The Pritzker Prize, architecture’s highest honor, has just announced the appointment of Alejandro Aravena as Chair of the Pritzker Architecture Prize Jury as of March 2021, in time for the award’s 43rd year. Moreover, the announcement also designated Manuela Lucá-Dazio, the Executive Director of the Department of Visual Arts and Architecture of La Biennale di Venezia, as an advisor to the Prize and the next Executive Director.
Alejandro Aravena, a winner of the 2016 Pritzker Prize, is the founder and Executive Director of ELEMENTAL. His work focuses on public interest and social impact, with projects that target housing, public space, infrastructure, and transportation. Committed to society, his architecture responds to social, humanitarian, and economic needs. Recipient of the 2019 ULI J.C. Nichols Prize, the 2018 RIBA Charles Jencks Award, and the first architect to receive the Gothenburg Sustainability Award in 2017, Aravena was also the Curator of the Venice Architecture Biennale 2016 and served on the Pritzker Prize Jury from 2009 to 2015. Based in Santiago, Chile, he is the ELEMENTAL Copec Chair at Universidad Católica de Chile, a former visiting professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Design (2000 and 2005), and has taught at Istituto Universitario di Architettura di Venezia (2005).
On his appointment, Aravena states that “Historically, architecture has been about creating innovative alternatives and imagining possibilities, but it is also intimately connected with society. As jurors, our task is, first, to be sensitive to those questions society would like the architectural profession to address, and to identify those architects that are trying to use the discipline’s body of knowledge to translate those questions into projects […] I am honored to join this group effort aimed to improve the quality of the built environment.”
In the official statement, Tom Pritzker, Chairman of The Hyatt Foundation, which sponsors the award, stated that “Throughout the history of the Prize, we have consistently relied on the diversity, expertise, and standing of our jury members to interpret the evolving role of architecture as it responds to the changing needs of community, environment, and technology. We are pleased to welcome back Alejandro Aravena, and in a renewed capacity as he brings with him a fresh model of leadership to steward our independent, international and esteemed jury […] Likewise, we are delighted to work with Manuela Lucá-Dazio in this new season as we continue our privilege of honoring architects who have impressed upon the industry through the art of architecture and their service to humanity.”
Moreover, the newly selected advisor to the Prize and the next Executive Director Manuela Lucá-Dazio has been managing architecture and art exhibitions with distinguished curators, architects, artists, and critics since 2009. She holds a Ph.D. in History of Architecture from the University of Roma-Chieti, Italy, and lives in Paris, France. “It is for me an enormous honor to become the next Executive Director of the Pritzker Architecture Prize, an essential point of reference in the architecture world, and even more at such a key historical moment for the architectural discourse and practice” states Manuela Lucá-Dazio.
News Via the Pritzker Architecture Prize.
