Stephen Breyer and Zaha Hadid: New Jurors for the Pritzker Architecture Prize Jury

Justice Stephen Breyer – Photo by Steve Petteway, Photographer, Supreme Court of the United States / – Photo by Simone Cecchetti

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, as well as widely acclaimed Pritzker Architecture Prize Laureate, Zaha Hadid of the United Kingdom, will join the jury that selects Pritzker Architecture Prize Laureates, it was announced today by Thomas J. Pritzker, Chairman of The Hyatt Foundation which sponsors the prize.

In addition to his distinguished career in the law, Justice Breyer has a long history of interest in art and architecture, having authored the foreword to a book titled, “Celebrating The Courthouse: A Guide For Architects, Their Clients, And The Public” in 2006. Further, in 2009, the Foundation for Art and Preservation in Embassies honored him with the first Leonore and Walter H. Annenberg Award for Diplomacy through the Arts at a ceremony where the chairman of the foundation, Jo Carole Lauder, said, “His passion for ensuring that federal buildings — where our country’s democratic principles are upheld — represent modern day thinking and culture is truly admirable. Since the birth of our nation, America’s ever changing democracy has been captured through art and architecture and, thanks to Justice Breyer, this legacy will continue.”

Hadid, who received the in 2004, has since become one of the world’s busiest architects with projects in numerous countries, including the United States, China, Germany, Spain and Italy. The distinguished architecture critic Ada Louise Huxtable, who at the time was a Pritzker juror, said: “Zaha Hadid is one of the most gifted practitioners of the art of architecture today.”

More after the break.