Japanese Architect Riken Yamamoto Receives the 2024 Pritzker Architecture Prize
Japanese architect and social advocate, Riken Yamamoto, has been chosen as the 2024 Pritzker Architecture Prize Laureate. Known for establishing a “kinship between public and private realms” and creating “architecture as background and foreground to everyday life,” Yamamoto is the 53rd honoree of the Pritzker Architecture Prize and the ninth architect from Japan to obtain this recognition, following Arata Isozaki, Shigeru Ban, Kazuyo Sejima, Ryue Nishizawa, Kenzō Tange, Fumihiko Maki, Toyo Ito and Tadao Ando. Succeeding David Chipperfield in 2023, Francis Kéré in 2022, and Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal in 2021, Yamamoto will obtain the Pritzker Prize throughout the 46th Pritzker Prize ceremony in Chicago this spring, and the 2024 Laureate Lecture will likely be held at S.R. Crown Hall, Illinois Institute of Technology, in partnership with the Chicago Architecture Center, on May 16th.
One of the issues we want most in the way forward for cities is to create situations by way of structure that multiply the alternatives for folks to come back collectively and work together. By fastidiously blurring the boundary between private and non-private, Yamamoto contributes positively past the transient to allow group. He is a reassuring architect who brings dignity to on a regular basis life. Normality turns into extraordinary. Calmness results in splendor. — Alejandro Aravena, Jury Chair and 2016 Pritzker Prize Laureate.
Renowned “for creating awareness in the community in what is the responsibility of the social demand, for questioning the discipline of architecture to calibrate each architectural response, and above all for reminding us that in architecture, as in democracy, spaces must be created by the resolve of the people,” Yamamoto’s built works spanning 5 a long time are situated all through Japan, the People’s Republic of China, the Republic of Korea, and Switzerland. His portfolio consists of personal residences, public housing, elementary faculties, college buildings, establishments, civic areas, and metropolis planning. Yamamoto was designated as an Academician by the International Academy of Architecture in 2013 and has been honored with varied accolades all through his profession, together with the Japan Institute of Architects Award for the Yokosuka Museum of Art in 2010. In response to the aftermath of the Tōhoku Earthquake and Tsunami, he based the Local Area Republic Labo, a analysis institute dedicated to group engagement by way of architectural design, and in 2018, he launched the Local Republic Award, recognizing younger architects shaping the future.
Born in Beijing, People’s Republic of China, in 1945, Riken Yamamoto relocated to Yokohama, Japan, shortly after the finish of World War II, the place he at the moment nonetheless resides. His first expertise with structure occurred at age 17 when he visited the Kôfuku-ji Temple in Nara, Japan, initially inbuilt 730 and reconstructed in 1426, and was captivated by “the wooden tower illuminated by the light of the moon.” He graduated from Nihon University, Department of Architecture, College of Science and Technology in 1968 and obtained a Master of Arts in Architecture from Tokyo University of the Arts, Faculty of Architecture in 1971. In 1973, he based his follow, Riken Yamamoto & Field Shop.
For me, to acknowledge area is to acknowledge a complete group. The present architectural strategy emphasizes privateness, negating the necessity of societal relationships. However, we will nonetheless honor the freedom of every particular person whereas residing collectively in architectural area as a republic, fostering concord throughout cultures and phases of life. — Riken Yamamoto, 2024 Pritzker Architecture Prize Winner.
Redefining Boundaries: The Threshold, a Place for Encounters
During the preliminary years of his profession, Yamamoto devoted himself to comprehending communities, cultures, and civilizations. He launched into quite a few journeys throughout nations and continents, main him to the conclusion that the idea of a “threshold” delineating private and non-private areas is universally understood. This interpretation prompted him to reassess the boundaries between private and non-private realms as societal alternatives, committing to the perception that each one areas might enrich and serve the consideration of a complete group, not simply those that occupy them. He reimagines boundaries as areas themselves and breathes life into the transitional zone between private and non-private spheres.
Yamamoto additionally developed his architectural model by drawing inspiration from conventional Japanese machiya and Greek oikos housing, which traditionally intertwined with city facilities. His residence, Gazebo (Yokohama, Japan 1986), was crafted to encourage social interplay with neighbors by way of its terraces and rooftops. Similarly, the Ishii House (Kawasaki, Japan 1978), constructed for 2 artists, showcases a pavilion-like room that seamlessly demonstrates his revolutionary strategy to mixing indoor and outside areas for communal engagement.
Harmonious Societies and Community Engagement
Defining group as a “sense of sharing one space,” Yamamoto deconstructs conventional notions of freedom and privateness. With these views, he designed inviting single-family residences that combine pure and constructed environment, beginning with the Yamakawa Villa (Nagano, Japan 1977) and the Hotakubo Housing undertaking (Kumamoto, Japan 1991), a social housing undertaking that aimed to foster connections amongst cultures and generations by way of communal residing preparations. Later on, in 2010, he designed a bigger housing endeavor, the Pangyo Housing undertaking, guaranteeing that even residents residing alone usually are not remoted, that includes clear floor ground volumes that foster connectivity amongst neighbors with out imposing particular social norms. In phrases of civic initiatives, Yamamoto imagined the Fussa City Hall (Tokyo, Japan 2008) as two mid-rise towers, harmonizing with the surrounding neighborhood characterised by low-rise buildings. The concave bases of the towers invite guests to recline and calm down, whereas the inexperienced public rooftop and decrease ranges are designated for versatile public actions and applications, fostering group engagement and interplay.
Transparency, Urban Privacy, and Societal Interaction
Transparency in kind, materials, and philosophy remained the foundation of Yamamoto’s architectural imaginative and prescient. He launched an city planning idea that underscored evolution as a vital component in the improvement of Ryokuen-toshi, Inter-Junction City (Yokohama, Japan 1994). Central to this strategy was a regulation mandating that each one buildings permit passage by way of their websites, fostering cohesion amongst adjoining plots and forging a way of unity amongst neighboring landowners. His dedication to fostering societal interplay prolonged to large-scale initiatives, the place he adeptly tailored his architectural language, similar to the Saitama Prefectural University (Koshigaya, Japan 1999) and the Tianjin Library (Tianjin, People’s Republic of China 2012) and the Koyasu Elementary School (Yokohama, Japan 2018). Additionally, Hiroshima Nishi Fire Station (Hiroshima, Japan, 2000), presents itself as a wholly clear undertaking, permitting each guests and passersby to see into the central atrium, providing a glimpse into the each day actions and coaching classes of firefighters.
Significant constructed works additionally embody Nagoya Zokei University (Nagoya, Japan, 2022), THE CIRCLE at Zürich Airport (Zürich, Switzerland, 2020), Tianjin Library (Tianjin, People’s Republic of China, 2012), Jian Wai SOHO (Beijing, People’s Republic of China, 2004), Ecoms House (Tosu, Japan, 2004), Shinonome Canal Court CODAN (Tokyo, Japan, 2003), Future University Hakodate (Hakodate, Japan, 2000), Iwadeyama Junior High School (Ōsaki, Japan, 1996) and Hotakubo Housing (Kumamoto, Japan, 1991).
Yamamoto is a newly appointed visiting professor at Kanagawa University (Yokohama, Japan). He was a visiting professor at Tokyo University of the Arts (Tokyo, Japan 2022-2024) and has beforehand taught at Nihon University, Graduate School of Engineering (Tokyo, Japan 2011-2013); Yokohama National University, Graduate School of Architecture (Yokohama, Japan 2007-2011); Kogakuin University, Department of Architecture (Tokyo, Japan 2002-2007); and served as the President of Nagoya Zokei University of Art and Design (Nagoya, Japan 2018-2022). He was appointed Academician by the International Academy of Architecture (2013) and has obtained quite a few distinctions all through his profession together with the Japan Institute of Architects Award for the Yokosuka Museum of Art (2010), the Public Buildings Prize (2004 and 2006), Good Design Gold Award (2004 and 2005), Prize of the Architectural Institute of Japan (1988 and 2002), Japan Arts Academy Award (2001), and Mainichi Art Awards (1998).
2024 Pritzker Prize Jury Citation
The Pritzker Prize is conferred in acknowledgment of these qualities of expertise, imaginative and prescient, and dedication, which have persistently produced vital contributions to humanity and the constructed atmosphere by way of the artwork of structure. In his lengthy, coherent, rigorous profession, Riken Yamamoto has managed to provide structure each as background and foreground to on a regular basis life, blurring boundaries between its private and non-private dimensions, and multiplying alternatives for folks to fulfill spontaneously, by way of exact, rational design methods.
By the robust, constant high quality of his buildings, he goals to dignify, improve and enrich the life of people—from youngsters to elders—and their social connections. And he does this by way of a self-explanatory but modest and pertinent structure, with structural honesty and exact scaling, with cautious consideration to the panorama of the environment.
His structure clearly expresses his beliefs by way of the modular construction and the simplicity of its kind. Yet, it doesn’t dictate actions, slightly it permits folks to form their very own lives inside his buildings with magnificence, normality, poetry and pleasure.
Riken Yamamoto intentionally engages with the widest vary of constructing varieties in addition to scales in the initiatives he chooses. Whether he designs personal homes or public infrastructure, faculties or hearth stations, metropolis halls or museums, the frequent and convivial dimension is at all times current. His fixed, cautious and substantial consideration to group has generated public interworking area methods that incentivize folks to convene in several methods. The whole constructing area of the Saitama Prefectural University (1999), as an example, is conceived as a group.
Yamamoto suggests slightly than imposes this shared dimension by way of understated, but exact architectural interventions. By together with areas for frequent actions inside, along with and even no matter the major perform of his buildings, he permits these to combine into the quotidian lifetime of the group, as an alternative of being solely skilled in distinctive circumstances. The two departments for the college students and researchers to work collectively in the Future University, Hakodate (2000), or the clear louvred glass façade to show the interior workings of the division in the Hiroshima Fire Station (2000) each exemplify his perception in the idea of transparency as a mirrored image of the performance and accessibility of the area for customers and viewers alike.
As a younger architect born in China and skilled in Japan, he felt the urgency to finish his personal schooling with an actual understanding of the ‘other than the self.’ He extensively traveled not (primarily) to go to famend monuments, however slightly to expertise at first hand the tradition and on a regular basis lifetime of communities on different continents. From North to South America, throughout the Mediterranean to the Middle East and Asia, Yamamoto has investigated the roots and historical past of group life that he may deliver his personal contribution to the modernization of the up to date metropolis by way of structure. For him a constructing has a public perform even when it’s personal.
Riken Yamamoto is just not an structure historian, but he learns from the previous in addition to from totally different cultures. As an architect, he doesn’t copy from the previous, slightly he adapts, re-uses and evolves, exhibiting that fundamentals persist of their relevance. Yamamoto has expanded the toolbox of the career in direction of each the previous and the future to have the ability to give every time, in very totally different modes and at very totally different scales, the most pertinent response to the challenges of each the constructed atmosphere and of collective residing.
For creating consciousness in the group in what’s the accountability of the social demand, for questioning the self-discipline of structure to calibrate every particular person architectural response, and above all for reminding us that in structure, as in democracy, areas have to be created by the resolve of the folks, Riken Yamamoto is called the 2024 Pritzker Prize Laureate.
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