"It’s going to be about gratitude and it’s going to be about joy": Watch Alejandro Aravena's Pritzker acceptance speech

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"It’s going to be about gratitude and it’s going to be about joy": Watch Alejandro Aravena's Pritzker acceptance speech

By Nicholas Korody

Apr 5, '16 7:40 PM EST

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Alejandro Aravena accepts the Pritzker Prize during a ceremony at the United Nations in New York City.
Yesterday, the Chilean architect Alejandro Aravena was awarded the Pritzker Prize during a ceremony at the United Nations Headquarters in New York City. Known for his socially-engaged practice, Elemental, Aravena will also serve as the curator for this summer's Venice Biennale.
“The work of this year’s Pritzker laureate, Alejandro Aravena of Chile, shows how much architecture can contribute to achieving our shared goals," said UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, who gave the first address of the night via video.
"The United Nations is striving to build resilient societies and to support the most vulnerable members of society," Ban asserted – the first in many comments made throughout the event that compared the work of Aravena with the intergovernmental organization. "Señor Aravena is a pioneer in low cost social housing and in rebuilding cities after natural disasters.”
Lord Peter Palumbo, the chair of Pritzker jury, followed Ban with a sentimental address. Beginning by paying respects to his personal friend Zaha Hadid, who died unexpectedly last week, Palumbo said, "I shall simply remember here and now this complicated, contrary, and utterly wonderful lady of indomitable spirit as she was to her friends: loyal, compassionate, gentle, kind, and always funny.”
Watch the full Pritzker Prize ceremony here:
Moving on to the focus of the evening, Palumbo stated, "In a still-developing and hauntingly beautiful country, at the very end of the Earth’s Southern reach, it is to those people in Chile who exist below the poverty level to whom Aravena has dedicated most of his professional life, his hopes, and his dreams by helping them to recover the sensation of life. And this he has achieved through brilliance of mind, heart and spirit."
Palumbo described the work of Aravena and his firm, Elemental, as "a symphony of solutions, basic but beautiful", responsible for giving Chile's socioeconomically dispossessed "a garland of dignity and a ray of optimism."
Tom Pritzker, the Chairman of the Pritzker Organization, introduced Aravena with more salutatory remarks, stating his work “epitomizes the possibilities of socially-engaged architecture.”
Finally, Aravena stepped up to the dais. “This is going to be very tough," he said.
After paying respects to Hadid, Aravena began a touching and personal speech. Noting that the event would be followed by a discussion tonight on the future of architecture (check back soon for Archinect's coverage of the event), the honoree said, "Today, instead of making a public policy or a message for the profession, I want to make it personal. And it’s going to be about gratitude and it’s going to be about joy.”
“To start with, it’s not that I wake up in the morning with an incredible desire to do, let’s say, an office building," he continued. "Someone has to need that building in the first place.”
Aravena then meandered through a series of expressions of gratitude: to his clients, both public and private; to the inhabitants of his projects who complete the “walls and roofs we have set only as a frame”; to his fellow partners and their spouses; to his former professors; to the rest of his firm back in Chile; and to many other figures he cited as equally responsible for the work he was celebrated for that evening.
Watch the full press conference here:
Aravena addressed his wife and daughters, stating, "Thanks to my family, I have dedicated less time to architecture and more time to my life.”
Choking back tears, he concluded, "What we architects model is not bricks or stones or steel or wood, but life itself. Architecture is about giving form to the places where people live – it is not more complicated than that but also not more simple than that.”
The Pritzker Prize is widely seen as the discipline's highest honor, and Aravena noted that it would likely change the scope of his practice. He expressed excitement over the "freedom" it could provide, but focused on his gratitude for those who helped him achieve it.
For more on Aravena and Elemental, check out these links:
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