The Pritzker Prize has been up and down from the beginning. It nearly committed suicide at the very start when its jury selected Philip Johnson as the first laureate, although things were quickly set on course when Luis Barragan was chosen, albeit for the wrong reasons. Since then, despite uneven choices, the prize has somehow managed to put itself across as a benchmark of indisputable architectural quality. Every year the press repeats the mantra that this is the 'Nobel Prize' for architecture. Here caution is required: not all Nobel Prizes in science and literature are beyond dispute and the Nobel Peace Prize is sometimes given to those who wage illegal wars.
展开▼
