Liu Jiakun (born 1956) is a Chinese architect known for his focus on minimalism, humanism, and locally contextual design. In 2025, he won the Pritzker Prize,[1][2] becoming the second Chinese national architect to receive this honor after Wang Shu, and the third Chinese-born overall, after I. M. Pei.
Liu was born in Chengdu, in the Sichuan Province of China.[3] His mother was an internist doctor at Chengdu Second People's Hospital.[4][5] As a 17-year old during the Cultural Revolution, he was sent to the countryside to serve as a laborer, as part of the country's zhiqing (rusticated youth) program.[5][2] Initially aspiring to be an artist, he was drawn to architecture due to its connection with drawing and design. He graduated in 1982 from the Chongqing Institute of Architecture and Engineering (now part of Chongqing University) with a Bachelor of Engineering degree in Architecture.[5]
Career
After graduation, Liu worked at the state-owned Chengdu Architectural Design and Research institute.[2] He later spent time in the Tibet and Xinjiangautonomous regions of China, exploring art and literature. He returned to architecture in 1993 after being inspired by an exhibition by former classmate Tang Hua (Chinese:汤桦).[6] He began a public discourse over the influence and significance of architecture with the artists Luo Zhongli and He Duoling[zh], and the poet Zhai Yongming.[7]
In 1999, he founded Jiakun Architects in Chengdu. Since then, his firm has completed over 30 projects across China, including academic, cultural, civic, commercial, and urban planning works.[5]
Architectural philosophy and select works
Liu's work emphasizes the integration of local context, traditional craftsmanship, and sustainable design, while avoiding flashy flourishes.[6][8][9] His projects often make use of local materials and the aesthetic of imperfection.[10] After the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, he repurposed earthquake rubble into new building materials.[11] The rubble was combined with local straw fibers and cement to produce bricks, intended as a demonstration of community resilience.[12] The resulting bricks were used in buildings including the Novartis Building, the Shuijingfang Museum, and the West Village (Chengdu)[zh].[7] Liu also designed the Hu Huishan Memorial[zh], which commemorates a 15-year-old girl killed when her school collapsed during the earthquake.[2] The memorial was built to resemble a tent and contains some of Hu's possessions, including a scarf and a backpack.[13][2]
In 2002, he designed the Luyeyuan Stone Sculpture Art Museum in Chengdu, modeled on a traditional Chinese garden, to house a private collection of Buddhist relics.[2] He worked on the Shuijingfang Museum[zh] in 2013, which was built on the site of a 600-year-old distillery and focused on the history of Chinese Baijiu liquor. His design of the Museum of Clocks in the Jianchuan Museum Cluster had a series of clocks depicting the end of the Cultural Revolution in China.[2]
His commercial projects included the Shanghai campus of the pharmaceutical company Novartis, which he designed in 2014. The campus combined traditional Chinese aesthetic with a contemporary exterior, including multiple tiered balconies.[4] His 2015 work "West Village" in Chengdu was a mixed-use public project that included offices, recreational, athletic, and cultural spaces; it was considered modest and visually understated, contrasting with the neighboring high-rise buildings.[2] The village block incorporated pedestrian walkways, green spaces, and cycle paths.[4] Liu's other works in Chengdu include a maternity ward at the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding.[6][4]
Liu's designs have been exhibited internationally, including at the Venice Architecture Biennale and a solo exhibition at Berlin's AEDES Gallery. In 2018, he was commissioned to design the Serpentine Pavilion in Beijing, which drew international attention.[14]
Awards
2003: Honorary Award of the 7th Asian Construction Association[15]
2025: 4th China Construction Ingenuity Person of the Year Award[19]
2025: Pritzker Architecture Prize.[20][21] He was the third China-born architect to receive the award, after Wang Shu in 2012 and I. M. Pei in 1983.[1] The Pritzker jury praised Liu's "reverence for culture, history and nature, chronicling time and comforting users with familiarity through modern interpretations of classic Chinese architecture."[4] The award citation read, "Through an outstanding body of work of deep coherence and constant quality, Liu Jiakun imagines and constructs new worlds, free from any aesthetic or stylistic constraint."[6]
↑ Hebei Network Radio and Television Station; Wu Na (5 March 2025). "普利兹克得主刘家琨，在赤水河畔郎酒庄园"用建筑写诗"-中宏网". 中宏网-今日新闻-财经新闻 (in Chinese). Retrieved 7 March 2025.
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