Mark Robbins' appointment as executive director of the International Center of Photography in New York comes less than a year after Willis E. Hartshorn announced his intention to transition to the new role of senior deputy director in charge of special projects.

The move, first revealed by La Lettre de la Photographie this morning, will see Robbins bring "a record of exceptional leadership to ICP and will help fulfill its mission to be the world's leading institution dedicated to the practice and understanding of photography in all its forms," says Caryl Englander, chair of the board at the organisation. "[We have] found in him the director who can lead ICP into a new era, extending its intellectual and artistic reach while confirming and enhancing all of this great institution's existing strengths."

While Robbins has focussed most of his career on architecture, Jeffrey A. Rosen, president of ICP's board, says that the new director has "a deep interest and engagement with photography." Robbins has used photography to examine and comment on the ways in which people inhabit, and seen themselves in, their built environment. His work has been published in a book called Households, and will be on show in Hamilton, New York, later this year.

Robbins will start in his new role on 01 July.

For more information, visit www.icp.org.