Advertisement
Architecture and design
LifestyleArts

2025 Pritzker Prize goes to China’s Liu Jiakun for architecture elevating ‘everyday lives’

‘You have to provide poetry’ as well as function, says Chengdu-based Liu. Awards jury hails Liu’s designs that ‘elevate the human spirit’

Reading Time:2 minutes
Why you can trust SCMP
1
Pritzker Prize winner, Chinese architect Liu Jiakun, explains his West Village project in Chengdu, southwest China, using a scale model in his office in the city, where he also lives. He is the 54th winner of the so-called Nobel for architecture. Photo: AP
Agence France-PresseandAssociated Press

The 2025 Pritzker Prize, dubbed the Nobel for architecture, has been awarded to China’s Liu Jiakun, who was recognised for designs that celebrate “everyday lives”.

“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,” the award’s jury wrote in a statement.

Born in 1956, Liu has worked on more than 30 projects in China, ranging from academic and cultural institutions to civic spaces and commercial buildings.

In an interview in his office in Chengdu in China’s southwestern Sichuan region, the architect said he had a simple definition of his profession: “To simplify, the task of architects is to provide a better living environment for human beings.”
Architecture should reveal something – it should abstract, distil and make visible the inherent qualities of local people.
Liu Jiakun, as quoted by Pritzker Prize award jury

“First of all, you do something that is functional. But if it is just like that, it cannot be called architecture. (So) you have to provide poetry,” he said.

Advertisement