The 2025 Pritzker Prize has been awarded this year to Chinese Architect Liu Jiakun. Born in Chengdu in 1956, he grew up in the densifying city, before attending and graduang from the Chongqing Architecture and Engineering College (Chongqing University) in 1982 with a Bachelor of Engineering degree in Architecture, and becoming one of the first college graduates to be tasked with rebuilding the country during the Chinese transion period. However, it wasn't until many years later that the architect understood that "the built environment could be used as a medium for personal expression". It was then that his endeavors and career took off, with Liu Jiakun starting his practice in 1999, and parcipang in more collaborave works across China and Europe. Based on his experiences, his works are anchored in his understanding of reality and a respect towards China's multitradional history and internal diversity; all while achieving a seamless balance between architecture and nature, tradition and modernity.
These concepts do not obstruct his consciousness of human needs and the importance of community spaces. Through his projects, Liu Jiakun proves that spaces can aect human behavior and become posively evocave. A public space such as those he's created can be conducive to a benevolent atmosphere that provides rest and collaboration. "such as my pursuit of narrave and poetry in design." The comprehensiveness of Liu Jiakun's works makes it easy not to be constrained by slisc or aesthec limitations or requirements. He just follows what the site, natural landscape, pre-exisng urban frame, and cizen needs might require. The physical result is a mix of all of these with the predominant vernacular traditions.
