Watch the 2021 Pritzker Prize Award Ceremony

John Hill

15. 九月 2021

Anne Lacaton and her Pritzker Architecture Prize medal. (Photo: Screenshot)

The award ceremony for the 2021 Pritzker Architecture Prize, given to French architects Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal of Lacaton Vassal, was released on September 14th — taking place online for the second time in its 43-year history.

The award ceremonies for the Pritzker Architecture Prize are typically held in architecturally significant places, but the coronavirus pandemic has forced remote recordings of remarks to prevail last year and this year. Laureates Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara spoke last year in the extraordinary Long Room at the Library of Trinity College Dublin, which I described at the time as "a beautiful setting for an in-person ceremony," if only that were to take place.

This year Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal, the 49th and 50th laureates spoke within one of their own projects: FRAC Nord- Pas de Calais in Dunkerque, France. Lacaton and Vassal speak for roughly half of the ceremony's 46 minutes of recorded remarks, accompanied by these participants speaking in their respective locales, in order of appearance:

Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara, 2020 Laureates
Manuela Lucá-Dazio, Executive Director, Pritzker Architecture Prize
Alejandro Aravena, Jury Chair and 2016 Laureate
Tom Pritzker, Chairman, Hyatt Foundation
Emmanuel Macron, President of the French Republic
Jean-Philippe Vassal, 2021 Laureate
Anne Lacaton, 2021 Laureate
A bevy of jurors congratulating Lacaton and Vassal and commenting on their work: Barry Bergdoll, Benedetta Tagliabue, Kazuyo Sejima (2010 Laureate), Stephen Breyer, Deborah Berke, André Aranha Corrêa do Lago, and Wang Shu (2012 Laureate).