The Pritzker Architecture Prize is an international award presented annually "to honor a living architect or architects whose built work demonstrates a combination of those qualities of talent, vision and commitment which has produced consistent and significant contributions to humanity and the built environment through the art of architecture.” Founded in 1979 by Jay A. Pritzker and his wife Cindy, the award is funded by the Pritzker family and sponsored by the Hyatt Foundation. It is considered to be one of the world's premier architecture prizes, and is often referred to as the Nobel Prize of architecture.
The Centre Pompidou, more fully the Centre national d'art et de culture Georges-Pompidou, also known as the Pompidou Centre in English, is a complex building in the Beaubourg area of the 4th arrondissement of Paris, near Les Halles, rue Montorgueil, and the Marais. It was designed in the style of high-tech architecture by the architectural team of Richard Rogers, Su Rogers, Renzo Piano, along with Gianfranco Franchini.
Herzog & de Meuron Basel Ltd. is a Swiss architecture firm headquartered in Basel (Switzerland), founded by Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron.
Thom Mayne is an American architect. He is based in Los Angeles. In 1972, Mayne helped found the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc), where he is a trustee and the coordinator of the Design of Cities postgraduate program. Since then he has held teaching positions at SCI-Arc, the California State Polytechnic University, Pomona and the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He is principal of Morphosis Architects, an architectural firm based in Culver City, California and New York City, New York. Mayne received the Pritzker Architecture Prize in March 2005.
Toyo Ito is a Japanese architect known for creating conceptual architecture, in which he seeks to simultaneously express the physical and virtual worlds. He is a leading exponent of architecture that addresses the contemporary notion of a "simulated" city, and has been called "one of the world's most innovative and influential architects."
The year 2005 in architecture involved some significant architectural events and new buildings.
Roche Dinkeloo, otherwise known as Kevin Roche John Dinkeloo and Associates LLC (KRJDA), is an architectural firm based in Hamden, Connecticut founded in 1966. In 2020, it relocated to New Haven, Connecticut, and took the name Roche Modern.
Pierre Jean Louis Germain Soulages was a French painter, printmaker, and sculptor. In 2014, President François Hollande of France described him as "the world's greatest living artist." His works are held by leading museums of the world, and there is a museum dedicated to his art in his hometown of Rodez.
Kazuyo Sejima is a Japanese architect and director of her own firm, Kazuyo Sejima & Associates. In 1995, she co-founded the firm SANAA. In 2010, Sejima was the second woman to receive the Pritzker Prize, which was awarded jointly with Nishizawa. They were only the second partnership to be honored with this prize.
Denise Scott Brown is an American architect, planner, writer, educator, and principal of the firm Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates in Philadelphia.
Benedetta Tagliabue is an Italian architect, who lives and works in Barcelona, Spain. With Enric Miralles, she co-founded the international studio EMBT Architects. She is the principal and director of EMBT Architects, and president of Fundació Enric Miralles.
Eduardo Elísio Machado Souto de Moura, better known as Eduardo Souto de Moura, is a Portuguese architect who was the recipient of the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 2011 and the Wolf Prize in Arts in 2013. Along with Fernando Távora and Álvaro Siza, he is one of the alumni of the Porto School of Architecture, where he was appointed a Professor.
SANAA is an architectural firm based in Tokyo, Japan. It was founded in 1995 by architects Kazuyo Sejima (1956–) and Ryue Nishizawa (1966–), who were awarded the Pritzker Prize in 2010. Notable works include the Toledo Museum of Art's Glass Pavilion in Toledo, Ohio; the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York; the Rolex Learning Center at the EPFL in Lausanne; the Serpentine Pavilion in London; the Christian Dior Building in Omotesandō, Tokyo; the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art in Kanazawa; the Louvre-Lens Museum in France; and the Bocconi New Campus in Milan.
Jean Nouvel is a French architect. Nouvel studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and was a founding member of Mars 1976 and Syndicat de l'Architecture, France’s first labor union for architects. He has obtained a number of prestigious distinctions over the course of his career, including the Aga Khan Award for Architecture, the Wolf Prize in Arts in 2005 and the Pritzker Prize in 2008. A number of museums and architectural centres have presented retrospectives of his work.
Alejandro Gastón Aravena Mori is a Chilean architect and executive director of the firm Elemental S.A. He won the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 2016, and was the director and curator of the 2016 Venice Biennale of Architecture.
The year 2017 in architecture included the demolishment of a major brutalist building, several dedications and openings of new buildings, and two major disasters.
Carme Pigem Barceló is a Spanish architect, a member of the Pritzker Prize-winning architectural firm RCR Arquitectes, together with Ramón Vilalta and Rafael Aranda.
Shelley McNamara is an Irish architect and academic. She attended University College Dublin and graduated in 1974 with a Bachelor of Architecture. She founded Grafton Architects with Yvonne Farrell in 1978. Grafton rose to prominence in the early 2010s, specialising in stark, weighty but spacious buildings for higher education. McNamara has taught architecture at University College Dublin since 1976 and at several other universities.
Anne Lacaton is a French architect and educator. She runs the architectural practice Lacaton & Vassal, with Jean-Philippe Vassal. The pair were jointly awarded the 2021 Pritzker Prize.
Celler Perelada is an emblematic building in Peralada and state of the art in leaving a minimum environmental impact during winemaking process. It is committed to environmental balance within the DO Empordà and the first winery in Europe to receive the golden LEED certificate for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design.
