Japanese architect and social advocate Riken Yamamoto has been named the 2024 laureate of the Pritzker Architecture Prize, regarded as the architecture field’s highest honor.
Yamamoto’s projects establish kinship between public and private realms, inspiring harmonious societies among diverse identities, economies, politics, infrastructures, and housing systems.
“For me, to recognize space, is to recognize an entire community,” says Yamamoto. “The current architectural approach emphasizes privacy, negating the necessity of societal relationships. However, we can still honor the freedom of each individual while living together in architectural space as a republic, fostering harmony across cultures and phases of life.”
The 2024 Jury Citation states, in part, that he was selected “for creating awareness in the community in what is the responsibility of the social demand, for questioning the discipline of architecture to calibrate each individual architectural response, and above all for reminding us that in architecture, as in democracy, spaces must be created by the resolve of the people.”
His built works, both large and small, place emphasis on the life they hold. Transparency is utilized so those within may experience the environment beyond, while passersby feel a sense of belonging. Yamamoto offers a continuity of landscape, designing alongside preexisting environments to contextualize the experience of each building.
Yamamoto’s career has spanned five decades and his projects—ranging from private residences to public housing, elementary schools to university buildings, institutions to civic spaces, and city planning—are located throughout Japan, China, Korea, and Switzerland.
Significant works include Nagoya Zokei University (Nagoya, Japan, 2022), THE CIRCLE at Zürich Airport (Zürich, Switzerland, 2020), Tianjin Library (Tianjin, China, 2012), Fussa City Hall (Tokyo, Japan 2008), Jian Wai SOHO (Beijing, China, 2004), Ecoms House (Tosu, Japan, 2004), Shinonome Canal Court CODAN (Tokyo, Japan, 2003), Future University Hakodate (Hakodate, Japan, 2000), Hiroshima Nishi Fire Station (Hiroshima, Japan, 2000), Iwadeyama Junior High School (Ōsaki, Japan, 1996), Hotakubo Housing (Kumamoto, Japan, 1991), and his own home, GAZEBO (Yokohama, Japan 1986).
Ecoms House in Tosu, Japan; photo courtesy of Shinkenchiku Sha
Jian Wai SOHO, in Beijing, China; photo courtesy of Riken Yamamoto & Field Shop
THE CIRCLE at Zürich Airport; photo courtesy of Flughafen Zürich AG
Yokosuka Museum of Art in Japan; photo courtesy of Tomio Ohashi
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