"I just wanted my community to be a part of this process," Diébédo Francis Kéré said in an ArchDaily interview published last year. It's hard to think of another phrase that so well sums up the modesty and impact caused by the newest winner of the Pritzker Prize of Architecture, whose work gained notoriety precisely for involving the inhabitants of his village in the construction of works that combine ethical commitment, environmental efficiency, and aesthetic quality.
Diébédo Francis Kéré founded his architecture practice Kéré Architecture, in Berlin, Germany in 2005, after a journey in which he started advocating for the building of quality educational architecture in his home country of Burkina Faso. Deprived of proper classrooms and learning conditions as a child, and having faced the same reality as the majority of children in his country, his first works aimed at bringing tangible solutions to the issues faced by the community.
The 2022 laureate of architecture’s highest honor, the Pritzker Architecture Prize is Diébédo Francis Kéré, known as Francis Kéré, Burkina Faso-born architect, educator, social activist, receiver of the 2004 Aga Khan Award for Architecture and designer of the 2017 Serpentine Pavilion. Recognized for “empowering and transforming communities through the process of architecture”, Kéré, the first black architect to ever obtain this award, works mostly in areas charged with constraints and adversity, using local materials and building contemporary facilities whose value exceeds the structure itself, serving and stabilizing the future of entire communities.
As part of our yearly tradition, we have asked our readers who should win the 2022 Pritzker Prize, the most important award in the field of architecture.
Once The Hyatt Foundation has revealed the announcement date of the 2022 Pritzker Prize Laureates, the speculation has begun to swirl around which architect or architects will be honored with the architecture's highest award.
The "2022 Pritzker Architecture Prize Laureate will be announced on March 15th at 10 am EST", states the official website of the Prize. Architecture's most relevant recognition is set to reveal its laureate(s) next week, aligned with the usual March announcement. “Architecture’s Nobel Prize” has been honoring every year, since 1979, a living architect or architects with significant achievements to humanity and the built environment.
Richard Rogers, the fourth British architect to be awarded the Pritzker Prize, has passed away at 88 on Saturday, December 18, as reported by The New York Times.
The Pritzker Architecture Prize released a special ceremony video honouring the 2021 laureates Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal. Previously held in person, each time at a different architecturally significant venue around the world, this year’s ceremony is the second pre-filmed event in the history of the Prize, following the one in 2020. The ceremony features filmed remarks from various speakers, among which are several jury members, Jury Chair Alejandro Aravena, the 2020 Prize recipients Shelley McNamara and Yvonne Farrell, as well as this year’s Laureates themselves. The video also pays tribute to the achievements of Lacaton and Vassal through footage of their built work.
In the hilly landscape of Blumenau, a city located in the state of Santa Catarina, in southern Brazil, stands a gem of modern religious architecture by Gottfried Böhm, who recently passed away at the age of 101: the Mother Church of São Paulo Apóstolo, built from 1953 to 1963.
Gottfried Böhm, the first German architect to be awarded the Pritzker Prize, has passed away at 101, as reported by Deutsche Welle and WDR.
On March 9, what would have been Luis Barragán's 119th birthday, we commemorate Mexico's most celebrated architect and discuss his winning of the 1980 Pritzker Prize.
Paulo Mendes da Rocha often says that the function of architecture is nothing more than ‘supporting the unpredictability of life’. Spaces stand everyday life, meetings, landscape, art. Something like a frame, which is often also considered a supporting element of a work of art, since it highlights and, mainly, directs the viewer's gaze to the main object. The phrase of the Brazilian architect combines well with the way that the Lacaton & Vassal office works. The French couple's award raises some questions about how accurate their choices are for the current moment in the world. This includes the philosophy of their work, the design solutions adopted and the material palette generally adopted.
Pritzker Prize 2021 Laureates, French architects Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal, founders of Lacaton & Vassal, are known for their “never demolish” principle and their notion of sustainability embodied in a three-pillar balance: economic, environmental, and social. In this exclusive video for ArchDaily, Martha Thorne, executive director of the Pritzker Architecture Prize and Dean of IE School of Architecture and Design, shares some of the reasons why Lacaton & Vassal has won the Pritzker Prize 2021.
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Renowned photographer Laurian Ghinitoiu has shared with ArchDaily a series of photos of one of the most influential projects of recent Pritzker Laureates, Anne Lacaton, and Jean-Philippe Vassal. The Transformation of the 530 dwellings in Bordeaux, 3 modernist residential buildings, reflect Lacaton & Vassal's sensitivity towards understanding existing structures. It also highlights how with minimal interventions, radical changes can be made to the habitability and usability of a modernist building -knowing that in Europe, the majority of these structures have ended up being demolished-. This approach was enough to select this transformation as the winner of the EU Mies 2019 Award, for the best contemporary architecture in Europe.
The 2021 Pritzker Architecture Prize, architecture’s highest honor, has been granted to Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal, founders of Lacaton & Vassal, the French duo renowned for their multiple sustainable housing projects and for the Palais de Tokyo, a contemporary art gallery in Paris. In their three decades of work, Lacaton & Vassal always prioritized the “enrichment of human life”, benefiting the individual and supporting the evolution of the city.
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Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal founded their architectural studio Lacaton & Vassal in 1987, years after studying and working together at the École Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture et de Paysage de Bordeaux. The practice established in Paris has been awarded this year’s prestigious 2021 Pritzker Prize. Their built work leaves strong evidence of what they believe is relevant: sustainability, wellbeing, social responsibility, and the readaptation and the respect of the existing built environment.
With a formal and material approach that differs from the scenarios we usually find in Architecture, Lacaton & Vassal —a French practice that marks its influence in contemporary times by being awarded the Pritzker Prize 2021— brings an open and generous vision to the field.
Since the winner(s) of the Pritzker Prize 2021 will be announced on Tuesday, March 16th, we have asked our readers who should win the most important award in the field of architecture.