The municipality of Oirschot is the winner of the BNG Heritage Prize 2025, with this year's theme being Intangible Heritage. Jury chairman Ron König announced this this afternoon in Nijmegen (the winner of the prize in 2024).
Nijmegen councillor Tobias van Elferen presented the award to his colleague, the councillor of the municipality of Oirschot. In addition to the jury's praise, Oirschot received a certificate and a cash prize of € 25,000, made available by the main sponsor, BNG Cultuurfonds. The other nominees, Alphen aan den Rijn and Tilburg, also received extensive praise from the jury.
The jury selected Oirschot as the winner. Here, the jury sensed a widely shared and deeply rooted sense of heritage that it rarely encounters. It is the municipality where the baker used the word ‘heritage' when talking about his local products, and where a postman spontaneously started talking about a monastery that is still inhabited.
Oirschot is uniquely aware of the value of intangible heritage. The municipality carefully and gently encourages and facilitates all social activities in the municipality. This provides communities with the space to undertake activities themselves. The preservation of intangible heritage is enshrined in participatory, integrated and future-oriented policy. This makes Oirschot an example for other municipalities in the Netherlands.
Read the full jury report on the website of Kunsten'92 here (Dutch)
This year, there was once again enthusiastic voting for the Public Award, which consists of the honour and a memento. With a resounding 1,472 of the total 2,327 votes, the 2025 Public Award also went to Oirschot.
During the symposium, which was organised by the municipality of Nijmegen prior to the award ceremony, the audience was introduced to Nijmegen's Post 65 heritage. Cultural historian Leon van Meijel spoke about inspiring transformations of young heritage. The municipality of Apeldoorn shared its experiences with designating Post 65 heritage. Artist Lakshmi moved the audience with her song about the history of Nijmegen's Lower Town. Afterwards, everyone enthusiastically set off on an excursion to locations including the Heijendaal campus and the Estel building. There was a workshop on creating heritage programmes, and author Tessa de Loo discussed her book ‘De stad in je hoofd' (The city in your head). Pieter van Rooij, Heritage Conservation Advisor at KIEN, revealed the surprising connections between intangible heritage and other policy areas.
Since 2010, on the initiative of the Kunsten '92 Heritage Platform, a national prize has been awarded to the municipality with the best heritage policy: the BNG Heritage Prize. The award encourages municipalities to actively promote cultural heritage, also with a view to strengthening policy areas such as tourism, culture, education, social affairs, spatial development and the economy. The main sponsor is BNG Cultuurfonds.
The jury for the BNG Heritage Award 2025 consists of Ron König (jury chair, mayor of Deventer, chair of BNG Cultuurfonds); Susan Lammers (Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands); Christian Pfeiffer (Huizer Museum); Karianne Vandenbroucke (Natuurmonumenten); Marielle Hendriks (Erfgoedhuis Zuid-Holland); Rabiaâ Benlahbib (Kunstfort Vijfhuizen and Creative Court) and Jazzy Taihuttu (Coordinator of Education and Public Participation at the Limburgs Museum).
Photo: Ger Loeffen