Pritzker 2021 awards French architects Lacaton & Vassal

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“There's a lot of violence in urbanism. We try to work with kindness”. Against the violence of demolition, the watchwords of the duo Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal are add, transform and reuse, in a logic of architectural sustainability that ended up getting them the Pritzker Prize 2021. Since 1979 it has laureated names like Oscar Niemeyer, Frank Gehry, Norman Foster or Zaha Hadid, and the Portuguese Eduardo Souto de Moura and Álvaro Siza, and now the Pritzker Prize recognises this duo whose journey shows, according to the jury, that “architecture can have a great impact on our communities and contribute to the awareness that we are not alone”.

Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal met when they were architecture students in Bordeaux, in the late 1970s, and founded their studio in 1987. They were distinguished in 2016 with the Lisbon Triennale Millennium bcp Lifetime Achievement Award and in 2019 with the Mies van der Rohe award. Throughout their extensive career, they have worked on significant projects such as the Tokyo Palace in Paris, making it the largest gallery for temporary exhibitions of contemporary art in France, but it was the consistency of the whole approach in their work that has earned them the Pritzker Prize.

The principle followed by the two architects has been the opposition to full demolition, opting to redevelop, convert and modify buildings, houses, and complexes, understanding that most times architectural projects and renovations can and should be contained so that they are economical in means and resources used. This way, Lacaton & Vassal have stood out in the international architectural scene not for exuberant buildings, but for discreet low-cost modifications in social housing complexes in France. However, they also stand out for more institutional works such as the imposing FRAC Nord-Pas de Calais, an exhibition centre converted from an old warehouse, or the restructuring work of the Nantes School of Architecture, which was the subject of a photograph by Tatiana Macedo for the Natural Beauty exhibition in the context of the Triennale 2019.

“The work of Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal reflects architecture’s democratic spirit”, adds the jury chaired by Alejandro Aravena. “Through their belief that architecture is more than just buildings, through the issues they address and the proposals they realise, through forging a responsible and sometimes solitary path illustrating that the best architecture can be humble and is always thoughtful, respectful, and responsible”.