The Pritzker Prize

Pritzker Prize 2020 Laureates, Irish architects Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara are known for their powerful yet delicate approaches. 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 Grafton Architects has won the Pritzker Prize 2020.

This year, architecture’s highest honor, the Pritzker Prize, has been granted to Grafton Architects' Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara of Dublin, Ireland. The 2020 Laureates, who are both educators and architects, are known for their powerful yet delicate approaches. Their contextual and modern interventions are very attentive to history, demonstrating high levels of sensitivity and craftsmanship.

With more than 40 years of professional experience, Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara, partners and co-founders of Dublin-based Grafton Architects, are the first women to be jointly awarded the architecture’s highest honor, the Pritzker Prize. In addition to a very welcoming breath of hope towards greater female representation in the field, the selection also cast light over an equally urgent theme in the profession: recognizing architecture practice as a collective effort. 

Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara founded Grafton Architects in 1978, after they met each other at the School of Architecture at University College Dublin.  The practice, named after the street where the duo's first office was located, has been awarded this year’s prestigious 2020 Pritzker Award. Grafton's built work reflects the continued search of architectural excellence, in buildings ranging from small scale housing to large public volumes.

Since the winner(s) of the Pritzker Prize 2020 will be announced this Tuesday, March 3, we have asked our readers who should win the most important award in the field of architecture. 

Once The Hyatt Foundation has revealed the announcement date of the Pritzker Prize 2020 Winner, the speculation has begun to swirl around which architect will be named next laureate of the trophy. What used to be a somewhat predictable award has become less so in recent years, and if you look at the list of people who have won before, you will realize that anything is possible. 

The Hyatt Foundation has revealed the announcement date of the Pritzker Prize 2020 Winner. The most relevant recognition in architecture will be announced on Tuesday, March 3rd, 10 am EST.

The career of Gottfried Böhm (born January 23, 1920) spans from simple to complex and from sacred to secular, but has always maintained a commitment to understanding its surroundings. In 1986, Böhm was awarded the eighth Pritzker Prize for what the jury described as his "uncanny and exhilarating marriage" of architectural elements from past and present. Böhm's unique use of materials, as well as his rejection of historical emulation, have made him an influential force in Germany and abroad.

The Pritzker Architecture Prize has appointed Deborah Berke and Barry Bergdoll as the newest members of the prize jury. Replacing Richard Rogers and Ratan N. Tata, the new appointments of Berke and Bergdoll mark the upcoming 2020 edition of the Pritzker Prize and the 42nd anniversary of the accolade. The Pritzker Prize is internationally known as architecture's highest honor.

Arata Isozaki has officially received the 2019 Pritzker Architecture Prize, in a ceremony at the Château de Versailles in France. Isozaki, who has been practicing architecture since the 1960s, has long been considered an architectural visionary for his transnational and fearlessly futurist approach to design. With well over 100 built works to his name, Isozaki is also incredibly prolific and influential among his contemporaries. Isozaki is the 49th architect and eighth Japanese architect to receive the honor.

Ieoh Ming Pei, known as I. M. Pei, died today at the age of 102, according to The New York Times. The Chinese-American architect (born April 26, 1917) was arguably the greatest living member of the modernist generation of architects. When he received his Pritzker Prize in 1983, the jury citation stated that he "has given this century some of its most beautiful interior spaces and exterior forms." His most notable work is the Louvre Pyramid.

Arata Isozaki, the Japanese architect and winner of the Pitzker Prize 2019, is not only renowned for his fruitful portfolio of works built all over the world (more than a hundred) but also for his continuous input to the theory of urbanism, including texts and proposals. 

In May 1985, an old theater and concert hall opened its doors to the public for the opening of a brand new nightclub in New York City. Located on 126 East 14th Street, the project was commissioned by entrepreneurs Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager, owners of the also famous club Studio 54, and was conceived as a vibrant and luminous independent structure arranged inside a rather classic shell, which appears as a beautiful backdrop behind the clean geometry of Isozaki.

Named 2019 Pritzker Prize Laureate, Japanese architect Arata Isozaki is incredibly prolific and influential among his contemporaries. Deeply aligned with the period of change and reinvention that Japan experimented after Second World War and Allied Occupation, Isozaki has developed a solid career on a truly global scale, avoiding being labeled in a specific style throughout his life.

The prolific and varied career of 2019 Pritzker Laureate Arata Isozaki, which includes more than 100 works built on virtually every continent, gives us a huge amount of facts that are relevant to understanding his life and architecture. Considered the first Japanese architect to develop his work on a truly global scale, Isozaki took special care to respond to the context and the specific requirements of each project, expanding the heterogeneity of his work and resulting in a variety of styles from vernacular to high tech. 

Arata Isozaki has been named the 2019 laureate of the Pritzker Prize for Architecture. Isozaki, who has been practicing architecture since the 1960s, has long been considered an architectural visionary for his transnational and fearlessly futurist approach to design. With well over 100 built works to his name, Isozaki is also incredibly prolific and influential among his contemporaries. Isozaki is the 49th architect and eighth Japanese architect to receive the honor.

2019 Pritzker Laureate Arata Isozaki has been designing for more than half a century; several of his works are considered architectural classics due to their influence and impact on international design.

The 2019 Pritzker Architecture Prize will be announced on Tuesday, 05 March at 10am EST. Past laureates include some of architecture's most significant names, among them Rem Koolhaas, Zaha Hadid, Philip Johnson, SANAA,  Oscar Niemeyer, Norman Foster, Peter Zumthor, Toyo Ito, Alejandro Aravena and, most recently, Balkrishna Doshi (full list).