Eduardo Souto de Moura, the 2011 Pritzker Prize laureate, is perhaps, alongside Álvaro Siza, the most influential Portuguese architect today, with a consistent body of work marked by projects that demonstrate an impressive attention to local specificity.

As the announcement of the next Pritzker Architecture Prize laureate approaches, we interviewed economist and architecture critic André Corrêa do Lago, the first Brazilian to join the jury of the world's highest architectural honor.

Having already recognized two Brazilian architects—Oscar Niemeyer (1988) and Paulo Mendes da Rocha (2006)—it is surprising that in the prize's 40-year history, no Brazilian had ever been appointed to the jury. On this, Corrêa do Lago notes that "it must be acknowledged, however, that there has always been a diverse regional representation on the jury, including from Latin America."