Irish architects Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara, the cofounders of Dublin-based Grafton Architects, are the laureates of this year’s Pritzker Prize. The fourth and fifth women to receive architecture’s highest honor, Farrell and McNamara were also awarded the 2020 RIBA Royal Gold Medal for Architecture late last year.
The 2020 Jury Citation, in part reads, “For their integrity in their approach to both their buildings, as well as the way they conduct their practice, their belief in collaboration, their generosity towards their colleagues, especially as evidenced in such events as the 2018 Venice Biennale, their unceasing commitment to excellence in architecture, their responsible attitude toward the environment, their ability to be cosmopolitan while embracing the uniqueness of each place in which they work, for all these reasons and more, Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara are awarded the 2020 Pritzker Architecture Prize.”
After meeting at the School of Architecture at University College Dublin, Farrell and McNamara launched Grafton Architects in 1978. The practice drew its name from the street of its original office in order to emphasize the firm’s focus on the existence of place, rather than individuals.
Highlights of Grafton’s portfolio include the Urban Institute of Ireland, University College Dublin; the Loreto Community School in Milford, Ireland; and the University Campus UTEC Lima in Peru.
The pair are Fellows of the Royal Institute of Architects of Ireland and International Honorary Fellows of RIBA. They have both served as the Kenzo Tange chair at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, as well as the Louis Kahn chair at Yale University. Grafton Architects was awarded the 2012 Biennale di Venezia Silver Lion Award for the “Architecture as New Geography,” and they were the 2018 co-curators for the 16th International Architecture Exhibition, la Biennale di Venezia.
“The collaboration between Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara represents a veritable interconnectedness between equal counterparts,” the jury citation continues. “They demonstrate incredible strength in their architecture, show deep relation to the local situation in all regards, establish different responses to each commission while maintaining the honesty of their work, and exceed the requirements of the field through responsibility and community.”
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University Campus UTEC Lima. Photography by Iwan Baan -
Urban Institute of Ireland. Photography by Ros Kavanagh
