NEW YORK, NY, March 5, 2013 — The Board of Trustees of Van Alen Institute announced today the appointment of David van der Leer, effective May 6, to the position of its Executive Director. Van der Leer’s appointment is the result of a comprehensive international search conducted by executive search firm Phillips Oppenheim and chaired by Stephen Cassell, Chairman of Van Alen Institute’s Board of Trustees. The search committee included Van Alen Trustees Andrew Darrell, Sharon Davis, and Mark Robbins.
Stephen Cassell said of the announcement, “David van der Leer represents a new type of commitment to the public realm that makes urban issues accessible to architecture and design professionals and everyday urban citizens alike. Van Alen Institute welcomes his initiative to develop more national and international competitions, studies, and programs relevant to the understanding of contemporary urban life. Van der Leer’s innovative work, international professional experience, and extensive network make him the ideal candidate to lead Van Alen into a new chapter.”
David van der Leer has been at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum since 2008, most recently as Curator, BMW Guggenheim Lab and Associate Curator, Architecture and Urban Studies. Van der Leer specializes in the contemporary urban condition and over the past years has developed programs and projects that address city life through dialogue, academic research, laboratories, and experiential installations. Van der Leer’s work has brought together professionals and students from the design and art fields with academics, scientists, policy makers, and city officials as well as engaged urbanites in cities around the world.
“Joining Van Alen Institute as Executive Director is an honor,” said Mr. Van der Leer. “Van Alen has nurtured a significant debate around architecture and design in the United States, and I am excited to extend its impact on the analysis, advice, and activation of designs, public policies, and experiences of the public realm to an international audience through an increasingly coherent mix of interdisciplinary competitions, research, consultancy, and curatorial projects.”
At the Guggenheim, Van der Leer took the museum’s architecture and urban studies programming out of the museum into cities. Together with his co-curator, Maria Nicanor, Van der Leer developed and headed the curatorial team of the BMW Guggenheim Lab, a mobile urban laboratory traveling to major cities worldwide. In addition, Van der Leer curated stillspotting nyc, a two-year multidisciplinary project that extended the Guggenheim’s Architecture and Urban Studies programming into the streets of New York City’s five boroughs.
David van der Leer was co-curator with Cathy Lang Ho and Ned Cramer of Spontaneous Interventions for the American Pavilion at the 13th Venice Architecture Biennale (2012), and curator of And Then It Became a City: Six Cities Under 60 for the Hong Kong & Shenzhen Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism/Architecture (2011). Van der Leer has been profiled for Fast Company, The Economist’s More Intelligent Life, and Architect, and was the youngest curator featured in “The New Guard of Curators Steps Up” in The New York Times (2009). Prior to working at the Guggenheim Museum, Van der Leer held positions at 010 Publishers in Rotterdam; the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) in Rotterdam; and Steven Holl Architects in New York. He received his master’s degree with a focus on urban and architectural theory from the Department of Art and Cultural Sciences at Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands.