Riken Yamamoto is the winner of the 2024 Pritzker Architecture Prize

Japanese architect Riken Yamamoto has been named the winner of the 2024 Pritzker Architecture Prize — the world’s top architecture award — for his buildings that aim to foster community and are “both backdrop and foreground to everyday life.” Yamamoto, who is the 53rd winner of the Pritzker Architecture Prize and the ninth from Japan, has been named the winner of the 2024 Pritzker Architecture Prize, the world’s top architecture award. The jury, led by Chilean architect and 2016 Pritzker Architecture Prize winner Alejandro Aravena , believed that many of the ideals in Yamamoto's work, including the blurring of public and private spaces, could be applied to future cities. "One of the things we need most in the future of cities is to create conditions through architecture that multiply the opportunities for people to come together and interact," Aravena explained. Throughout his five-decade career, Riken Yamamoto’s architecture has had one focus: his undeniable interest in building communities. His projects, designed in countries as diverse as Japan, China, South Korea , and Switzerland , range from private residences to large-scale public housing complexes , as well as educational institutions and civic spaces. All of these works, of course, reflect the intention to blur the boundaries between the public and private spheres , while opening up spaces of connection that promote social interaction and opportunities for the building's residents and the local community. Born in Beijing , China, Yamamoto studied architecture at Nihon University , Tokyo University of the Arts and the University of Tokyo before establishing his practice – Yamamoto & Field Shop Co – in 1973.

The large housing projects that followed were designed based on similar principles , with the aim of encouraging interaction between residents. Its best-known housing projects include the Pangyo Housing development in Seongnam, South Korea, and Hotakubo Housing in Kumamoto, Japan, which contains 110 homes arranged around a tree-lined central plaza. Yamamoto is the ninth Japanese architect to win the award , after Arata Isozaki, Shigeru Ban, Toyo Ito, Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa, Tadao Ando, Fumihiko Maki and Kenzo Tange. Japanese architects have won the award more times than any other nationality in its 45-year history. The 2023 prize was awarded to British architect David Chipperfield , while Burkinabe architect Diébédo Francis Kéré was named the 2022 winner.