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Portrait of Zaha Hadid by Steve Double
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For publication on
or after Monday, March 22, 2004 |
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Zaha Hadid
Becomes the First Woman to Receive the
Pritzker Architecture Prize |
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Los Angeles, CA—Zaha Hadid, an Iraqi born
British citizen has been chosen as the 2004 Laureate of the Pritzker
Architecture Prize marking the first time a woman has been named for
this 26 year old award. Hadid, who is 53, has completed one project in
the United States, the Richard and Lois Rosenthal Center for
Contemporary Art in Cincinnati, Ohio; and is currently developing
another to co-exist with a Frank Lloyd Wright structure, the Price
Tower Arts Center in Bartlesville, Oklahoma.
Her other completed projects in Europe include a fire
station for the Vitra Furniture Company in Weil am Rhein, Germany;
LFone/Landesgartenschau, an exhibition building to mark the 1999
garden festival in that same city; a car park and terminus Hoenheim
North, a “park and ride” and tramway on the outskirts of Strasbourg,
France; and a ski jump situated on the Bergisel Mountain overlooking
Innsbruck, Austria.
She has numerous other projects in various stages of
development including a building for BMW in Leipzig, and a Science
Center in Wolfsburg, both in Germany; a National Center of
Contemporary Arts in Rome; a Master Plan for Bilbao, Spain; a
Guggenheim Museum for Taichung, Taiwan; and a high speed train station
outside Naples; and a new public archive, library and sport center in
Montpellier, France.
In announcing the jury’s choice, Thomas J. Pritzker,
president of The Hyatt Foundation, said, “It is gratifying to us as
sponsors of the prize to see our very independent jury honor a woman
for the first time. Although her body of work is relatively small, she
has achieved great acclaim and her energy and ideas show even greater
promise for the future.”
Pritzker Prize jury chairman, Lord Rothschild,
commented, “At the same time as her theoretical and academic work, as
a practicing architect, Zaha Hadid has been unswerving in her
commitment to modernism. Always inventive, she’s moved away from
existing typology, from high tech, and has shifted the geometry of
buildings.” Continuing, Lord Rothschild
said, “In her fourth year at the Architectural Association in London,
as a student of Rem Koolhaas (himself a recent recipient of the
Pritzker Prize) her graduation project was called Malevich’s Tectonik.
She placed a hotel on the Hungerford Bridge on the Rivers Thames,
drawing from suprematist forms to meet the demands of the programme
and the site. It’s a happy coincidence therefore that this year’s
prize ceremony should be taking place in St. Petersburg, Russia, where
Malevich lived and worked, a city of extraordinary beauty and
originality.”
The formal ceremony for what has come to be known
throughout the world as architecture's highest honor will be held on
May 31, 2004. At that time, a $100,000 grant and a bronze medallion
will be bestowed in the State Hermitage Museum followed by a reception
and dinner in the Grand Peterhof Palace. The prize presentation
ceremony moves to different locations around the world each year,
paying homage to historic and contemporary architecture.
Juror Frank Gehry, who is also the 1989 Pritzker
Laureate, said, “The 2004 laureate is probably one of the youngest
laureates and has one of the clearest architectural trajectories we’ve
seen in many years. Each project unfolds with new excitement and
innovation." A new juror this year, journalist Karen Stein who is
editorial director of Phaidon Press, commented, “Over the past 25 years,
Zaha Hadid has built a career on defying convention—conventional ideas
of architectural space, of practice, of representation and of
construction.”
Rolf Fehlbaum, chairman of the board of Vitra, who also
became a juror this year, said, “Without ever building, Zaha Hadid
would have radically expanded architecture’s repertoire of spatial
articulation. Now that the implementation in complex buildings is
happening, the power of her innovation is fully revealed."
Juror and architecture critic Ada Louise Huxtable said
of the choice, “Zaha Hadid is one of the most gifted practitioners of
the art of architecture today. From the earliest drawings and models
to current buildings and work in progress, there has been a
consistently original and strong personal vision that has changed the
way we see and experience space. Hadid’s fragmented geometry and fluid
mobility do more than create an abstract, dynamic beauty; this is a
body of work that explores and expresses the world we live in”
Another juror, Carlos Jimenez from Houston who is
professor of architecture at Rice University, said, “Presaged by an
inimitable graphic and formal exuberance, Zaha Hadid’s work reminds us
that architecture is a siphon for collective energies, a far cry from
the stand alone building, perennially oblivious to the vitality of the
city.”
And from juror Jorge Silvetti, who is a Professor of
Architecture, Graduate School of Design at Harvard University, “Zaha
Hadid’s buildings are today among the most convincing arguments for
the primacy of architecture in the production of space. What she has
achieved with her inimitable manipulation of walls, ground planes and
roofs, with those transparent, interwoven and fluid spaces, are vivid
proof that architecture as a fine art has not run out of steam and is
hardly wanting in imagination."
Bill Lacy, an architect, spoke as the executive director of the
Pritzker Prize, “Only rarely does an architect emerge with a
philosophy and approach to the art form that influences the direction
of the entire field. Such an architect is Zaha Hadid who has patiently
created and refined a vocabulary that sets new boundaries for the art
of architecture.”
The purpose of the Pritzker Architecture Prize is to
honor annually a living architect whose built work demonstrates a
combination of those qualities of talent, vision and commitment, which
has produced consistent and significant contributions to humanity and
the built environment through the art of architecture. The prize was
established in 1979 by The Hyatt Foundation.
Hadid is the third architect from the United Kingdom to be awarded the Pritzker Prize: the late James Stirling of Great Britain was elected
in 1981, and in 1999 Lord (then Sir Norman) Foster. Philip Johnson was
the first Pritzker Laureate in 1979. The late Luis Barragán of Mexico
was named in 1980. Kevin Roche in 1982, Ieoh Ming Pei in 1983, and
Richard Meier in 1984. Hans Hollein of Austria was the 1985 Laureate.
Gottfried Böhm of Germany received the prize in 1986. Kenzo Tange was
the first Japanese architect to receive the prize in 1987; Fumihiko
Maki was the second from Japan in 1993; and Tadao Ando the third in
1995. Robert Venturi received the honor in 1991, and Alvaro Siza of
Portugal in 1992. Christian de Portzamparc of France was elected
Pritzker Laureate in 1994. The late Gordon Bunshaft of the United
States and Oscar Niemeyer of Brazil, were named in 1988. Frank Gehry
was the recipient in 1989, the late Aldo Rossi of Italy in 1990. In
1996, Rafael Moneo of Spain was the Laureate; in 1997 Sverre Fehn of
Norway; in 1998 Renzo Piano of Italy, and in 2000, Rem Koolhaas of the
Netherlands. In 2001, two architects from Switzerland received the
honor: Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron. Australian Glenn Murcutt
won the prize in 2002. Danish architect Jørn Utzon was chosen in 2003.
The field of architecture was chosen by the Pritzker family because of
their keen interest in building due to their involvement with
developing the Hyatt Hotels around the world; also because
architecture was a creative endeavor not included in the Nobel Prizes.
The procedures were modeled after the Nobels, with the final selection
being made by the international jury with all deliberations and voting
in secret. Nominations are continuous from year to year with hundreds
of nominees from countries all around the world being considered each
year. |
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| The bronze medallion awarded to each Laureate of
the Pritzker Architecture Prize is based on designs of Louis Sullivan,
famed Chicago architect generally acknowledged as the father of the
skyscraper. On one side is the name of the prize. On the reverse,
three words are inscribed, “firmness, commodity and delight,” These
are the three conditions referred to by Henry Wotton in his 1624
treatise, The Elements of Architecture, which was a translation of
thoughts originally set down nearly 2000 years ago by Marcus Vitruvius
in his Ten Books on Architecture, dedicated to the Roman Emperor
Augustus. Wotton, who did the translation when he was England’s first
ambassador to Venice, used the complete quote as: “The end is to build
well. Well-building hath three conditions: commodity, firmness and
delight.” |
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| The Jury |
CHAIRMAN
The Lord Rothschild
Former Chairman of the Board of Trustees, National Gallery
Former Chairman, National Heritage Memorial Fund
London, England |
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Rolf Fehlbaum
Chairman of the Board, Vitra
Germany |
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Frank O. Gehry
Architect and Pritzker Laureate 1989
Los Angeles, California |
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Ada Louise Huxtable
Author and Architectural Critic
New York, New York |
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Carlos Jimenez
Professor, Rice University School of Architecture
Principal, Carlos Jimenez Studio
Houston, Texas |
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Karen Stein
Editorial Director
Phaidon Press
New York, New York |
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Jorge Silvetti
Professor of Architecture
Harvard University, Graduate School of Design
Cambridge, Massachusetts |
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EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Bill Lacy
State University of New York at Purchase
Purchase, New York |
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Citation from the
Jury |
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The architectural career of Zaha Hadid has not been traditional or
easy. She entered the field with illustrious credentials. Born in
Baghdad, she studied at the highly regarded Architectural Association
in London, was a partner in the avant gard Office of Metropolitan
Architecture with Rem Koolhaas, and has held prestigious posts at one
time or another at the world’s finest universities including Harvard,
Yale, and many others. Much admired
by the younger generation of architects, her appearance on campuses is
always a cause for excitement and overflowing audiences.
Her path to world-wide recognition has been an heroic struggle as she
inexorably rose to the highest ranks of the profession. Clients,
journalists, fellow professionals are mesmerized by her dynamic forms
and strategies for achieving a truly distinctive approach to
architecture and its settings. Each new project is more audacious than
the last and the sources of her originality seem endless.
Ms. Hadid has become more and more recognized as she continues to win
competition after competition, always struggling to get her very
original winning entries built. Discouraged, but undaunted, she has
used the competition experiences as a “laboratory” for continuing to
hone her exceptional talent in creating an architectural idiom like no
other.
It is not surprising that one of the architects whose work Ms. Hadid
admires is another Pritzker Prize winner, the preeminent South
American author of Brasilia, and other major works — Oscar Niemeyer.
They share a certain fearlessness in their work and both are unafraid
of risk that comes inevitably with their respective vocabularies of
bold visionary forms.
The competition winning phase of Ms. Hadid’s career gradually began to
result in built works such as the Vitra Fire Station, the LFone in
Weil am Rhein, the Mind Zone in the Millennium Dome and reached a
recent high point with the opening of the critically acclaimed
Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art in Cincinnati, Ohio.
The full dimensions of Ms. Hadid’s prodigious artistic outpouring of
work is apparent not only in architecture, but in exhibition designs,
stage sets, furniture, paintings, and drawings.
The jury is pleased to acknowledge one of the great architects at the
dawning of the 21st century by awarding the 2004 Pritzker Architecture
Prize to Zaha Hadid, to commend her extraordinary achievements, and to
wish her continued success. |
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Note to editors: The following are some
additional comments
from individual Pritzker Prize Jurors: |
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“For the first time, a woman — and a very remarkable one — has
been awarded the Pritzker Prize. Zaha Hadid, born in Iraq, has worked
throughout her life in London — but such are the forces of
conservatism that sadly one cannot find one single building of hers in
the capital city where she has made her home. For more than a decade
she was admired for her genius in envisioning spaces which lesser
imaginations believed could not be built. For those who were prepared
to take the risk from Vitra’s Fire Station to a ski jump on a mountain
side in Austria, to a tram station in France, and more recently to a
museum building in a town in the deep mid-west of the United States,
the impact has been transforming.
At the same time as her theoretical and academic work, as a practising
architect she has been unswerving in her commitment to modernism.
Always inventive, she’s moved away from existing typology, from high
tech, and has shifted the geometry of buildings. No project of hers is
like the one before, but the defining characteristics remain
consistent.”Lord Jacob Rothshild
Pritzker Jury Chairman
“Zaha Hadid is one of the most gifted practitioners of
the art of architecture today. From the earliest drawings and models
to current buildings and work in progress, there has been a
consistently original and strong personal vision that has changed the
way we see and experience space. Hadid’s fragmented geometry and fluid
mobility do more than create an abstract, dynamic beauty; this is a
body of work that explores and expresses the world we live in.”
Ada Louise Huxtable
Pritzker Juror
"Presaged by an inimitable graphic and formal
exuberance, Zaha Hadid’s work reminds us that architecture is a siphon
for collective energies, a far cry from the stand alone building,
perennially oblivious to the vitality of the city. Buildings for Hadid
are thresholds, passageways, that reveal or intersect the ever
shifting actions of the city. Her work celebrates this encounter as
the catalyst through which hidden, past, present or future events
revolve."
Carlos Jimenez
Pritzker Juror
“Over the past 25 years, Zaha Hadid has built a career
on defying convention—conventional ideas of architectural space, of
practice, of representation and of construction. It is not, however,
that we admire the radical merely for its own sake, but rather
recognize here a particularly exquisite balance of extremes that is
indeed revolutionary. The work, like the person, is not easily
categorized: outrageous yet thoughtful, otherworldly yet deeply rooted
in historical tradition, one of a kind yet a role model for a
generation, fluid in effect yet leaving a powerfully fixed impression,
but above all characterized by a daring, restless energy that
stretches known limits of architecture and soars.”
Karen Stein
Pritzker Juror
“The 2004 laureate is probably one of the youngest
laureates and has one of the clearest architectural trajectories we’ve
seen in many years. Each project unfolds with new excitement and
innovation."
Frank Gehry
Pritzker Juror
“Zaha Hadid’s buildings are today among the most
convincing arguments for the primacy of architecture in the production
of space. What she has achieved with her inimitable manipulation of
walls, ground planes and roofs, with those transparent, interwoven and
fluid spaces, are vivid proof that architecture as a fine art has not
run out of steam and is hardly wanting in imagination. I gave my vote
this year to Zaha as a tribute to her talent, to the role model she
represents, to the optimism that her work exudes, and to the integrity
and uncompromising ethic stands she has taken in defense of
architectural imagination and freedom."
Jorge Silvetti
Pritzker Juror
“Without ever building, Zaha Hadid would have
radically expanded architecture’s repertoire of spatial articulation.
Now that the implementation in complex buildings is happening, the
power of her innovation is fully revealed."
Rolf Fehlbaum
Pritzker Juror
“Only rarely does an architect emerge with a
philosophy and approach to the art form that influences the direction
of the entire field. Such an architect is Zaha Hadid who has patiently
created and refined a vocabulary that sets new boundaries for the art
of architecture.”
Bill Lacy
Executive Director |
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Zaha
Hadid – Biography in Brief |
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Born in Baghdad, Iraq in 1950, Zaha Hadid
studied architecture at the Architectural Association in London from
1972 and was awarded the Diploma Prize in 1977. She then became a
partner of the Office for Metropolitan Architecture, taught at the AA
with OMA collaborators Rem Koolhaas and Elia Zenghelis, and later led
her own studio at the AA until 1987.
More recently, she held the Kenzo Tange Chair at the
Graduate School of Design, Harvard University; the Sullivan Chair at
the University of Illinois, School of Architecture in Chicago; and has
held guest professorships at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste in
Hamburg, the Knolton School of Architecture, Ohio and the Masters
Studio at Columbia University, New York. In addition, she was made an
Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Fellow
of the American Institute of Architecture and a Commander of the
British Empire, 2002. She is currently Professor at the University of
Applied Arts in Vienna, Austria and is the Eero Saarinen Visiting
Professor of Architectural Design for the Spring Semester 2004 at Yale
University, New Haven, Connecticut.
Hadid has become known as an architect who consistently
pushes the boundaries of architecture and urban design. Her work
experiments with new spatial concepts intensifying existing urban
landscapes in the pursuit of a visionary aesthetic that encompasses
all fields of design, ranging from urban scale through to products,
interiors and furniture. Best known for her seminal built works, her
central concerns involve a simultaneous engagement in practice,
teaching and research. |
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Built Works |
| Zaha Hadid’s built work has won her much academic and public
acclaim. Her best known projects to date are the Vitra Fire Station
and the LFone pavilion in Weil am Rhein, Germany (1993/1999), the Mind
Zone at the Millennium Dome, Greenwich, London, UK (1999), a Tram
Station and Car Park in Strasbourg, France (2001), a Ski Jump in
Innsbruck, Austria (2002) and the Contemporary Arts Centre,
Cincinnati, US (2003). She has also completed furniture and interiors:
Bitar, London (1985); Moonsoon Restaurant, Sapporo (1990); Z-Play
(2002) and Z-Scape (2000) furniture manufactured by Sawaya and Moroni;
and the Tea and Coffee Towers for Alessi (2003). Her temporary
structures include: Folly in Osaka (1990); Music Video Pavilion in
Groningen, Netherlands (1990); a Pavilion for Blueprint Magazine at
Interbuild, Birmingham (1995); the installation Meshworks at the Villa
Medici, Rome, Italy (2000) the summer pavilion for the Serpentine
Gallery, London, UK (2000); and the R. Lopez de Heredia Vina Tondonia
Pavilion, Barcelona, Spain (2001). Zaha Hadid has also worked on a
number of stage sets: Pet Shop Boys World Tour (1999/2000); Metapolis,
for Charleroi Dance production company, Belgium (2000); and Beat
Furrer’s opera, Desire, commissioned by the Steirischer Herbst, Graz
(2003), and an Ice and Snow Installation in Lapland. |
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Current Projects |
| Zaha Hadid’s office is working on a variety of projects: the
Contemporary Arts Centre “MAXXI” in Rome, Italy; the Ordrupgaard
Museum extension in Copenhagen, Denmark; a Guggenheim Museum in
Taichung; a Science Centre in Wolfsburg, Germany; a Maritime Ferry
Terminal in Salerno, Italy; a High Speed Train Station in
Napoli-Afragola, Italy; a public square and cinema complex in
Barcelona, Spain; a masterplan for Singapore’s Science Hub; a
masterplan for Bilbao’s Zorrozaurre district, Spain; a masterplan for
Beijing’s Soho City, China; the interior design for “Hotel Puerta
America” in Madrid, Spain; a Central Plant Building for BMW in
Leipzig, Germany; a social housing project ‘Spittelau Viaduct’ in
Vienna, Austria; a major bridge structure in Abu Dhabi; the Maggie’s
Centre in Kirkcaldy, Scotland; an extension of the Price Tower Arts
Centre in Bartlesville, USA; the Opera House in Guangzhou, China; and
a new archive, library, and sport center in Montpellier, France. |
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Project List |
| Each of the following projects has its own description (with
photos) in PDF form which have been provided by Zaha Hadid’s office.
By placing your cursor on the project title, you can click on the link
to open the full description. Most browsers open in a large scale, so
you may have to change the size in Acrobat to “fit in window” to see
the whole page. There are several pages with photos and descriptions.
Usually on the last page of the pdf, there are thumbnails of all the
images. If you need high resolution photos for printing in your
publication or for use on air, you will find certain of the thumbnails
have blue outlines. By clicking on any of the outlined photos, you
will be linked to a high resolution image file that is in “eps” format
(which can be converted in Photoshop to whatever format you prefer).
When the file download box comes up, you then click on “save.” When
the “save as” box comes up, some browsers change the extension to “ps”
in the file name box, simply change “ps” to “eps” and go ahead with
the download, navigating to where you want to save the file. If
publishing any photos, please be sure to use the photo credit given
for the photographer. |
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Built Projects |
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Vitra Fire Station, Weil am Rhein, Germany
LFone Landesgartenschau, Weil am Rhein, Germany
Car Park and Terminus, Strasbourg, France
Bergisel Ski Jump, Innsbruck, Austria
The Richard and Lois Rosenthal Center for
Contemporary Art, Cincinnati, Ohio, USA |
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Current Projects |
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BMW Central Building, Leipzig, Germany
Maxxi: National Centre of Contemporary Arts, Rome, Italy
Phaeno Science Center Wolfsburg, Wolfsburg, Germany
Guggenheim Museum, Taichung, Taiwan
High Speed Train Station Napoli-Afragola, Naples, Italy
Herault Culture Sport, Montpellier, France
Zorrozaurre Master Plan, Bilbao, Spain
Price Tower Arts Centre, Batlesville, Oklahoma, USA |
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Unbuilt Projects |
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Cardiff Opera House, Cardiff, Wales, UK
The Peak, Kowloon, Hong Kong
KMR, Art and Media Centre, Dusseldorf, Germany
Malevich’s Tektonik, London, UK |
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2004
Pritzker Prize Ceremony Will Be Held
in the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg |
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The State Hermitage Museum of St.
Petersburg, Russia will be the site for the ceremony awarding the 2004
Pritzker Architecture Prize to Zaha Hadid on Monday, May 31.
The international prize, which is awarded each year to
a living architect for lifetime achievement, was established by the
Pritzker family of Chicago through their Hyatt Foundation in 1979.
Often referred to as “architecture’s Nobel” and “the profession’s
highest honor,” the Pritzker Prize has been awarded to seven
Americans, and (including this year) twenty-two architects from
fourteen other countries. The presentation ceremonies move around the
world each year, paying homage to the architecture of other eras
and/or works by previous laureates of the prize.
“It is particularly appropriate for the pre-eminent
prize in architecture to be holding its annual ceremony in this city
acclaimed for its beauty since its inception three centuries ago,”
explained Lord Rothschild, the chairman of the Pritzker Architecture
Prize jury. “And even more so since St. Petersburg has been
celebrating the 300th anniversary of its founding.”
Echoing those words, Thomas J. Pritzker, president of The Hyatt
Foundation which sponsors the prize, noted, “We have just celebrated
our 25th anniversary, making us mere babes in the woods compared to
St. Petersburg. But our mission is to honor living architects so that
in the future, perhaps they will not fade into anonymity, as many of
the great architects of world landmarks have done. We are honored that
Professor Piotrovsky, the director of the State Hermitage Museum, has
invited us to hold our ceremony there. Over the years, these events
have evolved, becoming, in effect, an international grand tour of
architecture.”
Professor Mikail B. Piotrovsky responded, “We are very
pleased that the Pritzker Prize ceremony, which has been held in many
distinguished places is now coming to St. Petersburg. The State
Hermitage Museum, a great museum and architectural monument comprising
several epochs and styles, is particularly welcoming architects and
lovers of architecture from around the world for that remarkable
celebration.”
As the ceremony locations are usually chosen each year
before the laureate is selected, there is no intended connection
beyond the two. Retrospectively, buildings by Laureates of the
Pritzker Prize, such as the National Gallery of Art’s East Building
designed by I.M. Pei, or Richard Meier’s Getty Center in Los Angeles,
and Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain have all been
award sites.
There is a tradition of
moving the ceremony to sites of historic and/or architectural
significance around the world. It was held twice in Italy, the first
being in 1990 at the Palazzo Grassi in Venice when the late Aldo Rossi
received the prize. The second time was in 2002 when Glenn Murcutt
received the award in Michelangelo’s Campidoglio Square in Rome.
In some instances, places of historic interest such as France’s Palace
of Versailles and Grand Trianon, Todai-ji Buddhist Temple in Japan, or
Prague Castle in The Czech Republic have been chosen as ceremony
venues.
Some of the most beautiful museums have hosted the
event, including the already mentioned Palazzo Grassi: Chicago’s Art
Institute (using the Chicago Stock Exchange Trading Room designed by
Louis Sullivan and his partner, Dankmar Adler, which was preserved
when the Stock Exchange building was torn down in 1972. The Trading
Room was then reconstructed in the museum’s new wing in 1977).
New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art provided the
setting in 1982 using Laureate Kevin Roche’s pavilion for the Temple
of Dendur. In homage to the late Louis Kahn, the ceremony was held in
Fort Worth’s Kimbell Art Museum in 1987. California’s Huntington
Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens was the setting in
l985. In 1992, the just-completed Harold Washington Library Center in
Chicago was the location where Alvaro Siza of Portugal received the
prize.
The 20th anniversary of the prize was hosted at the
White House since in a way, the Pritzker Prize roots are in Washington
where the first two ceremonies were held. The first being at Dumbarton
Oaks, where a major addition to the original estate, had been designed
by yet another Pritzker Laureate — in fact, the first laureate, Philip
Johnson. Two other Washington venues, The National Building Museum and
the already mentioned National Gallery of Art have both hosted the
prize ceremony.
Last year, the King and Queen of Spain presided over
the ceremony in the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando in
Madrid, when the Danish architect Jørn Utzon was honored.
In 2000 in Jerusalem, the Herodian Street excavation in
the shadow of the Temple Mount provided the most ancient of the
venues. Just two years ago, the ceremony was held at Monticello, the
home designed by Thomas Jefferson, who was not only an architect, but
the third president of the United States, who also authored the
Declaration of Independence.
One of the founding jurors of the Pritzker Prize, the
late Lord Clark of Saltwood, as art historian Kenneth Clark, perhaps
best known for his television series and book, Civilisation, said at
one of the ceremonies, “A great historical episode can exist in our
imagination almost entirely in the form of architecture. Very few of
us have read the texts of early Egyptian literature. Yet we feel we
know those infinitely remote people almost as well as our immediate
ancestors, chiefly because of their sculpture and architecture.”
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A Brief History of
the Pritzker Architecture Prize |
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The Pritzker Architecture Prize was
established by The Hyatt Foundation in 1979 to honor annually a living
architect whose built work demonstrates a combination of those
qualities of talent, vision, and commitment, which has produced
consistent and significant contributions to humanity and the built
environment through the art of architecture. It has often been
described as “architecture’s most prestigious award” or as “the Nobel
of architecture.”
The prize takes its name from the Pritzker family,
whose international business interests are headquartered in Chicago.
They have long been known for their support of educational, religious,
social welfare, scientific, medical and cultural activities. Jay A.
Pritzker, who founded the prize with his wife, Cindy, died on January
23, 1999. His eldest son, Thomas J. Pritzker has become president of
The Hyatt Foundation.
He explains, “As native Chicagoans, it's not surprising
that our family was keenly aware of architecture, living in the
birthplace of the skyscraper, a city filled with buildings designed by
architectural legends such as Louis Sullivan, Frank Lloyd Wright, Mies
van der Rohe, and many others. ” He continues, “In 1967, we acquired
an unfinished building which was to become the Hyatt Regency Atlanta.
Its soaring atrium was wildly successful and became the signature
piece of our hotels around the world. It was immediately apparent that
this design had a pronounced affect on the mood of our guests and
attitude of our employees. While the architecture of Chicago made us
cognizant of the art of architecture, our work with designing and
building hotels made us aware of the impact architecture could have on
human behavior. So in 1978, when we were approached with the idea of
honoring living architects, we were responsive. Mom and Dad (Cindy and
the late Jay A. Pritzker) believed that a meaningful prize would
encourage and stimulate not only a greater public awareness of
buildings, but also would inspire greater creativity within the
architectural profession.” He went on to add that he is extremely
proud to carry on that effort on behalf of his mother and the rest of
the family.
Many of the procedures and
rewards of the Pritzker Prize are modeled after the Nobel Prize.
Laureates of the Pritzker Architecture Prize receive a $100,000 grant,
a formal citation certificate, and since 1987, a bronze medallion.
Prior to that year, a limited edition Henry Moore sculpture was
presented to each Laureate.
Nominations are accepted from all nations; from
government officials, writers, critics, academicians, fellow
architects, architectural societies, or industrialists, virtually
anyone who might have an interest in advancing great architecture. The
prize is awarded irrespective of nationality, race, creed, or
ideology.
The nominating procedure is continuous from year to
year, closing in January each year. Nominations received after the
closing are automatically considered in the following calendar year.
There are well over 500 nominees from more than 47 countries to date.
The final selection is made by an international jury with all
deliberation and voting in secret. |
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The Evolution of
the Jury |
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The first jury assembled in 1979
consisted of the late J. Carter Brown, then director of the National
Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.; J. Irwin Miller, then chairman of
the executive and finance committee of Cummins Engine Company; Cesar
Pelli, architect and at the time, dean of the Yale University School
of Architecture; Arata Isozaki, architect from Japan; and the late
Kenneth Clark (Lord Clark of Saltwood), noted English author and art
historian.
The jury that selected Zaha Hadid as the 2004 laureate
comprises the chairman, Lord Rothschild, former chairman of the
National Heritage Memorial Fund, and former chairman of the board of
trustees of the National Gallery in London; Rolf Fehlbaum, chairman of
the board of Vitra in Germany; Frank Gehry, architect and 1989
Prtizker Laureate; Ada Louise Huxtable, American author and
architectural critic; Carlos Jimenez, a principal of Carlos Jimenez
Studio and professor at the Rice University School of Architecture in
Houston, Texas; and Jorge Silvetti, architect and professor of
architecture, Department of Architecture, Harvard University Graduate
School of Design; and Karen Stein, editorial director of Phaidon Press,
New York.
Others who have served
include the late Thomas J. Watson, Jr., former chairman of IBM; the
late Giovanni Agnelli, former chairman of Fiat; Toshio Nakamura,
former editor of A+U in Japan; and American architects Philip Johnson
and Kevin Roche; as well as architects Ricardo Legorreta of Mexico,
Fumihiko Maki of Japan, and Charles Correa of India.
Bill Lacy, architect and advisor to the J. Paul Getty
Trust and many other foundations, as well as a professor at State
University of New York at Purchase, is executive director of the
prize. Previous secretaries to the jury were the late Brendan Gill,
who was architecture critic of The New Yorker magazine; and the late
Carleton Smith. From the prize's founding until his death in 1986,
Arthur Drexler, who was the director of the department of architecture
and design at The Museum of Modern Art in New York City, was a
consultant to the jury. |
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Television Symposium Marked Tenth Anniversary of the Prize |
“Architecture has long been considered
the mother of all the arts,” is how the distinguished journalist Edwin
Newman, serving as moderator, opened the television symposium
Architecture and the City: Friends or Foes? “Building and decorating
shelter was one of the first expressions of man’s creativity, but we
take for granted most of the places in which we work or live,” he
continued. “Architecture has become both the least and the most
conspicuous of art forms.”
With a panel that included three architects, a critic,
a city planner, a developer, a mayor, a lawyer, a museum director, an
industrialist, an educator, an administrator, the symposium explored
problems facing everyone — not just those who live in big cities, but
anyone involved in community life. Some of the questions discussed:
what should be built, how much, where, when, what will it look like,
what controls should be allowed, and who should impose them?
For complete details on the symposium which was
produced in the tenth anniversary year of the prize, please go the "pritzkerprize.com"
web site, where you can also view the video tape of the symposium. |
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Exhibitions and Book
on the Pritzker Prize |
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The Art of Architecture, a
circulating exhibition of the work of Laureates of the Pritzker
Architecture Prize, had its world premiere at the Harold Washington
Library Center in Chicago in 1992. The European debut was in Berlin at
the Deutsches Architektur Zentrum in in 1995. It was also shown at the
Karntens Haus der Architektur in Klagenfurt, Austria in 1996, and in
1997, in South America, at the Architecture Biennale in Saõ Paulo,
Brazil. In the U.S. it has been shown at the Gallery of Fine Art,
Edison Community College in Ft. Myers, Florida; the Fine Arts Gallery
at Texas A&M University; the National Building Museum in Washington,
D.C.; The J. B. Speed Museum in Louisville, Kentucky; the Canton Art
Institute, Ohio; the Indianapolis Museum of Art Columbus Gallery,
Indiana; the Washington State University Museum of Art in Pullman,
Washington; the University of Nebraska, and Brigham Young University
in Provo, Utah. Its most recent showings were in Costa Mesa,
California; and museums in Poland and Turkey. A smaller version of the
exhibit was shown at the White House ceremony in 1998, and will be
shown this year at the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg.
Another exhibition, designed by Carlos Jimenez, titled,
The Pritzker Architecture Prize 1979-1999, which was organized
by The Art Institute of Chicago and celebrated the first twenty years
of the prize and the works of the laureates, was shown in Chicago in
1999 and in Toronto at the Royal Ontario Museum in 2000. It provided,
through drawings, original sketches, photographs, plans and models, an
opportunity to view some of the most important architects that have
shaped the architecture of this century.
A book with texts by the late J. Carter Brown, Bill
Lacy, British journalist Colin Amery, and William J. R. Curtis, was
produced to accompany the exhibition, and is still available.
Co-published by Abrams of New York and The Art Institute of Chicago,
the 206 page book was edited by co-curator Martha Thorne. It presents
an analytical history of the prize along with examples of buildings by
the laureates illustrated in full color. The book celebrates the first
twenty years of the prize and the works of the laureates, providing an
opportunity to analyze the significance of the prize and its
evolution. |
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The bronze medallion awarded to each
Laureate of the Pritzker Architecture Prize is based on designs of
Louis Sullivan, famed Chicago architect generally acknowledged as the
father of the skyscraper. On one side is the name of the prize. On the
reverse, three words are inscribed, “firmness, commodity and delight,”
These are the three conditions refer red to by Henry Wotton in his
1624 treatise, The Elements of Architecture, which was a translation
of thoughts originally set down nearly 2000 years ago by Marcus
Vitruvius in his Ten Books on Architecture, dedicated to the Roman
Emperor Augustus. Wotton, who did the translation when he was
England’s first ambassador to Venice, used the complete quote as: “The
end is to build well. Well-building hath three conditions: commodity,
fir mness and delight.” |
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