Liu Jiakun Wins 2025 Pritzker Architecture Prize

Liu Jiakun, a Chengdu-based architect whose work can be both muscular and nimble, has been named the 2025 laureate of the Pritzker Architecture Prize. His buildings often employ traditional Chinese elements such as walled enclosures and gardens, but do so in modern and poetic ways. For example, his Luyeyuan Stone Sculpture Art Museum, completed in 2002 in Chengdu, reveals itself as a series of poured-concrete boxes set within a dense landscape of bamboo and trees that visitors enter via a narrow ramp hovering above the ground. Liu choreographs movement between outdoors and in, from one pavilion to another, from forest to garden and back again. Inside, gray-brick walls embrace Buddhist sculptures and relics, while strips of glass allow daylight to wash over the artwork on display.

Luyeyuan Stone Sculpture Art Museum (2002), Chengdu, People's Republic of China. Photo by Bi Kejian