Eye on the Prize

First of all, congratulations to the Catalan firm RCR's, Carme Pigem, Rafael Aranda,  and Ramon Vilalta, on their award and recognition of our profession as extraordinarily collaborative. Unlike writers, painters and composers, architects can not realize their ideas without other design professionals, craftsman and a host of others, from bankers to the company that manufactures fasteners.

In reality, we architects do not "make" buildings, we create instructions on how to make buildings. That said, and as I review RCR's selected works and that of previous winners such as Rafael Moneo, Aldo Rossi and Luis Barragan, I can't help but think that this year's award is more about changing course for the Pritzker Foundation than RCR's body of work. I also believe that their are other Spanish architects that are more deserving; such as Alberto Campo Baeza and Juan Navarro Baldeweg. How Campo Baeza has not yet been awarded the Pritzker is a mystery to me.

Perhaps it is time for the Foundation to alter their award format and commit more to the profession by switching to multiple awards, focused on various aspects of our profession, instead of a single award; a format more like the Nobel prize or the Oscar's (The movie industry is the only creative profession where everyone gets credit for their efforts). With this change in philosophy, which began last year with recipient Alejandro Aravena, now would be an opportune time to do revisit the format in time for the 40th anniversary of the awards in 2019. I would urge however, that Bob Dylan not be a nominee.