At the invitation of the World Monuments Fund, Laura Heim and Jeffrey Kroessler hosted a lecture and tour of Sunnyside Gardens for the award winning Dutch architects, Joris Molenaar and Arjan Hebly, visiting NYC to receive the 2016 World Monuments Fund/Knoll Modernism Prize. The award was given for the quality of the conservation work performed by the winning team on the Justus van Effen complex, an architecturally significant social housing project from 1922 located in Rotterdam. Sunnyside was selected to be toured to foster a conversation on what can be learned from both Sunnyside (1924-28) and Justus van Effen (1922) and applied to the design of new affordable housing. The tour included visiting two of Heim Architect’s projects in construction. The subsequent award presentation at MoMA emphasized the unique importance of preservation of historically significant housing.
