In Japanese architect Ricken Yamamoto the Pritzker Award

The Pritzker Award, the highest honorary distinction worldwide in , was given today Tuesday (05/03/2024) to Japanese Ricken Yamamoto. Pritzker’s winner, Ricken Yamamoto is famous for his “relaxive” work which combines architecture and social and sociological concerns, the Chicago-based organization announced. “Riken Yamamoto, architect and social activist” works for “harmonical societies despite different identities, economies, policies, infrastructure and residences”, announces the organizers of the award institution that is often called the Nobel Prize in Architecture. “For me the recognition (of existence) of a space is the recognition of an entire community”, said the honorary born in 1945 in Beijing and emigrated to Yokohama, Japan after World War II. “The present approach of architecture emphasizes privacy, while denying the need for social relations. However, we can continue to respect each person’s freedom by living together in an architectural space, such as a Republic that forges harmony between the cultures and stages of life,” Yamamoto said, which is invoked in an announcement by Pritchker Award organizers. Architecture and democracy Yamamoto was chosen “first because he reminds us that in architecture, as in democracy, spaces should be created by determining populations,” said the jury of the grand prize, according to another press release. “His architecture clearly expresses his faith in the articulated structures and simplicity of its forms. (His architecture) dictates nothing but allows people to shape their lives in residential complexes with elegance, regularity, poetry and joy,” said the jury. For Chilean Alejandro Arabena, chairman of the 2024 jury and award-winning Pritzker in 2016, “one of the things we will need most in the future in cities is the creation of conditions through architecture to multiply opportunities for people to meet and talk.” The Japanese architect is known for his works in residential and public buildings — schools, libraries, municipal service buildings — whose design favours friendly atmosphere and social interactions, where Arabena pointed out, “the border between the public space and the private sphere coincides”. 78-year-old Yamamoto “is an architect who appeases, who brings dignity to everyday life. (When) the usual becomes extraordinary, (when) calm leads to brilliance,” added Chilean architect. Most of Yamamoto’s works and architectural ensembles are located in Japan (Yokosuka Museum of Art dating back to 2006) but also in China (Tianjin library in 2012) and Switzerland (Cycle district at Zurich airport in 2020). Yamamoto, the ninth Japanese architect to receive Pritchker, succeeds British David Chipperfield who received the award in 2023, and architect Francis Kerret (in 2022) from Burkina Faso, the first of African countries to be awarded this distinction.