WATCH: Global architecture highlights including the 2021 Pritzker Prize laureates.
Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal have been announced as the recipients of the Pritzker Architecture Prize for 2021. Since founding their Paris-based practice Lacaton & Vassal in 1987, the architects have long rejected city plans calling for the demolition of buildings, such as social housing, focusing instead on designing from the inside out in order to prioritise the welfare of a building’s inhabitants.
2021 Pritzker Prize / News highlights
- Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal are the winners of the 2021 Pritzker Architecture Prize.
- The architects founded their practice Lacaton & Vassal in 1987, and have long championed socially conscious and sustainable architecture.
- The duo have completed critically acclaimed work in Niger and their home country France, as well as abroad.
- Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal are the 49th and 50th laureates of the Pritzker Architecture Prize.
“Good architecture is open – open to life, open to enhance the freedom of anyone, where anyone can do what they need to do,” Anne says. “It should not be demonstrative or imposing, but it must be something familiar, useful and beautiful, with the ability to quietly support the life that will take place within it.”
Through their design of private and social housing, cultural and academic institutions, public spaces, and urban developments, Anne and Jean-Philippe reexamine sustainability in their reverence for pre-existing structures, conceiving projects by first taking inventory of what already exists.
By prioritising the enrichment of human life through a lens of generosity and freedom of use, the architects are able to benefit the individual socially, ecologically and economically, aiding the evolution of a city.
“Not only have they defined an architectural approach that renews the legacy of modernism, but they have also proposed an adjusted definition of the very profession of architecture,” states the 2021 jury citation.
“The modernist hopes and dreams to improve the lives of many are reinvigorated through their work that responds to the climatic and ecological emergencies of our time, as well as social urgencies, particularly in the realm of urban housing.”
The architects increase living space exponentially and inexpensively, through winter gardens and balconies that enable inhabitants to conserve energy and access nature during all seasons.
“This year, more than ever, we have felt that we are part of humankind as a whole. Be it for health, political or social reasons, there is a need to build a sense of collectiveness,” comments Alejandro Aravena, chair of the Pritzker Architecture Prize jury. “Like in any interconnected system, being fair to the environment, being fair to humanity, is being fair to the next generation.”
“Our work is about solving constraints and problems, and finding spaces that can create uses, emotions and feelings,” says Jean-Phillipe. “At the end of this process and all of this effort, there must be lightness and simplicity, when all that has been before was so complex.”
Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal are the 49th and 50th laureates of the Pritzker Architecture Prize.
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At the end of this process and all of this effort, there must be lightness and simplicity, when all that has been before was so complex.
