The ceremony to award the 2014 Pritzker Architecture Prize will be held in Amsterdam. Japanese architect and this year’s winner, Shigeru Ban, will receive the prestigious prize on June 13, 2014 at the Rijksmuseum.
Shigeru Ban, a Tokyo-born, 56-year-old architect with offices in Tokyo, Paris and New York is known for his elegant and innovative works for private clients and using the same inventive and resourceful design approach for his extensive humanitarian efforts. For twenty years Ban has traveled to sites of natural and man-made disasters around the world, to work with local citizens, volunteers and students, to design and construct shelters and community buildings of recyclable cardboard paper tubes for the disaster victims. Ban is named the 37th recipient of the Pritzker Architecture Prize. The Jury cited Ban as a tireless architect whose work exudes optimism. “Where others may see insurmountable challenges, Ban sees a call to action. Where others might take a tested path, he sees the opportunity to innovate. He is a committed teacher who is not only a role model for younger generations, but also an inspiration.”
Each year, the award ceremony of the Pritzker Architecture Prize is held in a culturally, historically, or architecturally significant location around the world. Befitting a truly international prize, the ceremony has traveled across fourteen countries on four continents spanning from North and South America to Europe to the Middle East and Far East Asia. Past ceremonies have been held at France’s Palace of Versailles and Grand Trianon, Todai-ji Buddhist Temple in Japan, Prague Castle in the Czech Republic, the White House in Washington, D.C. and Beijing’s Great Hall of the People.
Also some of the most beautiful museums in the world have hosted the event, from New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art to the Guggenheim Museum in Spain and the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg.
Modern-day heads of state have been among the many dignitaries to attend Pritzker ceremonies. U.S. Presidents Clinton and Obama attended ceremonies in Washington in 1998 and 2011 respectively. The King of Spain attended the 2003 ceremony at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando in Madrid.
The Prime Minister of Turkey and the President of Czech Public also each attended ceremonies when held in their respective countries. Princess Beatrix of the Netherlands will honor this year’s ceremony with her presence.
This year the city of Amsterdam and in specific the Rijksmuseum has the honor to function as host of the award ceremony. The Rijksmuseum, or “State Museum,” is one of the most popular and highly regarded art museums of the world. It holds an outstanding collection of art, including masterpieces of Dutch art by Rembrandt and Vermeer. The collections are housed in an impressive building from 1885, designed by Dutch architect Pierre J.H. Cuypers, in the then fashionable Dutch neo-Renaissance style, with elements of neo-Gothic.
The Pritzker Architecture Prize was established by The Hyatt Foundation in 1979 to annually honor a living architect whose built work demonstrates a combination of those qualities of talent, vision, and commitment, which has produced consistent and significant contributions to humanity and the built environment through the art of architecture. It has often been described as “architecture’s most prestigious award” or as “the Nobel of architecture.” The laureates receive a $100,000 grant and a bronze medallion.
