The Pritzker Prize, architecture's highest honour, has been awarded this year to Chinese architect Liu Jiakun from Chengdu.
The 68-year-old Liu primarily creates serene, understated public spaces in his hometown of Chengdu and the surrounding Chongqing area. All of his thirty-plus completed architectural projects are located within China.
Rather than getting hung up on a particular look, Liu is all about the strategy behind his buildings. The judges were impressed with how his work manages to be consistent without being boxed in by any particular style or aesthetic rules.
"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," states the 2025 Jury Citation.
He believes copying traditional forms without thinking would leave you stuck in the past. That's why he never does the same thing twice - each project is tailored to its spot, creating fresh spaces for everyday life.
For Liu, the real way to honour tradition isn't just copying it, but bringing it to life with modern know-how. He prefers to use local raw materials rather than finished products, a practice that aims to sustain the economy and environment. His clever use of raw materials showcases the textures and craftsmanship, creating an "imperfection" that becomes more precious with time.
Such architectural philosophy is best reflected in these four of his representative works:
Department of Sculpture, Sichuan Fine Arts Institute
Located in a narrow section of the Sichuan Institute, it revives Chongqing's traditional swirling mortar plastering technique. Rather than smoothing out these details, they are deliberately preserved. Liu recovered materials from the Wenchuan earthquake ruins, revitalising both the materials and their inherent spirit, reinforcing them with local wheat straw fibre and cement to create bricks with greater physical strength and economic value than the original materials. These "regenerated bricks" have been widely used in projects including the Novartis Building, Water Well Pavilion Museum, and West Village Courtyard.
The Luwu Deer Park Stone Carving Art Museum
Nestled in Chengdu's bamboo groves, the museum primarily houses Buddhist stone sculptures. The design employs a Chinese garden layout allowing visitors to move between natural and artificial spaces. The exterior walls incorporate local craftsmanship, using brick moulds to create fair-faced concrete composite walls. Cleverly utilising gaps between structural elements to introduce light, the museum simultaneously showcases both exhibits and surrounding scenery, integrating the building with nature.
Suzhou Museum of Imperial Kiln Brick
Located in Suzhou's Lu Tomb Imperial Kiln Site Park in Xiangcheng District, the museum primarily preserves the site and displays imperial brick artefacts. The park features an embracing layout creating an inward-facing garden space that maximises protection of the core area. A tree-lined avenue on the north side blocks external noise, whilst winding internal pathways create a sense of changing scenery with each step. The main building blends kiln and palace elements, interpreting tradition through modern methods to embody the "imperial kiln" spirit. The building complex uses various brick materials in layers, highlighting the value of imperial bricks and forming a chronology of brick history. The landscape design preserves the original appearance of the site, recreating the historical brick production scene through intact, half-destroyed, and remnant kilns.
Museum of Clocks
Standing in an abandoned commercial district in Chengdu, it creates a stark contrast between the commercial bustle outside and the tranquil exhibition space within. Sunlight streams through a circular ceiling into the brick-walled courtyard, creating an effect similar to a sundial.
“In a world that tends to create endless dull peripheries, he has found a way to build places that are a building, infrastructure, landscape and public space at the same time. His work may offer impactful clues on how to confront the challenges of urbanization, in an era of rapidly growing cities," cites the Jury.
