectural or urban work, whether executed or not, is of paramount importance. The prize consists of 5,000 euros, a certificate and a grant for a publication.

From the jury report
[...] The current architectural discourse is characterised by the focus on the object, architecture as a volume and the city as the collection of these volumes. The winner of the Young Maaskant Prize 2019 Donna van Milligen Bielke (1983) opts for a different approach. Her work focuses instead on the interface between architecture and the city. Or, in her own words, on ‘designing, connecting and responding to urban fabrics’. [...]

Read more at www.rotterdammaaskant.nl