Architecture’s prestigious Pritzker Prize has been awarded to Japanese architect Toyo Ito, the prize committee jury announced Sunday, according to Archilovers. The 71-year-old architect joins the ranks of previous prize winners, such as Tadao Ando, Renzo Piano and Jean Nouvel, and becomes the sixth Japanese architect to win the award.
Ito will also receive a $100,000 grant and a bronze medallion at the formal Pritzker ceremony May 29 at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston.
“His buildings are complex, yet his high degree of synthesis means that his works attain a level of calmness, which ultimately allows the inhabitants to freely develop their life and activities in them,” Alejandro Aravena, a Chilean architect and Pritzker jury member, said.
Previously, Ito was awarded the Golden Lion for best national pavilion at the 13th Venice Biennale for his Japanese Pavilion, Home for All — a pavilion dedicated to the victims of Japan’s recent tsunami. Ito is also responsible for the Toyo Ito Museum of Architecture inImabari, Japan, the facade of The Suite Avenue project in Barcelona and the Tama Art University Library in Tokyo. [Archilovers] —Christopher Cameron