China’s Liu Jiakun won the Pritzker Prize, known as the “Nobel” of architecture, on Tuesday for his designs that honour “everyday lives.”
“In a global context where architecture is struggling to find adequate responses to fast-evolving social and environmental challenges, Liu Jiakun has provided convincing answers that also celebrate the everyday lives of people as well as their communal and spiritual identities,” the jury said in a statement issued on Tuesday, March 4, 2025.
Liu, who was born in 1956, has completed over 30 projects throughout China, including commercial structures, public areas, and educational and cultural establishments.
“Architecture should reveal something—it should abstract, distil, and make visible the inherent qualities of local people,” Liu said in the statement, referring to the ability of his profession to foster “a sense of shared community.”
Living and working in Chengdu, the city where he was born, Liu places a high value on using regional resources and conventional building methods.
The Museum of Clocks in Chengdu is one of his designs; it’s a big round building with a skylight that lights up an inside strip of pictures.
The jury’s chair, Alejandro Aravena, who took home the award in 2016, stated that Liu’s pieces provide “hints on how to face the difficulties of urbanisation,” particularly as they occasionally combine “a building, infrastructure, landscape, and public space at the same time.”
“Cities tend to segregate functions, but Liu Jiakun takes the opposite approach and sustains a delicate balance to integrate all dimensions of urban life,” Aravena said.
The Pritzker Prize organisers announced that Liu, the 54th recipient, will be celebrated in Abu Dhabi in the spring.
Riken Yamamoto of Japan won the prize last year. Yamamoto stated at the time that his goal was to “design architecture that can bring joy to people around it.” Yamamoto’s projects are recognised for encouraging human interaction.
