The British architect David Chipperfield has won the 2023 Pritzker Prize. Author of a hundred projects throughout Europe, Asia and North America, which exude restraint, minimalist elegance and a subtle combination of the heritage of classical architecture and the Modern Movement, Chipperfield obtained and to global acclaim for his exquisite recovery from the Neues Museum in Berlin, which he worked on from 1997 to 2009.
By recognizing the trajectory of this author, the main world architectural award is committed to an essential, serene architecture that avoids showy forms, and sends a clear message about the need to pay more and better attention to the improvement of the inherited architectural heritage. At the same time, the Pritzker puts an end to one of the most resounding absences in his record.
Chipperfield's intervention at the Neues Museum, a mid-19th century building signed by F.A. Stüler, badly damaged in World War II, and which remained in a dilapidated state for half a century, has become paradigmatic. The way in which the British author conserves its route, rooms, and decorations, without erasing the war imprint or depriving himself of some personal contributions in stairways or patios, is an exemplary exercise in architectural balance and historical sensitivity.
Other Chipperfield interventions in Berlin, such as the James-Simon Galerie, also on Museum Island, with one of its characteristic and slender colonnades, or the renovation of the Neue Nationalgalerie designed by Mies van der Rohe, also illustrate his renewing respect for the heritage. Along the same lines, it is necessary to mention his work at the Royal Academy of Arts, in London, or his intervention, completed last year, at the Procuratie Vecchie in Venice.
In addition to his facet as an author who breathes new life into past architecture, Chipperfield has also stood out for his new-build works or his urban planning works or his environmental activism. Among his new works, it is worth mentioning the Museum of Modern Literature in Marbach (Germany), the Jumex Museum in Mexico City or the Ameropacific headquarters in Seoul.
David Chipperfield has also shown his talent in Spain, collaborating with the local studio Fermín Vázquez b720. Among them, the “Veles e Vents” building, with its characteristic thick-edged cantilevers, built in the port of Valencia on the occasion of the Copa América, held there in 2007 and 2010. Or the Ciutat de la Justícia de Barcelona, made up of eight blocks of brown tones, with narrow and rhythmic windows, on the border of the Catalan capital with L'Hospitalet. Without forgetting his own holiday residence in Corrubedo, in the Arousa estuary on the Galician coast, where he spends a good part of his holidays.
Among Chipperfield's dozens of projects now underway is the National Archaeological Museum of Athens.
David Chipperfield was born in London in 1953, he studied at the Kingston School of Arts and at the Architectural Association of London. He worked at the studios of Norman Foster and Richard Rogers before founding his own, in 1985, which he soon began building far from his country, in Japan or Germany. He has taught at Stuttgart and at Yale. In 2010 he was knighted, becoming Sir David Alan Chipperfield. In 2013, he directed the Venice Architecture Biennale, under the motto "Common ground".
The Pritzker, which throughout its almost half century of history has become the main global architectural distinction, was awarded for the first time in 1979. In its first editions, it recognized the then-still-living classical authors (Barragán, Tange, Stirling...). Later, halfway between the 20th and 21st centuries, he highlighted the so-called star architects (Gehry, Foster, Herzog/De Meuron, Nouvel...). And in recent editions it has distinguished architects in whose work there is a notable social component (Lacaton/Vassal, Kéré…). Looking at Chipperfield, he extols someone as committed to the past as he is to the future.
The Pritzker award ceremony for the British author, who maintains offices in London, Berlin, Milan, Shanghai and Santiago de Compostela, with around 300 employees, will be held next May in Athens.
