About Liu Jiakun /
Vision and Values
Liu Jiakun's pathway to architecture was neither linear nor expected.
Born in 1956 in Chengdu, People's Republic of China, he spent much of his childhood in the corridors of Chengdu Second People's Hospital, founded as Gospel Hospital in 1892, where his mother was an internist. He credits the environment of the Christian medical institute for cultivating his lifelong inherent religious tolerance. Although nearly all of his immediate family members were physicians, he displayed an interest for creative arts, exploring the world through drawing and literature, eventually prompting a teacher to introduce architecture as a profession.
"I always aspire to be like water—to permeate through a place without carrying a fixed form of my own and to seep into the local environment and the site itself. Over time, the water gradually solidifies, transforming into architecture, and perhaps even into the highest form of human spiritual creation. Yet, it still retains all the qualities of that place, both good and bad."
Announcement
Liu Jiakun Receives the 2025 Pritzker Architecture Prize Chicago, IL (March 4, 2025) - The Pritzker Architecture Prize announces Liu Jiakun, of Chengdu, People's Republic of China, as the 2025 Laureate of the Pritzker Architecture Prize, the award that is regarded internationally as architecture's highest honor.
“Architecture should reveal something—it should abstract, distill and make visible the inherent qualities of local people. It has the power to shape human behavior and create atmospheres, offering a sense of serenity and poetry, evoking compassion and mercy, and cultivating a sense of shared community,” expresses Liu.
Intertwining seeming antipodes such as utopia versus everyday existence, history versus modernity, and collectivism versus individuality, Liu offers affirming architecture that celebrates the lives of ordinary citizens. He upholds the transcendent power of the built environment through the harmonizing of cultural, historical, emotional and social dimensions, using architecture to forge community, inspire compassion and elevate the human spirit.
“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. 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,” states the 2025 Jury Citation, in part.
