The Hyatt Foundation has announced that Anne Lacaton, 2021 Pritzker Prize Laureate, and Hashim Sarkis, architect, educator, and scholar, have joined as the newest members of the Pritzker Prize Jury.

"The Pritzker Prize Jury is essential in heightening society’s awareness of the impact of architecture on the human experience," said Tom Pritzker, Chairman of The Hyatt Foundation, which sponsors the award. 

"The built environment can play a positive role contending with the challenges of social inequity, climate change and scarcity of resources," Pritzker added.

Alejandro Aravena, Jury Chair and 2016 Laureate, continued that "the work of the Jury harmonizes the relationship between the contribution to humanity and the art of architecture, mirroring the challenges, needs and expectations of society."

Site for Contemporary Creation, Phase 2, Palais de Tokyo 2012, Paris, France by Lacaton & Vassal. Image © Philippe Ruault

"We must embrace architects who fulfill ambitious goals"

By promoting social justice and sustainability through both new construction and the renovation of public spaces, academic and cultural institutions, social housing, and urban strategies, Lacaton respects the pre-existing. In response to social, economic, and climatic exigencies, she places the well-being of a building's occupants first by allowing them to use the space freely and generously.

"We must embrace architects who fulfill ambitious goals—socially, environmentally and architecturally— while understanding and integrating today’s economics, expectations and desires," explained Lacaton. 

"I have agreed to join the Pritzker Jury to sustain approaches and practices that place the inhabitant, community and environment at the center of their intentions and care."

"We need architecture that softens, repairs and creates relationships to provide a sense of freedom, invitation and encouragement to everyone," Lacaton continued. 

Multipurpose Theater 2013, Lille, France by Lacaton & Vassal. Image © Philippe Ruault

Lacaton is a visiting professor at the Polytechnic University of Madrid's Master of Housing program (Madrid, Spain, since 2007) and an Emeritus Professor at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, ETH Zurich (Zurich, Switzerland). She has held visiting professorships at Delft University of Technology (Netherlands, 2016–2017) and École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (Switzerland, 2006–2007, 2010–2011) in addition to her roles as Rothwell Co-Chair and Design Critic in Architecture (2015) and Kenzo Tange Visiting Chair in Architecture and Urban Planning (2011) at Harvard Graduate School of Design (United States of America).

Anne Lacaton and Philippe Vassal. Image © Laurent Chalet

She graduated in 1980 from the École Nationale Supérieure d'Architecture et de Paysage de Bordeaux, cofounded Lacaton & Vassal in Paris, and earned a master's degree in urban planning from Bordeaux Montaigne University in France.

As an inhabitant of each space operating within transitive unprescribed boundaries, Sarkis, the dean of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's School of Architecture and Planning, designs affordable housing, private residences, institutional buildings, public spaces, and urban plans. 

The Courtowers, Aamchit, Lebanon, 2017 by Hashim Sarkis Studios. Image courtesy of HSS

"At our doorsteps are new problems, be they related to climate, equity or new ways of life," said Sarkis. 

"But architects are rising to the occasion, expanding the field with inspiring new work. The immense talent in the discipline makes the task of the Pritzker Prize Jury all the more exciting and challenging as we look to identify work that is at once timely and timeless in confronting these issues," Sarkis added.

In addition to serving as the Aga Khan Professor of Landscape Architecture and Urbanism in Muslim Societies at the Harvard Graduate School of Design from 2004 to 2014, Sarkis was the curator of the Venice Biennale of Architecture in 2021. Together with Roi Salgueiro and Gabriel Kozlowski, he wrote "The World as an Architectural Project and Circa 1958, Lebanon in the Projects and Plans of Constantinos Doxiadis." 

Balloon Landing Park, Beirut, Lebanon, 2004 by Hashim Sarkis Studios. Image courtesy of HSS

In 1998, he founded Hashim Sarkis Studios, which is currently located in Boston, Massachusetts, and Beirut, Lebanon. He graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1987 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts and Bachelor of Architecture, the Harvard University Graduate School of Design in 1989 with a Master of Architecture with distinction, and Harvard University in 1995 with a PhD in Architecture.

Lacaton and Sarkis will be joining an esteemed group of fellow jurors that includes: Deborah Berke, dean of Yale School of Architecture (New Haven, Connecticut, USA), architect and art historian; Stephen Breyer, professor and former justice of the United States Supreme Court; André Corrêa do Lago, architect, curator, and secretary for climate, energy, and environment at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for the Government of Brazil; and Kazuyo Sejima, architect, educator, and 2010 Pritzker Laureate. The Pritzker Prize's executive director, Manuela Luca-Dázio, is still in place.

After seven years of service, Wang Shu, the 2012 Laureate who is an architect and educator from Hangzhou, China, is leaving the jury. 

The most recent recipient of the Pritzker Prize was Yokohama, Japan's Riken Yamamoto, who received the honor in Chicago, Illinois, this past May. The Hyatt Foundation will release the 2024 Ceremony Video in November. 

Top image in the article (from left to right): Anne Lacaton (courtesy of the Pritzker Prize), and Hashim Sarkis (Hashim Sarkis courtesy of Justin A. Knight Photography). 

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