Novartis (Shanghai) Block - C6, photo courtesy of Arch-Exist
The Pritzker Architecture Prize announces on March 4, 2025 that Liu Jiakun, from Chengdu, People’s Republic of China, as the 2025 Laureate of the Pritzker Architecture Prize, which is regarded internationally as architecture’s highest honor.
“Architecture should reveal something—it should abstract, distill and make visible the inherent qualities of local people. It has the power to shape human behavior and create atmospheres, offering a sense of serenity and poetry, evoking compassion and mercy, and cultivating a sense of shared community,” expresses Liu.
Intertwining seeming antipodes such as utopia versus everyday existence, history versus modernity, and collectivism versus individuality, Liu offers affirming architecture that celebrates the lives of ordinary citizens. He upholds the transcendent power of the built environment through the harmonizing of cultural, historical, emotional and social dimensions, using architecture to forge community, inspire compassion and elevate the human spirit.
“Through an outstanding body of work of deep coherence and constant quality, Liu Jiakun imagines and constructs new worlds, free from any aesthetic or stylistic constraint. Instead of a style, he has developed a strategy that never relies on a recurring method but rather on evaluating the specific characteristics and requirements of each project differently. That is to say, Liu Jiakun takes present realities and handles them to the point of offering sometimes a whole new scenario of daily life. Beyond knowledge and techniques, common sense and wisdom are the most powerful tools he adds to the designer’s toolbox,” states the 2025 Jury Citation, in part.
West Village, photo courtesy of Arch-Exist
Liu creates public areas in populated cities where the luxury of space is largely absent, forging a positive relationship between density and open space. By multiplying typologies within one project, he innovates the role of civic spaces to support the breadth of requisites for a diverse society. West Village (Chengdu, China, 2015) is a five-story project that spans an entire block, visually and contextually contrasting with the matrix of characteristically mid- and high-rise buildings. An open yet enclosed perimeter of sloping pathways for cyclists and pedestrians envelopes its own vibrant city of cultural, athletic, recreational, office and business activities within, while allowing the public to view through to the surrounding natural and built environments. Sichuan Fine Arts Institute Department of Sculpture (Chongqing, China, 2004) displays an alternate solution to maximizing space, with upper levels protruding outward to extend the square footage of a narrow footprint.
Department of Sculpture, Sichuan Fine Arts Institute, photo courtesy of Arch-Exist
Throughout his works, Liu demonstrates a reverence for culture, history and nature, chronicling time and comforting users with familiarity through modern interpretations of classic Chinese architecture. Flat eaves of the Suzhou Museum of Imperial Kiln Brick (Suzhou, China, 2016) and window walls of Lancui Pavilion of Egret Gulf Wetland (Chengdu, China 2013) reimagine the form of pavilions dating back many millennia. Tiered balconies of Novartis (Shanghai) Block - C6 (Shanghai, China, 2014) are reminiscent of towers representing many dynasties. Luyeyuan Stone Sculpture Art Museum (Chengdu, China, 2002), housing Buddhist sculptures and relics, is modeled after a traditional Chinese garden, balancing water and ancient stones to reflect the natural landscape. Believing that the human relationship with nature is reciprocal, buildings both emerge and dissolve within their surroundings, such as The Renovation of Tianbao Cave District of Erlang Town (Luzhou, China, 2021) nestled in the lush cliffside landscape of Tianbao Mountain. Local and wild flora is featured in all of his works, as bricks are paved upended to enable grasses to flourish through the core holes, indigenous bamboo groves are planted in new sites, and floors and ceilings are designed with openings to allow the continuance of existing trees.
Luyeyuan Stone Sculpture Art Museum, photo courtesy of Bi Kejian
The Renovation of Tianbao Cave District of Erlang Town, photo courtesy of Arch-Exist
His honest architecture presents the sincerity of textural materials and processes, displaying imperfections that endure, rather than degrade, through time. He disfavors manufactured product, preferring traditional craft and often using raw local materials that sustain the economy and environment, built for and by the community. The Department of Sculpture building exposes swirling details of authentic Chongqing sand plastering handiwork that are left visible rather than honed. He revives materials—and spirits—upcycling rubble from the ruins of the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake and strengthening it with local wheat fiber and cement to produce fortified bricks with greater physical and economic efficiency than the original. The “Rebirth Bricks” can be found extensively throughout the Novartis building, Shuijingfang Museum (Chengdu, China, 2013) and West Village, his largest work. The devastation also yielded his smallest work to date, Hu Huishan Memorial (Chengdu, China, 2009), in the form of a permanent cement relief tent, exhibited not only for a 15-year-old girl in the aftermath of destruction, but for the collective memory of an entire nation in mourning.
Museum of Clocks, Jianchuan Museum Cluster, photo courtesy of Bi Kejian
Hu Huishan Memorial, photo courtesy of Jiakun Architects
“Liu Jiakun uplifts through the process and purpose of architecture, fostering emotional connections that unite communities,” remarks Tom Pritzker, Chairman of The Hyatt Foundation, which sponsors the award. “There is a wisdom in his architecture, philosophically looking beyond the surface to reveal that history, materials and nature are symbiotic.”
About Liu Jiakun
Liu Jiakun, photo courtesy of The Hyatt Foundation/The Pritzker Architecture Prize
Born in Chengdu, China, Liu Jiakun resides and works in his native city. Liu’s career spans over four decades, with more than thirty projects ranging from academic and cultural institutions to civic spaces, commercial buildings and urban planning throughout China. Significant works also include Museum of Clocks, Jianchuan Museum Cluster (Chengdu, China, 2007); Design Department on new campus, Sichuan Fine Arts Institute (Chongqing, China 2006), Lodging Center of China International Practice Exhibition of Architecture (Nanjing, China, 2012), Chengdu High-Tech Zone Tianfu Software Park Communication Center (Chengdu, China, 2010), and Songyang Culture Neighborhood (Lishui, China, 2020).
Shuijingfang Museum, photo courtesy of Jiakun Architects
His written works have included The Conception of Brightmoon (Times Literature and Art Publishing House, 2014), exploring the conflict between utopias and human life, Narrative Discourse and Low-Tech Strategy (China Architecture & Building Press, 1997), Now and Here (China Architecture & Building Press, 2002) and I Built in West China? (Today Editorial Department, 2009).
Liu has been featured in international exhibitions including Experimental Architecture by Young Chinese Architects - The 20th UIA World Congress of Architects (1999, Beijing, China); TU MU Young Architecture From China (2001, Berlin, Germany); Urban Creation, Shanghai Biennale (2002, Shanghai, China); the 1st, 3rd and 7th Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism/Architecture (2005, 2009 and 2017, Shenzhen, China); the 11th and 15th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia (2008 and 2016, Venice, Italy); the 56th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia (2015, Venice, Italy); Now and Here - Chengdu | Liu Jiakun: Selected Works (2017, Berlin, Germany); and Super Fusion - Chengdu Biennale (2021, Chengdu, China).
Museum of Clocks, Jianchuan Museum Cluster, photo courtesy of Arch-Exist
Currently, he is a visiting professor at the School of Architecture Central Academy of Fine Arts (Beijing, China), and has previously lectured at Cité de l’architecture et du patrimoine (Paris, France), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America), Royal Academy of Arts (London, United Kingdom), and leading institutions in China. Awards have included the Far Eastern Architectural Design, Outstanding Award (2007 and 2017); ASC Grand Architectural Creation Award (2009); Architectural Record China Awards (2010); WA Awards for Chinese Architecture (2016); Building with Nature, Architecture China Award (2020); Sanlian Lifeweek City for Humanity Awards for Public Contribution (2020); and UNESCO Asia-Pacific Awards for Cultural Heritage Conservation, New Design in the Heritage Contexts (2021).
Courtesy of Liu Jiakun and the Pritzker Architecture Prize.
