Liu Jiakun receives 2025 Pritzker Architecture Prize at Louvre Abu Dhabi ceremony

UAE capital hosts prestigious accolade's award ceremony for first time

Chinese architect Liu Jiakun is recognised at the 2025 Pritzker Architecture Prize ceremony at Louvre Abu Dhabi. Photo: Abu Dhabi Media Office

Liu Jiakun has been awarded the Pritzker Architecture Prize in a ceremony at Louvre Abu Dhabi.

Monday's event was the first time the UAE capital had hosted the ceremony for the prestigious accolade, which is intended to honour a living architect whose work shows “talent, vision and commitment”, according to the Pritzker Prize's website. The event was attended by Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi.

Liu is difficult to box into a specific aesthetic, however, the Chinese architect is driven by a clear and steadfast ethos. He is renowned for spurning style in favour of social requirements, and his designs are informed by the purpose of the site and the materials that are readily available. For Liu, architecture should not be applied. Rather, it should be cultivated organically from the local context. Perhaps it is for this reason that several of his designs were constructed in the city he knows best – his hometown of Chengdu, capital of the Sichuan province.

Liu's ability to smoothly blend architecture within natural topography can be seen in his renovation of the Tianbao Cave District. Photo: Arch-Exist

“Architecture should reveal something,” he said in a statement shared by the Pritzker Prize. “It should abstract, distil and make visible the inherent qualities of local people. It has the power to shape human behaviour and create atmospheres, offering a sense of serenity and poetry, evoking compassion and mercy, and cultivating a sense of shared community.”

Liu's works include the Luyeyuan Stone Sculpture Art Museum, which incorporates elements from a traditional Chinese garden. This ability to smoothly blend architecture within natural topography can also be seen in his renovation of the Tianbao Cave District.

Shuijingfang Museum. Photo: Arch-Exist

He is also known for his work following the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, in which he repurposed rubble as materials for new projects. He used this “rebirth brick” approach in his designs for the Novartis Shanghai Campus, Xicun Compound and Shuijingfang Museum. The most famous and poignant example of the technique is his Hu Huishan Memorial, a structure named in honour of a 15-year-old girl who died in the earthquake.

“Through an outstanding body of work of deep coherence and constant quality, Liu Jiakun imagines and constructs new worlds, free from any aesthetic or stylistic constraint,” the 2025 jury for the Pritzker Prize, chaired by Chilean architect Alejandro Aravena, said in a statement.

Jiakun shared insights into his practice during a discussion at the Cultural Foundation on Saturday. Photo: Department of Culture and Tourism – Abu Dhabi

“Instead of a style, he has developed a strategy that never relies on a recurring method but rather on evaluating the specific characteristics and requirements of each project differently. That is to say, Liu Jiakun takes present realities and handles them to the point of offering sometimes a whole new scenario of daily life. Beyond knowledge and techniques, common sense and wisdom are the most powerful tools he adds to the designer’s toolbox.”

Liu shared insights into his practice during a discussion at the Cultural Foundation Abu Dhabi on Saturday, May 3. He was joined by other Pritzker laureates including the Japanese architect Riken Yamamoto and the British architect David Chipperfield. The three discussed the potential for architecture to honour culture while simultaneously bolstering communities.