Pritzker Prize 2025: China’s Liu Jiakun awarded ‘Nobel of architecture’

CNN — Throughout its 46-year history, architecture’s most prestigious prize has often been won by icon-builders: the apparent lone geniuses who imprint their visions, signature-like, on the world. In its citation, the Pritzker Prize jury praised Liu for precisely that: having “a strategy instead of a style.” Nature and architecture coalesce at Chengdu's Luyeyuan Stone Sculpture Art Museum, one of the first projects completed by Liu's firm, Jiakun Architects. Bi Kejian/The Pritzker Architecture Prize Explaining his approach to CNN ahead of the announcement, the 68-year-old architect said he tried to act “like water.” “I try my best to penetrate and understand the place … then, when the time is right, it will solidify, and the idea of ​​the building will appear,” he said on a video call from Chengdu, adding: “A fixed style is a double-edged sword. Bi Kejian/The Pritzker Architecture Prize As architecture in China became increasingly bold and bombastic in the 2010s, Liu’s output remained quiet and unpretentious — even when the scale of his commissions grew. Arch-Exist/The Pritzker Architecture Prize Symbiosis between nature and architecture plays out at Liu’s ambitious West Village, an inner-city Chengdu block transformed into a courtyard but at a neighborhood scale.