The organizers announced on Tuesday that the duo, whose ethos “never demolishes” gave existing urban architecture new life, crowned the 2021 Pritzker Prize during a ceremony.
Lacaton and Vassal, who were born in France and Morocco respectively, met as students in Bordeaux before co-founding Lacaton & Vassal with the founder of the practice in 1987. Together they designed a number of important cultural and educational buildings, including the Nantes School of Architecture’s campus along the river, completed in 2009, and an ambitious expansion of the Palais de Tokyo art gallery in 2012, which housed the 20,000-square-foot museum. enlarged.
Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France Credit: Thanks to Philippe Ruault
But it is the work that refurbishes France’s post-war buildings for social housing that has attracted the most feathers in the industry, including the Global Award for Sustainable Architecture and the prestigious Mies van der Rohe Award. Their 2004 “Plus” manifesto, co-authored with architect Frédéric Druot, called on the French government to renovate the country’s public housing with the mantra rather than destroying it: “Never demolish, never remove or do not replace, always add, transform and reuse! “
The approach led to the rejuvenation of several major residential blocks threatened with demolition, as French urban planning policy in the 2000s sought to destroy and rebuild outdated public housing projects rather than improve them. In 2011, Lacaton, Vassal and Druot completed the transformation of the Tour Bois le Prêtre, a comprehensive 1960s residential project in the north of Paris. By replacing the facade of the building, the architects not only enlarged the square footage of each of the 96 units, but also added modern elements such as terraces and large windows.
Anne Lacaton and Philippe Vassal Credit: Thanks to Laurent Chalet
The trio later completed a major renovation of another social housing development in Bordeaux, modernizing and expanding its 560 apartments without relocating the current residents. According to a press release announcing Pritzker laureates in 2021, their work has been completed at a third of the cost of demolishing and rebuilding the three blocks from scratch.
Demolish an ‘act of violence’
Lacaton and Vassal’s other large-scale refurbishment projects in France also saw them transform an old factory into a private residence in Bordeaux and an unused shipbuilding workshop into a gallery and office space in Dunkirk.
“Transformation is the opportunity to do more and better with what already exists,” Lacaton said in a press release announcing this year’s Pritzker laureates. “The demolition is a decision of convenience and short-term. It is a waste of many things – a waste of energy, a waste of materials and a waste of history. In addition, it has a very negative social impact. “It’s an act of violence.”
Tour Bois le Prêtre, Paris, France Credit: Thanks to Philippe Ruault
The Pritzker Prize, first awarded to celebrated modernist Philip Johnson in 1979, recognizes the work of a living architect, or architects, who, according to the organizers, show a combination of ‘talent, vision and dedication’ . Although traditionally awarded to a single architect, several duos have taken home the award over the past few years, starting with Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron in 2001.
House in Bordeaux Credit: Thanks to Philippe Ruault
The judges of the award said that Lacaton and Vassal’s approach “strengthens the modernist hopes and dreams to improve the lives of many people”. The jury’s quote continues: “They achieve this through a powerful sense of space and materials that creates architecture as strongly in its forms as in its beliefs, as transparent in its aesthetics as in its ethics.”
The panel of ten people, which included architects, educators and a co-judge of the U.S. Supreme Court, Stephen Breyer, also attributed the pair because they “extended the concept of sustainability” and said the two architects had no opposition. does not refuse between architectural quality, environmental responsibility and the pursuit of an ethical society. ‘
Top image: the redeveloped social housing project Grand Parc from the 1960s in Bordeaux, France.