Watch the 2021 Pritzker Prize Award Ceremony

John Hill
15. September 2021
Anne Lacaton and her Pritzker Architecture Prize medal. (Photo: Screenshot)

The award ceremonies for the Pritzker Architecture Prize are typically held in architecturally significant places, but the coronavirus pandemic has forced remote recordings of remarks to prevail last year and this year. Laureates Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara spoke last year in the extraordinary Long Room at the Library of Trinity College Dublin, which I described at the time as "a beautiful setting for an in-person ceremony," if only that were to take place.

This year Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal, the 49th and 50th laureates spoke within one of their own projects: FRAC Nord- Pas de Calais in Dunkerque, France. Lacaton and Vassal speak for roughly half of the ceremony's 46 minutes of recorded remarks, accompanied by these participants speaking in their respective locales, in order of appearance:

  • Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara, 2020 Laureates
  • Manuela Lucá-Dazio, Executive Director, Pritzker Architecture Prize
  • Alejandro Aravena, Jury Chair and 2016 Laureate
  • Tom Pritzker, Chairman, Hyatt Foundation
  • Emmanuel Macron, President of the French Republic
  • Jean-Philippe Vassal, 2021 Laureate
  • Anne Lacaton, 2021 Laureate
  • A bevy of jurors congratulating Lacaton and Vassal and commenting on their work: Barry Bergdoll, Benedetta Tagliabue, Kazuyo Sejima (2010 Laureate), Stephen Breyer, Deborah Berke, André Aranha Corrêa do Lago, and Wang Shu (2012 Laureate).

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