{"id":326156,"date":"2026-03-12T15:34:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-12T15:34:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/326156\/"},"modified":"2026-03-12T15:34:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-12T15:34:11","slug":"pritzker-prize-2026-chiles-smiljan-radic-wins-nobel-of-architecture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/326156\/","title":{"rendered":"Pritzker Prize 2026: Chile\u2019s Smiljan Radi\u0107 wins \u2018Nobel\u2019 of architecture"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n Chilean architect Smiljan Radi\u0107, whose often-experimental designs include a doughnut-shaped pavilion in London and a restaurant held up by boulders in Santiago, was named the winner of this year\u2019s Pritzker Prize \u2014 an award often dubbed the field\u2019s equivalent to a Nobel Prize \u2014 on Thursday.\n <\/p>\n

\n While the 60-year-old\u2019s designs may, at first glance, appear precariously engineered or even unfinished, the award\u2019s jury said they uplifted those who enter, calling his work \u201coptimistic and quietly joyful.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Radi\u0107 becomes the fifth Latin American architect to win the prestigious prize in its 47-year history. First presented to modernist pioneer Philip Johnson in 1979, the annual award has since honored many of the profession\u2019s most influential figures, including the late Zaha Hadid, Norman Foster and Rem Koolhaas. But recent years have seen juries acknowledge lesser-known architects and figures committed to smaller-scale, or socially-minded, designs.\n <\/p>\n

\"Inside<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

\n Founded in 1995, Radi\u0107\u2019s eponymous firm has completed over 60 projects spanning housing, arts venues, an award-winning winery and even a bus stop shelter in Austria. But while he has worked across the Americas and Europe, most of the architect\u2019s buildings were completed in his native Chile.\n <\/p>\n

\n Among the most notable is Teatro del B\u00edob\u00edo, a performing arts venue in the city of Concepci\u00f3n that, by night, radiates warm light through a semi-translucent facade like a paper lantern. He also oversaw a seamless \u2014 but no less contemporary \u2014 expansion to the 18th-century Chilean Museum of Pre-Columbian Art in the capital Santiago.\n <\/p>\n

\n Radi\u0107 juxtaposes manmade and natural materials in thoughtful ways, with structures sometimes embedded in rocky terrain or appearing to emerge from the ground. The roof of his celebrated Restaurant Mestizo, also in the capital city, is supported by huge load-bearing stones from a local quarry; his Pite House, a residence in nearby Papudo, sits nestled on a cliffside that shelters it from prevailing winds.\n <\/p>\n

\"Radi\u0107<\/p>\n

\n Speaking to CNN via email ahead of the announcement, Radi\u0107 said his approach to materials always depends on the context of the site he is designing on. \u201cNaturally, the same material is understood very differently depending on its use and its historical position in a particular place,\u201d he wrote. \u201cUnderstanding that tension in the different places where I build is what matters in my work.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Radi\u0107\u2019s international profile grew significantly in 2014, when he became one of the youngest architects ever invited to design the Serpentine Pavilion. The annual commission, at the Serpentine Galleries in London\u2019s Kensington Gardens, is considered one of the profession\u2019s most coveted honors (Frank Gehry, Oscar Niemeyer and Hadid were among the star names preceding Radi\u0107), and many considered Radi\u0107 a surprise choice \u2014 himself included.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cAt the time, it was a big surprise for me to be chosen to build that pavilion,\u201d he said, adding: \u201cJust as receiving this prize now is a surprise.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\"Radi\u0107's<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

\n His design upended expectations, too: In one of the initiative\u2019s most surreal pavilions to date, he invited visitors into a cocoon-like fiberglass ring positioned on large rocks that looked like they had been casually scattered around the galleries\u2019 lawn. The resulting praise had a significant impact on Radi\u0107\u2019s career, he said.\n <\/p>\n

\n In the years since, he completed work in Croatia, Italy and the US, where he designed a flagship store for fashion brand Alexander McQueen in Miami, Florida. Elsewhere, he produced an innovative inflatable pavilion for the Chilean Architecture Biennial in 2023, and currently has projects underway in the UK, Spain, Switzerland and Albania, including a residential tower complex.\n <\/p>\n

\n The variety of these designs show Radi\u0107 to be an architect who defies categorization \u2014 and one who intentionally eschews a signature style. \u201cStyle sometimes means having a continuous line of solutions across a wide range of really different projects \u2014 a filter that produces a certain formal signature,\u201d he explained.\n <\/p>\n

\"Radi\u0107's<\/p>\n

\n \u201cPersonally, I find that boring; at least it is something I always try to avoid. I prefer to resolve projects case by case, creating places that can lead people to think about their material reality and their memory in a different way, from another point of view.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n This year marks 10 years since his compatriot Alejandro Aravena became the first Chilean<\/a> to win the Pritzker Prize. It was an achievement that Radi\u0107 said had a \u201cmajor effect\u201d on the country\u2019s architects. \u201cI think it created a kind of shared idea around which many of them felt included in the same conversation from other latitudes,\u201d he said of Aravena\u2019s victory in 2016. \u201cNow the same thing might happen again, I hope.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Aravena, who currently chairs the Pritzker Prize\u2019s jury, returned the compliment, commending Radi\u0107 for operating in \u201cunforgiving circumstances, from the edge of the world, with a practice of just a few collaborators.\u201d The former laureate\u2019s statement also praised Radi\u0107\u2019s \u201cradical originality\u201d and for \u201cmaking the unobvious obvious.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\"One<\/p>\n

\"Stone<\/p>\n

\n The annual prize, which was founded by members of the family behind Hyatt Hotels, is sponsored by the Hyatt Foundation and modeled on the Nobel Prize. Organizers briefly delayed this year\u2019s announcement after files<\/a> released by the US Justice Department revealed then-executive chairman Tom Pritzker\u2019s association with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell.\n <\/p>\n

\n Although not accused of wrongdoing, Pritzker stepped down<\/a> from his role at the hotel chain last month, saying he \u201cexercised terrible judgment in maintaining contact\u201d with Epstein and Maxwell. Award organizers said he would now also \u201cstep aside from matters relating to the Prize,\u201d to ensure it \u201cremains focused on architectural excellence.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Asked if he took the matter into consideration when accepting his award, Radi\u0107 said that the composition of the jury \u2014 which in addition to Aravena included former laureates Anne Lacaton<\/a> and Kazuyo Sejima, as well as US Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer and the Yale School of Architecture\u2019s Dean, Deborah Berke, among others \u2014 guaranteed the prize\u2019s integrity.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cFor more than 30 years, my obsession has been architecture,\u201d he added. \u201cI continue to believe that architecture is a positive act, and I continue to believe that the Pritzker Prize remains part of that positive act, despite the circumstances.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Radi\u0107 will be awarded a $100,000 grant and will receive a bronze medal at a ceremony later this year.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chilean architect Smiljan Radi\u0107, whose often-experimental designs include a doughnut-shaped pavilion in London and a restaurant held up…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":326157,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[442,498,499,500,501,156,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-326156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-artsdesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=326156"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326156\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/326157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=326156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=326156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=326156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}