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Liu Jiakun Wins The 2025 Pritzker Architecture Prizehtml PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"Chinese architect Liu Jiakun has been named as the recipient of the 2025 Pritzker Architecture Prize, the prestigious award that is regarded internationally as architectures highest honor.The jury praised the Chengdu-based architect for "imagining and constructing new worlds, free from any aesthetic or stylistic constraint" and "evaluating the specific characteristics and requirements of each project differently."Liu is the founder of Jiakun Architects, which was founded in 1999, and the 54th Laureate of the Pritzker Architecture Prize. He lives and works in Chengdu, China, where he was born."Architecture should abstract, distill and make visible the inherent qualities of local people""Architecture should reveal somethingit should abstract, distill and make visible the inherent qualities of local people," said Liu Jiakun, the 2025 Laureate of the Pritzker Architecture Prize."It has the power to shape human behavior and create atmospheres, offering a sense of serenity and poetry, evoking compassion and mercy, and cultivating a sense of shared community, expressed Liu.Over the course of his four-decade career, Liu has completed over thirty projects in China, including civic areas, commercial buildings, academic and cultural institutions, and urban planning.Other noteworthy works are the Chengdu High-Tech Zone Tianfu Software Park Communication Center in Chengdu, China (2010), Songyang Culture Neighborhood in Lishui, China (2020), Lodging Center of China International Practice Exhibition of Architecture in Nanjing, China (2012), Museum of Clocks, Jianchuan Museum Cluster, Chengdu, China (2007), and Design Department on new campus, Sichuan Fine Arts Institute in Chongqing, China (2006).West Village, Chengdu, Peoples Republic of China, 2015. Image courtesy of Qian Shen Photography"He evaluates the specific characteristics and requirements of each project differently"According to the Pritzker Architecture Prize announcement, Liu provides inspiring architecture that honors the lives of common people by fusing seemingly contradictory ideas, such as utopia versus everyday life, history versus modernity, and collectivism versus individuality. By balancing cultural, historical, emotional, and social aspects, he maintains the transcendent force of the built environment and uses architecture to create community, evoke compassion, and uplift the human spirit."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. Instead of a style, he has developed a strategy that never relies on a recurring method but rather on evaluating the specific characteristics and requirements of each project differently," stated the 2025 Jury Citation, in part."That is to say, Liu Jiakun takes present realities and handles them to the point of offering sometimes a whole new scenario of daily life.""Beyond knowledge and techniques, common sense and wisdom are the most powerful tools he adds to the designers toolbox, added in the 2025 Jury Citation.Liu establishes a beneficial relationship between open space and density by constructing public spaces in densely populated cities where the luxury of space is mostly lacking. He innovates the function of public spaces to fulfill the range of requirements for a varied society by combining multiple typologies into a single project. In contrast to the grid of recognizable mid- and high-rise structures, West Village in Chengdu, China, 2015 is a five-story project that covers one entire block.An alternative approach to optimizing space is shown by the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute Department of Sculpture in Chongqing, China, 2004, where top floors expand outward to increase the square footage of a limited footprint."Cities tend to segregate functions, but Liu Jiakun takes the opposite approach and sustains a delicate balance to integrate all dimensions of the urban life," commented Alejandro Aravena, Chair of the Jury and 2016 Pritzker Prize Laureate."He continues, In a world that tends to create endless dull peripheries, he has found a way to build places that are a building, infrastructure, landscape and public space at the same time. His work may offer impactful clues on how to confront the challenges of urbanization, in an era of rapidly growing cities," Aravena added.Luyeyuan Stone Sculpture Art Museum, Chengdu, Peoples Republic of China, 2002. Image courtesy of Bi KejianThrough contemporary reinterpretations of traditional Chinese architecture, Liu chronicles time and provides people with a sense of familiarity while exhibiting a respect for culture, history, and nature throughout his works.The window walls of the Lancui Pavilion of Egret Gulf Wetland (Chengdu, China, 2013) and the flat eaves of the Suzhou Museum of Imperial Kiln Brick (Suzhou, China, 2016) both reinterpret the shape of pavilions that date back many millennia. The Novartis (Shanghai) Block-C6's tiered balconies (Shanghai, China, 2014) resemble towers that symbolize many dynasties.Modeled after a traditional Chinese garden, the Luyeyuan Stone Sculpture Art Museum (Chengdu, China, 2002) features Buddhist sculptures and relics, balancing old stones and water to mirror the surrounding natural environment. Buildings like The Renovation of Tianbao Cave District of Erlang Town (Luzhou, China, 2021), which is tucked away in the verdant cliffside landscape of Tianbao Mountain, both emerge and dissolve within their surroundings because they are based on the idea that humans and nature have a reciprocal relationship.Native bamboo groves are planted in new locations, floors and ceilings are created with apertures to allow existing trees to continue, and bricks are cemented upended to allow grasses to thrive through the core holes. All of his works incorporate both local and wild flora.The Renovation of Tianbao Cave District of Erlang Town, Luzhou, Peoples Republic of China, 2021. Image courtesy of Arch-Exist"His honest architecture presents the sincerity of textural materials"The announcement stated that his honest architecture showcases the sincerity of textured materials and processes, showcasing flaws that hold up throughout time rather than degrade. He dislikes manufactured goods, favoring traditional crafts made for and by the community, and frequently using locally sourced raw materials that support the environment and economy.Instead of being polished, the Department of Sculpture building displays the wavy features of genuine Chongqing sand plastering artistry. By repurposing debris from the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake and fortifying it with regional wheat fiber and cement, he revitalizes materialsand spiritsto create fortified bricks that are more durable and cost-effective than the original. The Novartis building, the Shuijingfang Museum (Chengdu, China, 2013), and West Village, his greatest piece, are all filled with "Rebirth Bricks." The disaster also produced his smallest piece to date, Hu Huishan Memorial (Chengdu, China, 2009), which is a permanent cement relief tent that was displayed for the collective memory of a grieving nation as well as for a 15-year-old girl in the wake of the damage."Liu Jiakun uplifts through the process and purpose of architecture""Liu Jiakun uplifts through the process and purpose of architecture, fostering emotional connections that unite communities," remarked Tom Pritzker, Chairman of The Hyatt Foundation, which sponsors the award."There is a wisdom in his architecture, philosophically looking beyond the surface to reveal that history, materials and nature are symbiotic," Pritzker added.Read the full Jury Citation for the 2025 Pritzker Architecture Laureate Liu Jiakun:Jury citationThe Pritzker Architecture Prize is conferred in acknowledgment of those qualities of talent, vision, and commitment, which have persistently produced significant contributions to humanity and the built environment through the art of architecture.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.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. Instead of a style, he has developed a strategy that never relies on a recurring method but rather on evaluating the specific characteristics and requirements of each project differently. That is to say, Liu Jiakun takes present realities and handles them to the point of offering a whole new scenario of daily life. Beyond knowledge and technique, he adds common sense and wisdom to the designers toolbox.The built environment is often being pulled in opposite directions. While density appears to be a more sustainable solution for people to live together, the scarcity of space usually implies a poor quality of life. Liu Jiakun rethinks the fundamentals of density through cohabitation, crafting an intelligent solution that balances the opposite forces at play. Through transformative projects like the West Village in Chengdu, he reshapes the paradigm of public spaces and of community life. He invents new independent, shared ways of living together in which density does not represent the opposite of an open system. He also enables adaptation, expansion and replicability. Liu Jiakun enhances and welcomes the life that inhabitants bring to his projects, creating an architecture activated by its publics.In Liu Jiakuns work, identity is as much about the individual as it is about the collective sense of belonging to a place. He revisits the Chinese tradition as a springboard for innovation devoid of nostalgia or ambiguity. For him, identity refers to a countrys history, the traces of its cities and the relics of its communities. At the same time, he integrates the local and global dimensions with unprecedented results. In his subtle, memorable museums, Suzhou Museum of Imperial Kiln Brick or the Shuijingfang Museum in Chengdu, he creates new architecture that is at once a historical record, a piece of infrastructure, a landscape, and a remarkable public space. In the Hu Huishan Memorial in Chengdu, he understands that identity is a matter of both collective and personal memory, brilliantly elevating the individual perspective to a foundational element of place-making in order to revive a communal dimension.Liu Jiakun also seeks a level of technology that is neither high nor low but rather the appropriate one based on local wisdom as well as materials and craftsmanship available. Since his early projects, he has broken the current architectural language to introduce the qualities of simplicity, deriving from the resources at disposal. His sincerity in the use of materials lets them speak for what they are, as their integrity does not require mediation or maintenance. It also enables them to age without fear of deterioration because the collective memory is held within them.To such available cultural and social resources, Liu Jiakun adds nature creating new landscapes within the landscape. From the West Village to the Renovation of Tianbao Cave District of Erlang Town in Luzhou, to the Luyeyuan Stone Sculpture Art Museum in Chengdu, the built and natural environments co-exist in a reciprocal relation and in line with the most ancient Chinese philosophy and tradition.For embracing rather than resisting the dystopia/utopia dualism and showing us how architecture can mediate between reality and idealism, for elevating local solutions into universal visions, and for developing a language that describes a socially and environmentally just world, Liu Jiakun is named the 2025 Pritzker Prize Laureate.This spring, Liu Jiakun will be celebrated in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, and this fall, a virtual ceremony film will be released worldwide. The public is welcome to attend the 2025 Laureate Lecture and Panel Discussion in person or virtually in May.Last year, Japanese architect and social advocate Riken Yamamoto has been named as the recipient of the 2024 Pritzker Architecture Prize.The top image in the article: Liu Jiakun, photo courtesy of The Hyatt Foundation/The Pritzker Architecture Prize.> via Pritzker Architecture Prize
