Riken Yamamoto has been announced as the 2024 Pritzker Prize winner, chosen for his advancement and championing of the architecture profession.
The Prize’s Jury were complimentary of Yamamoto’s storied career.
“Riken Yamamoto has managed to produce architecture both as background and foreground to everyday life, blurring boundaries between its public and private dimensions, and multiplying opportunities for people to meet spontaneously, through precise, rational design strategies,” the citation reads.
“By the strong, consistent quality of his buildings, he aims to dignify, enhance and enrich the life of individuals – from children to elders – and their social connections. And he does this through a self-explanatory yet modest and pertinent architecture, with structural honesty and precise scaling, with careful attention to the landscape of the surroundings.”
Born in Beijing, Yamamoto was raised in Japan and studied at Nihon University, Tokyo University of the Arts and the University of Tokyo. He established his own practice in 19743, Yamamoto & Field Shop Co.
Renowned for his ability to unite public space and private sanctuary, Yamamoto is renowned for his desire to contrive human connection. Notable projects include South Korea’s Pangyo Housing development, famous for its commune deck on the first floor. The Hiroshima Nishi Fire Station and the Future University of Hakodate are other significant contributions.
“Yamamoto suggests rather than imposes this shared dimension through understated, yet precise architectural interventions,” the Jury citation continues.
“By including spaces for common activities within, in addition to and even regardless of the main function of his buildings, he allows these to integrate into the quotidian life of the community, instead of being only experienced in exceptional circumstances.
“For creating awareness in the community in what is the responsibility of the social demand, for questioning the discipline of architecture to calibrate each individual architectural response, and above all for reminding us that in architecture, as in democracy, spaces must be created by the resolve of the people, Riken Yamamoto is named the 2024 Pritzker Prize Laureate.”
