Chengdu-based Liu Jiakun, 68, is the 54rd winner of the Pritzker Architecture Prize regarded as the worlds highest honour for architects and the third to come from China.His buildings were praised for providing convincing answers that also celebrate the everyday lives of people as well as their communal and spiritual identities.The jury, headed by 2016 Pritzker Prize Laureate Alejandro Aravena, said Jiakun imagined and constructed new worlds, free from any aesthetic or stylistic constraint.Jiakun founded his practice Jiakun Architecture in 1999 and lives and works in Chengdu the city in which he was born.Over four decades, he has designed more than 30 projects ranging from academic and cultural institutions to civic spaces, commercial buildings and urban planning throughout China.Significant works include the Museum of Clocks, Jianchuan Museum Cluster in Chengdu (2007), the design department for a new campus of the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute in Chongqing, (2006), and the Songyang Culture Neighborhood in Lishui (2020).His work has included upcycling rubble from the ruins of the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake. He strengthened the found material with local wheat fibre and cement to produce fortified bricks with greater physical and economic efficiency than the original. Source:Arch-ExistNovartis (Shanghai) block C6 by Jiakun ArchitectsThese so-called rebirth bricks can be found extensively throughout the Novartis building in Shanghai (2014), Shuijingfang Museum in Chengdu (2013) and the five-storey West Village also in Chengdu (2015), which is his largest work.In 2018, he was commissioned to build the first temporary Serpentine Gallery pavilion outside the UK at the opening of the WF Central development in Beijings Dongcheng district.The jury described his work as creating public areas in populated cities where the luxury of space is largely absent, forging a positive relationship between density and open space.Aravena said: 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.'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 urbanisation, in an era of rapidly growing cities.This years jury also included previous laureates Lacaton & Vassal co-founder Anne Lacaton the recent winner of the 2025 Jane Drew Prize for Architecture and Kazuyo Sejima of SANAA.Last years Pritzker Prize went to 79-year-old Riken Yamamoto from Yokohama, Japan. He was recognised for his architecture which considers the user experience first, spanning a career of five decades with projects ranging from public and private housing to education, civic spaces and city planning.The 2023 prize went to David Chipperfield, who became the fifth British winner, more than 15 years after Richard Rogers collected the prize in 2007.Previous Pritzker laureates include the late Indian architect Balkrishna Vithaldas (BV) Doshi, Berlin-based Francis Kr (in 2022) and the late Zaha Hadid in 2004. Source:Qian Shen PhotographyLiu Jiakun's West Village (2015) Chengdu, People's Republic of ChinaPritzker Prize winners2025 Liu Jiakun (68), China2024 2023 2022 Dibdo Francis Kr (56), Burkina Faso/Germany20212020Yvonne Farrell (69) and Shelley McNamara (68), Ireland2019Arata Isozaki (87), Japan2018Balkrishna Vithaldas Doshi (90), India2017Rafael Aranda (55) Carme Pigem (54) and Ramon Vilalta (56) of RCR Arquitectes, Spain2016Alejandro Aravena (48), Chile2015Frei Otto (89), Germany2014Shigeru Ban (56), Japan2013Toyo Ito (71), Japan2012Wang Shu (48), China2011Eduardo Souto de Moura (58), Portugal2010Kazuyo Sejima (54) and Ryue Nishizawa (44), Japan2009Peter Zumthor (65), Switzerland2008Jean Nouvel (62), France2007Richard Rogers (73), UK2006Paulo Mendes da Rocha (77), Brazil2005Thom Mayne (61), USA2004Zaha Hadid (53), UK2003Jorn Utzon (84), Denmark2002Glenn Murcutt (66), Australia2001Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron (51), Switzerland2000Rem Koolhaas (56), Netherlands1999Norman Foster (63), UK1998Renzo Piano (60), Italy1997Sverre Fehn (72), Norway1996Rafael Moneo (58), Spain1995Tadao Ando (53), Japan1994Christian de Portzamparc (50), France1993Fumihiko Maki (65), Japan1992Alvaro Siza (57), Portugal1991Robert Venturi (65), USA1990Aldo Rossi, (59), Italy1989Frank Gehry (60), USA=1988Oscar Niemeyer (81), Brazil=1988Gordon Bunshaft (79), USA1987Kenzo Tange (73), Japan1986Gottfried Bohm (66), Germany1985Hans Hollein (51), Austria1984Richard Meier (49), USA1983IM Pei (66), China1982Kevin Roche (60), USA1981James Stirling (55), UK1980Luis Barragan (78), Mexico1979Philip Johnson (73), USA Source:Jiakun ArchitectsShuijingfang Museum by Jiakun Architects - new workshop