The Pritzker Prize

The following is Alejandro Aravena's response to the Shigeru Ban's Pritzker win. Aravena is the executive director of the firm ELEMENTAL S.A and a member of the Pritzker Jury who selected Ban as this year's Pritzker Laureate.

Yesterday we asked some prominent critics and a few of Ban's peers to weigh in on the Japanese architect's Pritzker win. Curators, architects, and writers praised Ban's approach and conviction, describing what Ban's work signifies to the architecture community. Read on for comments from Architecture for Humanity co-founder Cameron Sinclair, MoMA curators Barry Bergdoll and Pedro Gadanho, Cooper Union classmates Nanako Umemoto and Jesse Reiser, of Reiser + Umemototo, and more.

“Shigeru Ban is a tireless architect whose work exudes optimism. Where others may see insurmountable challenges, Ban sees a call to action. Where others might take a tested path, he sees the opportunity to innovate. He is a committed teacher who is not only a role model for younger generation, but also an inspiration.” -- Pritzker Jury 2014

Explore the architectural development of Pritzker Laureate Shigeru Ban - from his early, more minimalist residential work in the 90s to his experimental, undulating structures (2010's Pompidou Metz, Nine Bridges Golf Club) to his latest masterpiece in timber construction, Tamedia New Office Building (2013). 

You probably know by now that Shigeru Ban has won this year's Pritzker Prize, but did you know he almost went to university to play rugby? Or that he constructed his home without pulling down a single tree? These and many more fun facts on the 38th Pritzker laureate, after the break.

We've just learned that the Pritzker Prize will be announced on Monday, March 24 at 5pm EDT. This prize -- architecture's most prestigious -- has been awarded annually since 1979. Past winners include Philip Johnson, Zaha Hadid, Rem Koolhaas, Oscar Niemeyer and Norman Foster (full list). You can see ArchDaily's coverage of the prize here. Stay tuned for the latest updates on this year's winner. Who do you think deserves to win?

There are very few sceptics who would question the importance of increasing sustainability in architecture. The enhanced social value through better living conditions, physical value in a healthier and less-polluted environment, long-term monetary value via reduced operating and maintenance costs, and ethical value through fairness to future generations are self-evident.

In an interview with Spanish newspaper El País, Lu Wenyu defends her husband Wang Shu for solely receiving the Pritzker Prize in 2012. Despite the fact that the couple co-founded Amateur Architecture Studio and have worked side by side ever since, Wengyu maintains that her husband would have shared the Prize with her - she just didn't want it. 

Chile has had an incredible economic growth in the last decade, but the urban standards have not increased proportionally. Santiago for example, has no single place where to go for a long walk.

La Ruta del Peregrino (Pilgrim’s Route) has an approximate length of 117 kilometers.  Over two million people every year travel from different states of Mexico to walk through the mountain range of Jalisco. Starting in the town of Ameca, their final destination is Talpa de Allenda where they go to visit Virgin Rosario as an act of devotion, faith, and purification. 

Arauco is a forestry company that called us in 2009 to develop a plan to support their workers in the process to have access to their definitive house. We were asked to develop a set of typologies within the current housing policy for Fondo Solidario de Vivienda I (FSV I, units up to 600 UF or US$25,000 without debt) and for FSV II (units up to 1,000 UF or US$40,000 with a bank loan). These designs would be a contribution of the company to their workers, a kind of subvention, so that housing committees could use them when applying for the regular system of public funds.

To coincide with the 40th anniversary of the completion of Danish architect Jørn Utzon's Sydney Opera House, The Opera House Project takes you on a journey from the project's inception in 1954 - known as Design 218 - to the completed masterpiece up to 2012, and all the personal, political and technical struggles that the designers were faced with. As expressed by Sam Doust, writer and director of the project, the epic journey is based on an "aspiration to perfection" and then the "failure to achieve it".

This article, by Alexandra Lange, originally appeared on Metropolis Magazine as "Architecture's Lean In Moment."

Pedro Montt is a neighborhood on stilts in the city of Castro, Chiloe. It is one of the oldest and most characteristic neighborhoods of the city and of Chile. It takes over the sea, where there are no regulations, only internal codes of a community that has existed for years on the waterfront, over the sea, showcasing a way of living and a culture.

The Pritzker Prize has finally released their official statement in response to the petition Harvard graduate students Arielle Assouline-Lichten and Caroline James wrote, proposing that Denise Scott Brown retroactively receive recognition for the Pritzker Prize that her husband, Robert Venturi, won in 1991. 

We have rounded up some of the reactions to this afternoon's news that Denise Scott Brown would not retroactively receive recognition for the Pritzker Prize that her husband, Robert Venturi, won in 1991.

Last night we attended the Pritkzer Prize ceremony, where the 2013 laureate Toyo Ito accepted the prestigious award at the JFK Presidential Library in Boston.

Thomas J. Pritzker has announced that the Pritzker Architecture Prize has added two deserving jurors to their esteemed panel, stating: “We are delighted to welcome to the jury two individuals of great insight - Kristin Feireiss and Ratan N. Tata. [...] From different countries and backgrounds, they share a commitment to the art of architecture and its social responsibility. Each will be a tremendous asset to the Pritzker Architecture Prize.”