The 2025 Pritzker Prize, dubbed the Nobel for architecture, has been awarded to China’s Liu Jiakun, who was recognised for designs that celebrate “everyday lives”.
“In a global context where architecture is struggling to find adequate responses to fast evolving social and environmental challenges, Liu Jiakun has provided convincing answers that also celebrate the everyday lives of people as well as their communal and spiritual identities,” the award’s jury wrote in a statement.
Born in 1956, Liu has worked on more than 30 projects in China, ranging from academic and cultural institutions to civic spaces and commercial buildings.
Architecture should reveal something – it should abstract, distil and make visible the inherent qualities of local people.
“First of all, you do something that is functional. But if it is just like that, it cannot be called architecture. (So) you have to provide poetry,” he said.