Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara, of Dublin-based practice Grafton Architects, are the 2020 Pritzker Prize Laureates, architecture’s highest honor internationally. They are the 47th and 48th Laureates of the Pritzker Prize respectively, and the first two recipients from the Republic of Ireland. The Pritzker Architecture Prize was founded in 1979 by the late Jay A. Pritzker and his wife, Cindy, with the aim of honoring a living architect whose built work demonstrates talent, vision and commitment, and which has produced a significant contribution to humanity and the built environment. The prestigious prize is awarded on an annual basis, to an outstanding individual architect or partnership. The pair also received the RIBA Gold Medal for 2020 earlier in the year.
Université Toulouse 1 Capitole, School of Economics, 2019, Toulouse, France
Located at a turning point of the Canal de Garonne, the site of the new School of Economics is important for the university and the city. The new building, with seven stories above ground and two basements, is, according to the architects, “a composition of the re-interpreted elements of Toulouse: the buttresses, the walls, the ramps, the cool mysterious interiors, the cloisters and the courtyards.”
In order to provide places of research and education which are pleasurable to work in, the architects have devised a building strategy to maximize natural air, light and ventilation to each space within the building from offices to seminar rooms to terraces. This allows them to position larger volumes with very little fenestration to act as a “deep wall,” controlling light, shadow and shade.
Town House Building, Kingston University, 2019, Kingston upon Thames, United Kingdom
The new facility seeks to bring together the university and the local community and act as the university’s front door and a gateway to Kingston upon Thames. The Town House Building includes a learning resource center, dance studio, covered courtyard, café and is developed alongside a new landscaping scheme across the front of the campus. The six-story building of open-plan interiors is unified and enveloped by the stone colonnades that form the facades of the building.
The interior is composed of large, interconnected halls and double and triple-height spaces that overlap—physically and visually. The entrance lobby extends almost to the full height of the building, with staircases suspended from floorplates, adding a sculptural touch and physically weaving the layers of the building together. The architects have said, “University projects are miniature cities. There are three layers—administrators and professionals, lecture facilities, and then there is the city.”
Institut Mines Télécom, 2019, Paris, France
This 46,200m2 building is home to Institut Mines Télécom, Télécom Paristech and Télécom Sud-Paris in Palaiseau and serves a community of scholars, professors and students. The generous placement of open spaces, windows, glass curtain walls and exposed ceilings allow natural light to filter through a passage of rooms, creating impressions of light through large and small spaces and within the interlocking areas that comprise its five courtyards and quadrangle. “The master plan proposes streets, squares and boulevards with the poetic integration of landscape and ecology, as it refers to the legacy of the great tradition of educational institutions with their lawns, quadrangles, cloisters and courtyards.”
Farrell and McNamara’s professional partnership goes back forty years; since co-founding Grafton Architects in 1978, they have “consistently and unhesitatingly pursued the highest quality of architecture for the specific location in which it was to be built, the functions it would house and especially for the people who would inhabit and use their buildings and spaces”, said the jury.
The studio’s extensive portfolio ranges from educational buildings to housing to cultural and civic institutions, not only in their native Ireland but internationally, winning numerous competitions in Europe and South America. Notable examples include the University Campus UTEC in Lima (2015), the School of Economics Building at Universita Luigi Bocconi, Italy (2008) and Université Toulouse 1 Capitole, School of Economics, France (2019).
University Campus UTEC Lima, 2015, Lima, Peru
Situated on a difficult site with a busy motorway to one side and the low-rise urban edge of the city on the other, the University of Technology and Engineering, UTEC Lima, is a vertical and layered building inspired by the cliffs of its city. “The north side of the building serves as a ‘new cliff’, while the south features cascading gardens and open spaces that seek to integrate with the lower urban scale of this part of the district.”
The architects have created a muscular building with raw concrete finishes, some say reminiscent of brutalism. Structure and architectural spaces work together to form a new circulation landscape. The section naturally creates numerous spontaneous and humane gathering spaces throughout the building.
Larger scale volumes are located close to the ground, with the teaching, administration and teacher office areas staggered at higher levels. In the upper levels near the roof is the library with panoramic views of the city and the sea. In summary, this is a distinctive vertical campus structure responding to the temperate climatic conditions and referencing Peru’s terrain and heritage.
Medical School, University of Limerick, 2012, Limerick, Ireland
Located on both sides of the River Shannon, the Medical School at the University of Limerick is part of a continuing northward expansion of the institution. Connected to the existing campus by a pedestrian bridge, the newer facilities include a series of three red brick residences, also designed by the architects, as well as an open public space intended to serve as a new focal point.
The exterior limestone wall, referencing material native to the area, is “folded, profiled and layered in response to orientation, sun, wind, rain and public activity.” The four-story building includes a double-height atrium and a wide, open staircase, allowing occupants to view all levels below and above.
Closer to home for the pair, the Department of Finance building in Dublin (2009) was singled out for the selection of materials and construction techniques, which demonstrated considerable knowledge and care with a particularly sensitive site. North King Street Housing, Dublin (2000) – another historically contested site – makes minimal use of external design elements, mirroring the restraint of neighboring warehouses. According to Justice Stephen Breyer, Jury Chair, the pair have repeatedly tried and succeeded to address an increasingly important problem: “how do we build housing and workplaces in a world with over half of its population dwelling in urban environments, and many of them who cannot afford luxury?”
Grafton Architects’ works successfully encompass a range of scales, from large institutional buildings to a house of little more than 100m2. Consistently, Grafton Architects’ buildings operate at a human scale, with spaces and volumes of different sizes creating dialogues between buildings and surroundings. Deep interior spaces are connected with the exterior realm, and their use of lighting animates space, while helping building users orient themselves with the architecture. Research and sensitivity to the urban environment has been paramount.
Universita Luigi Bocconi, 2008, Milan, Italy
Occupying an entire city block, the architects have created a building which feels more like a campus of pavilions and courtyards with a vertical rather than horizontal configuration. The conference halls, lecture theaters, offices, meeting rooms, library and café are designed to house 1,000 professors and students, creating a feeling of community from within and sitting easily in the city that surrounds them. Throughout the building, the generous and diverse open spaces invite spontaneous encounters A exchanges.
The winner of the World Building of the Year 2008 award, the massive stone-clad construction can be thought of as having three distinct parts: the sunken volume, which houses, among other things, the impressive aula magna, the ground floor of flowing spaces and the more functional boxes “floating” above. The aula magna occupies the main frontage and provides a symbolic presence. The use of large openings and multiple vistas means that light filters throughout the building and visitors are drawn into the life of the interior.
Loreto Community School, 2006, Milford, Ireland
Located in the small town of Milford, in County Donegal, the Loreto Community School serves over 700 students and features four main components—a dining/assembly area which is surrounded by a technology wing, classroom block and athletic hall. The building’s undulating zinc roof echos the sloping dramatic landscape of the site and “light and air are drawn in between the folds of this undulation.”
The different wings are positioned as a pinwheel and create multiple outdoor “rooms” that are protected from winds and can be used in numerous ways by students, faculty and staff. The teaching areas, which vary in size and volume, allow light to enter from different sources. Using natural light to animate spaces, reflect the passage of time and connect the exterior and interiors is constant in the work of Grafton Architects.
The Pritzker judges, based in Chicago, Illinois, praised Farrell and McNamara for their “honest” approach to architecture, which eschews “grand or frivolous gestures”, saying: “they have managed to create buildings that are monumental institutional presences when appropriate, but even so they are zoned and detailed in such a way as to produce more intimate spaces that create community within”.
McNamara and Farrell are female trailblazers, only the fourth and fifth women to have won the award in its history, following in the footsteps of Zaha Hadid, Kazuyo Sejima and Carme Pigem. The jury described the pair as “pioneers in a field that has traditionally been and still is a male-dominated profession, they are also beacons to others as they forge their exemplary professional path…in a way that clearly reflects the objectives of the Pritzker Prize: to recognize the art of architecture and consistent service to humanity as evidenced through a body of built work”.
Urban Institute of Ireland, 2002, Dublin, Ireland
Situated at the edge of a cluster of university facilities, the Urban Institute of Ireland (UII) at University College Dublin brings together engineers, planners, architects, geographers, economists and scientists to find innovative ways of tackling the challenges of sustainable development. Designed to encourage integrative discourse, “a balance was sought between the academic tradition of the solitary scholar and the urgent need for interdisciplinary engagement if contemporary urban issues are to be addressed in a realistic way.”
Terracotta tiles, red brick and granite plinths form the “crafted skin” of this sustainable structure to create a visually interesting building through changes in materials. The building features a double-height ground floor that is comprised of laboratories and research rooms, stratified in an east-west orientation, while the upper level skylights feature north-west alignment, creating a contrasting grid and giving rise to a surprising and interesting degree of spatial complexity.
The pair have worked not only as architects but as educators at a number of global architecture schools including University College Dublin, Harvard, Yale and EPFL in Lausanne. They were the curators of the 2018 Venice Biennale on the theme of ‘FREESPACE’.
In response to the award, McNamara said: “Architecture is a framework for human life. It anchors us and connects us to the world in a way which possibly no other space-making discipline can.” Farrell said: “Architecture could be described as one of the most complex and important cultural activities on the planet…To be an architect is an enormous privilege. To win this prize is a wonderful endorsement of our belief in architecture”.
Farrell and McNamara were described as having integrity in the way they manage their practice and generosity towards their colleagues.
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