SIR DAVID ALAN CHIPPERFIELD PRITZKER ARCHITECTURE PRIZE 2023 LAUREATE.

19/03/2023

The Londoner Sir David Chipperfield has been selected as the 2023 Laureate of the Pritzker Architecture Prize – an award regarded internationally as architecture’s highest honour.

David Alan Chipperfield, has produced, during four decades, over one hundred works, ranging from civic, cultural and academic buildings to residences and urban master planning throughout Asia, Europe and North America, focusing especially on museums.

Strong advocate of social and environmental welfare, he has skilfully chosen the tools that are instrumental to the project instead of those that might only celebrate the architect as artist.

“We know that, as architects, we can have a more prominent and engaged role in creating not only a more beautiful world but a fairer and more sustainable one too. We must rise to this challenge and help inspire the next generation to embrace this responsibility with vision and courage.”

In Singular Studio we would like to pay a small tribute to the winner. Each of the architects who make up the studio, has debated what is his/her favorite Chipperfield work. These are the results:

 

JMP: DAIRY ROAD BUILDING

The Dairy Road Building is a very interesting example of hybrid residential building, also combining cultural, commercial and industrial spaces, with a very contained scale for the usual size of Chipperfield works, and with an excellent sensitivity to landscape and bioclimatic architecture. With a combination of noble and innovative materials, a residential complex is created where the sense of community and neighborhood is enhanced.

 

AGP: AMOREPACIFIC

If I had to choose a work by David Chipperfield, it would be Amorepacific. Being in touch with nature has always provided peace and shelter for humans. And this is something that Chipperfield knows very well. The sober materiality of the building enhances, even more, the integrative design of the green and public space in it, resulting in a brilliant example of biophilic architecture.

 

ABP: KUNSTHAUS

My favorite Chipperfield work is the extension of the Kunsthaus museum in Zurich. The reason is the rotundity of its stone facade, which combines the tradition of the material, also used in other emblematic buildings of Zurich, together with the constant rhythm of the stone fins that compose it. I think that Chipperfield manages to integrate an innovative building into the set of 4 buildings that conform the museum, keeping the elegance of its shapes. I also love the set of materials he uses standing out in the central spaces of passage, and hiding in the exhibition spaces, leaving the beauty to the art itself.

 

SML: HEPWORTH

Located next to Calder River, the gallery Wakefiels is reflected. This work of David Chipperfield plays with trapezoidal volumes of different dimensions, adapting to the scale of the industrial constructions of the area and showing in the materiality, its constructive sincerity through exposed concrete.

 

MAC: JAMES SIMON GALLERY

David Chipperfield, in this work, highlights a timeless sense, a neutral and luminous construction, giving rise to the brilliance of art above any variable. The most valuable, its openness to society as a way to reconcile architecture with the city. It respects urban needs and interests and prioritizes a neutral architectural language to enhance the qualities of existing elements.

 

NSF: CAVA ARCARI

When I visited Cava Arcari, I discovered that it is a magical, free and fluid place. The space is supported by what can no longer be extracted: the negative of the extraction, the stone columns. Characterized by colossal pillars, it is punctuated by transparent water mirrors that reflect a geometry made of square profiles worked by the sizes of wedges used by stonemasons to shape the rock. In this suggestive place, Chipperfield designs a stage with stepped floors, recessed platforms where he manages to get a space almost in another dimension, where the columns, the depth of the cave, the reflection in the mirror of the water and the contrast of lights and shadows determine the scenic space, creating an experience for those who visit the environment.