Latest news with #LiuJiakun
The National
06-05-2025
- General
- The National
Liu Jiakun receives 2025 Pritzker Architecture Prize at Louvre Abu Dhabi ceremony
Liu Jiakun has been awarded the Pritzker Architecture Prize in a ceremony at Louvre Abu Dhabi. Monday's event was the first time the UAE capital had hosted the ceremony for the prestigious accolade, which is intended to honour a living architect whose work shows 'talent, vision and commitment', according to the Pritzker Prize's website. Liu is difficult to box into a specific aesthetic, however, the Chinese architect is driven by a clear and steadfast ethos. He is renowned for spurning style in favour of social requirements, and his designs are informed by the purpose of the site and the materials that are readily available. For Liu, architecture should not be applied. Rather, it should be cultivated organically from the local context. Perhaps it is for this reason that several of his designs were constructed in the city he knows best – his hometown of Chengdu, capital of the Sichuan province. 'Architecture should reveal something,' he said in a statement shared by the Pritzker Prize. 'It should abstract, distil and make visible the inherent qualities of local people. It has the power to shape human behaviour and create atmospheres, offering a sense of serenity and poetry, evoking compassion and mercy, and cultivating a sense of shared community.' Liu's works include the Luyeyuan Stone Sculpture Art Museum, which incorporates elements from a traditional Chinese garden. This ability to smoothly blend architecture within natural topography can also be seen in his renovation of the Tianbao Cave District. He is also known for his work following the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, in which he repurposed rubble as materials for new projects. He used this 'rebirth brick' approach in his designs for the Novartis Shanghai Campus, Xicun Compound and Shuijingfang Museum. The most famous and poignant example of the technique is his Hu Huishan Memorial, a structure named in honour of a 15-year-old girl who died in the earthquake. '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,' the 2025 jury for the Pritzker Prize, chaired by Chilean architect Alejandro Aravena, said in a statement. '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.' Liu shared insights into his practice during a discussion at the Cultural Foundation Abu Dhabi on Saturday, May 3. He was joined by other Pritzker laureates including the Japanese architect Riken Yamamoto and the British architect David Chipperfield. The three discussed the potential for architecture to honour culture while simultaneously bolstering communities.
Arab Times
05-03-2025
- General
- Arab Times
Pritzker Prize goes to Liu Jiakun of China, recognized for architecture that honors ordinary lives
NEW YORK, March 5, (AP): The annual Pritzker Architecture Prize has been awarded to Liu Jiakun of China, who earned the field's highest honor for "affirming architecture that celebrates the lives of ordinary citizens,' organizers announced Tuesday. Liu, 68, becomes the 54th laureate of the prize, considered akin to a Nobel in the field of architecture. In an interview with The Associated Press 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,' he said, speaking in Mandarin. "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." Liu is known for creating public areas in highly populated cities where there is little public space, "forging a positive relationship between density and open space,' a Pritzker statement said. The architect "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,' the statement said. Among his 30 or so projects, which range from academic institutions to commercial buildings to civic spaces, organizers cited in particular his 2015 West Village in Chengdu, which spans a block. The five-story project includes a perimeter of pathways for cyclists and pedestrians around "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.' They also noted the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute Department of Sculpture in Chongqing, which they said displays an alternate solution to maximizing space, "with upper levels protruding outward to extend the square footage of a narrow footprint.' Liu was born in 1956 in Chengdu and sent at age 17, during the Cultural Revolution, to labor on a farm in the countryside. He has said life felt inconsequential - until he was accepted to architecture school in Chongqing, where he "suddenly realized my own life was important.' In the interview Sunday in his office in Chengdu, Liu said the speed of change in China during his early adulthood was "very fast, and it was turning things upside down. Even until now, sometimes I feel like I have lived several lifetimes.' Liu established his practice, Jiakun Architects, in 1999. He said he is not one of those architects who likes to have a strongly recognizable visual style. Rather, Liu said, he pays more attention to method and strategy. "Many architects use a strong personal style and form to gain a foothold in the world,' Liu said. "No matter where it is, people can tell immediately that it is his or her work with a very strong symbolism. But I am not such a kind of architect.' "I don't want to have a very clear or obvious style that can be recognized as mine just at a glance,' he said. "I take a more methodological and strategic approach. I hope that when I go to a specific place, I can use my methodology and strategy to adapt to local conditions. I like to fully understand the place, and then look for resources, problems … and then distill and refine, and finally turn (this) into my work.' Liu also said he tries to balance his country's artistic and architectural heritage with the realities of modern technology. "I think China's traditional architecture is of course brilliant and very classic,' he said, "but it is a product of its time.' He said he hopes to deeply understand "the thematic part of tradition that can survive,' and then express it with contemporary technology and language. In that way, he said, "tradition can be used as a core … but the presentation of your work is contemporary.' Liu said he also seeks to balance commercial imperatives with civic concerns. "The rapid development of cities nowadays is basically driven by capital. It is natural for capital to pursue profits,' he said. But he added: "You have to leave the public the space they deserve. Only in this way can the development of a city be positive and healthy, rather than being completely high-density, where people live in drawers and boxes … without even a place to go and no space for communication.' The Pritzker Architecture Prize was established in 1979 by the late entrepreneur Jay A. Pritzker and his wife, Cindy. Winners receive a $100,000 grant and a bronze medallion. Asked if he thought the honor would impact his life, Liu replied: "I have thought about it. But I want to maintain normalcy … I don't want to become nervous about everything. Of course, it has its advantages. I will definitely not need to promote myself too much. But will it also make me better at work? Not necessarily. Excessive expectations may become a pressure.' He had another concern, too. "And will it make me too busy and prevent me from working more attentively?' he pondered. "I hope to keep the normalcy and the freedom, as well as calmness.'
Associated Press
05-03-2025
- General
- Associated Press
The annual Pritzker Architecture Prize has been awarded to Liu Jiakun from China
Video The annual Pritzker Architecture Prize has been awarded to Liu Jiakun, who earned the field's highest honor for 'affirming architecture that celebrates the lives of ordinary citizens,' organizers announced on Tuesday. (AP video shot by Wayne Zhang)
South China Morning Post
05-03-2025
- General
- South China Morning Post
2025 Pritzker Prize goes to China's Liu Jiakun for architecture elevating ‘everyday lives'
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'. Advertisement '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.
Yahoo
05-03-2025
- General
- Yahoo
China's Liu Jiakun wins Pritzker Prize, 'Nobel' for architecture
The Pritzker Prize, dubbed the "Nobel" for architecture, was awarded Tuesday to China's Liu Jiakun, who was recognized 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. "Architecture should reveal something -- it should abstract, distill and make visible the inherent qualities of local people," Liu said in the statement, evoking his craft's capacity to create "a sense of shared community." Liu lives and works in his birth city of Chengdu, where he prioritizes the use of local materials and traditional building techniques. His projects include the Museum of Clocks in Chengdu, a large circular structure with a skylight that illuminates an interior strip of photographs. Alejandro Aravena, who won the award in 2016 and is chair of the jury, said Liu's works offer "clues on how to confront the challenges of urbanization" especially because they are sometimes "a building, infrastructure, landscape and public space at the same time." "Cities tend to segregate functions, but Liu Jiakun takes the opposite approach and sustains a delicate balance to integrate all dimensions of the urban life," Aravena said. Liu, who is the 54th recipient of the Pritzker Prize, will be honored at a celebration in Abu Dhabi in spring, award organizers said. Last year's prize went to Japan's Riken Yamamoto, whose projects are credited with promoting human contact and who said at the time his objective was to "design architecture that can bring joy to people around it." sha-af/bfm/bjt/dw
