China's Liu Jiakun wins Pritzker Prize, 'Nobel' for architecture
"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 award's jury wrote in a statement.
Born in 1956, Liu has worked on more than 30 projects in China ranging from academic and cultural institutions to civic spaces and commercial buildings.
"Architecture should reveal something -- it should abstract, distill and make visible the inherent qualities of local people," Liu said in the statement, evoking his craft's capacity to create "a sense of shared community."
Liu lives and works in his birth city of Chengdu, where he prioritizes the use of local materials and traditional building techniques.
His projects include the Museum of Clocks in Chengdu, a large circular structure with a skylight that illuminates an interior strip of photographs.
Alejandro Aravena, who won the award in 2016 and is chair of the jury, said Liu's works offer "clues on how to confront the challenges of urbanization" especially because they are sometimes "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 the urban life," Aravena said.
Liu, who is the 54th recipient of the Pritzker Prize, will be honored at a celebration in Abu Dhabi in spring, award organizers said.
Last year's prize went to Japan's Riken Yamamoto, whose projects are credited with promoting human contact and who said at the time his objective was to "design architecture that can bring joy to people around it."
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In 2024, the Xuyong county government established a special fund dedicated to cultural heritage conservation, backed by fund management regulations, prioritizing the protection of the county's lower-tier cultural relics. "Many lower-tier cultural relics are scattered across the county. They often lack both sufficient funding for preservation and public attention, unlike their national or provincial level counterparts," Huang says. "It's an urgent task to protect lower-tier cultural relics because they not only carry important historical information and cultural value, but also serve as an integral part of the local cultural heritage system."Contact the writer at xulin@ View original content to download multimedia: SOURCE China Daily Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
