This year’s Pritzker Prize laureate David Chipperfield has concluded his remarks at the special awards ceremony and presentation held this morning at the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA). 

Topics covered by Chipperfield’s address include the limits and responsibilities of practice, the market’s influence over the industry, and an overview of his career, all framed by the impetus of climate change and the responsibility of designers within the context of the current global architectural stasis. 

Chipperfield began by paying homage to Le Corbusier, Josep Lluís Sert, and the other architects who met at the school for the influential Fourth CIAM Congress on urban planning in August of 1933, stating: “We find ourselves again, in this room, needing more than ever the sort of planning structures that were proposing in order that we can confront the environmental issues of our time.”

“We must become increasingly committed that architecture has a purpose and that the architectural community can play a bigger role in the way we plan the future. [...] Unlike our predecessors who gathered in this building ninety years ago, we don’t have to invent visions of a brave new world but rather, to secure and protect the one we have,” the designer of Athens' forthcoming National Archaeological Museum concluded in saying, before turning to pay homage to the host city. 

“What better place to be humbled by the achievement of civilization, reminded of the physical and political limits of our own time, and the enduring power of idea and beauty,” he said.

A discussion session featuring Chipperfield, last year's winner Francis Kéré, and 2021 laureates Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal followed. 

The full video of the address and subsequent panel discussion can be viewed below. 

Video courtesy School of Architecture NTUA/YouTube