David Chipperfield will receive the Pritzker Prize for Critical Speech on Architecture

This Tuesday, David Chipperfield will receive the 2023 Pritzker Architecture Prize at the National Technical University of Athens, during which he will participate in a panel discussion titled The role of practicein which the British architect, closely related to Galicia, will reflect on the role, responsibilities and opportunities of architectural practice, and that with a critical spirit, sources close to the winner point out.

The panel will feature the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, the University of Patras and the Technical University of Crete, and will be broadcast live on the NTUA School of Architecture YouTube channel and on Facebook and Instagram Live @PritzkerArchitecturePrize.

In his lecture, Chipperfield plans to highlight “how architecture is dominated by market forces and how it is increasingly out of place, as the challenges of the climate crisis, loss of biodiversity and social inequalities have increased the urgency of a more proactive position”, the same sources point out.

Conference of awardees

The conference will be presented by the Chilean architect Alejandro Aravena, who was president of the jury and received the Pritzker edition in 2016. During the event, a conversation will take place between David Chipperfield himself and his colleagues Francis Kéré, the German recognized with the same prize in 2022, and Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal, the French and partners who were laureates in the 2021 edition of the awards.

In March of last year, the British architect was awarded the Pritzker Architecture Prize 2023, which is internationally considered the largest in this field. In the award, the jury took into account his commitment to architecture with a “discreet but transformative civic presence”, as well as the fact that Chipperfield’s works are dominated by rigor “avoiding unnecessary movements and avoiding trends and fashion, all of which are very relevant messages for our contemporary society”. .

Pritzker 2023 responded with gratitude to the award, noting, among other things, that he understood it “as an encouragement” to continue to focus his “attention not only on the essence of architecture and its meaning, but also on the contribution that architects can make to respond to existential challenges climate change and social inequality.

The prestigious technician, internationally recognized, has acquired in recent years a commitment to Galicia which he carries out through the RIA Foundation, an institution that works in the territory of Galicia and which has been chosen to coordinate the territorial agenda of Galicia, a project that aspires to become a European benchmark in sustainability, laying the foundations of a new territorial model that based on ecological, social and economic sustainability.