Smiljan Radić wins the Pritzker Prize, the Nobel Prize of architecture

BarcelonaChilean architect Smiljan Radić is one of the most radical and original figures on the international scene, and he has just won the Pritzker Prize, the Nobel Prize of architecture. Born in Santiago, Chile in 1965, he is known for works such as the Casa del Poema del Angle Recte, a wood and concrete refuge in the heart of a Chilean forest, and the ephemeral pavilion for the Serpentine Gallery in London, a translucent fiberglass shell that appears to float above the lawns of the Gardens. "Through a body of work situated at the crossroads of uncertainty, material experimentation, and cultural memory, Smiljan Radić prefers fragility to any unjustified claim to certainty," reads the Pritzker Prize jury's statement. "His buildings seem temporary," the citation also states, "unstable or deliberately unfinished, almost on the verge of disappearing, and yet they offer a structured, optimistic, and discreetly cheerful refuge that embraces vulnerability as an intrinsic condition of lived experience." The award comes with a prize of 100,000 euros, and the winner was announced a week late following the appearance in Jeffrey Epstein's files of Tom Pritzler, director of the Hyatt Foundation, which awards the prize.

For Radić, who chaired the jury for the last edition of the FAD International Awards, architecture must evoke emotion and stir consciences. "Architecture exists between large, massive, and enduring forms—structures that stand under the sun for centuries awaiting our visit—and small, fragile constructions, as ephemeral as the life of a fly, often without a clear destiny in the conventional light. Within this tension of disparate timescales, we try to create experiences with emotional presence, unlike those that pass us by with indifference," says Radić, who has a project underway in Barcelona: the future Multifunctional Palace of the Montjuïc Fair, designed in collaboration with Miquel Mariné, Beatriz Borque, and César Rueda; and in Matarraña, the Solo Hotel.

"A first and fundamental paradox of Smiljan Radić's architecture lies in the fact that it establishes a personal, almost introspective, starting point without culminating in withdrawal. On the contrary, what begins as an individual encounter expands into a broader, more collective resonance. This is, perhaps, the nature of it: singular, one by one, and yet it propels us toward a shared origin, an atavistic place beyond race, gender, or culture," the jury stated.

Among other notable works by Radić, the son of a Croatian immigrant and a British mother, is the Bio Bio Regional Theater (2018) in Concepción, Chile, located on the banks of a river and featuring a semi-translucent polycarbonate façade in a white tone that modulates and enhances the light. He also designed the extension to the Chilean Museum of Pre-Columbian Art (2013) in Santiago, Chile, consisting of a gallery beneath the museum's courtyard, illuminated from above.

"In each work, he is able to respond with radical originality, making obvious what was previously invisible. He returns to the most basic and irreducible foundations of architecture, exploring uncharted boundaries. Developed in a context of relentless circumstances, from the edge of the world, with a small team of collaborators, he is able to take us on a journey," emphasizes the jury president, fellow Chilean architect Alejandro Aravena. In fact, Aravena and Radić are the only two Chilean architects to have won the Pritzker Prize.