Videos
Meeting House Square, Temple Bar. Image Courtesy of Sean Harrington Architects
The veteran Irish architecture critic Shane O'Toole once remarked that when traveling in Europe in the 1970s, "The universal comment was is there modern architecture in Ireland? Now, in less than 50 years, we've gone to a Pritzker Prize and two RIBA Royal Gold Medallists in five years." He attributes this change in perception to a design competition that launched the careers of several of Ireland's award-winning architects of today. This was the Temple Bar Framework Plan competition of 1991 in the center of Dublin, the capital of Ireland, which was won by a group of architects still in their 30s, running under the name of Group 91.
The Pritzker Prize is the most important award in the field of architecture, awarded to a living architect whose built work "has produced consistent and significant contributions to humanity through the art of architecture." The Prize rewards individuals, not entire offices, as took place in 2000 (when the jury selected Rem Koolhaas instead of his firm OMA) or in 2016 (with Alejandro Aravena selected instead of Elemental); however, the prize can also be awarded to multiple individuals working together, as took place in 2001 (Herzog & de Meuron), 2010 (Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa of SANAA), and 2017 (Rafael Aranda, Carme Pigem, and Ramon Vilalta of RCR Arquitectes).
The Aga Khan Award for Architecture has announced the Master Jury for the 16th award cycle. The independent panel includes Pritzker Prize laureate Yvonne Farrell, ArchDaily founder David Basulto, and Lucia Allais, director of the Buell Center. Established in 1977 by Aga Khan IV, this competition set out to highlight architectural projects that have a significant positive impact on Islamic communities worldwide. The Award is presented in three-year cycles and has a monetary prize totaling US$1 million.
On the occasion of UNESCO’s International Day of Light, The Daylight Awardhas announced the 2022 Laureates; Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara of Grafton Architects for their architecture, and Anna Wirz-Justice for her research. The winners were commended for their continuous exploration and prominent humanistic spirit regarding the celebration of daylight in their respective practices, allowing it to celebrate and enhance the quality of life.
MAXXI Museum celebrates women in architecture in a new exhibition that documents the transformative role of female architects in the profession's evolution over the last century. Curated by Pippo Ciorra, Elena Motisi, Elena Tinacci, and with exhibition design by Matilde Cassani, Good News. Women in Architecture weaves together in four thematic sections the history of women in architecture, with the work of contemporary practitioners and the voices of young collectives, telling the stories of over eighty female architects.
The Pritzker Architecture Prize released a special ceremony video honouring the 2021 laureates Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal. Previously held in person, each time at a different architecturally significant venue around the world, this year’s ceremony is the second pre-filmed event in the history of the Prize, following the one in 2020. The ceremony features filmed remarks from various speakers, among which are several jury members, Jury Chair Alejandro Aravena, the 2020 Prize recipients Shelley McNamara and Yvonne Farrell, as well as this year’s Laureates themselves. The video also pays tribute to the achievements of Lacaton and Vassal through footage of their built work.
The Pritzker Architecture Prize has released a special video to honor 2020 Laureates, Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara, the 47th and 48th Laureates of the award, and the first two Irish citizens to receive the distinction. For the first time in the 42-year history of the award, an in-person ceremony could not be held, therefore organizers created a film, discussing the meaning of the Prize and revealing the Laureates’ intimate reflections on architecture.
Courtesy of Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design, University of Arkansas / Grafton Architects
Grafton Architects was selected as the winning firm to design the Anthony Timberlands Center for Design and Materials Innovation at the University of Arkansas. In collaboration with Modus Studio for the planned campus design research center, the design on the project is scheduled to begin this summer.
Architects around the world are constantly striving to explore new ways of using materials that are both more environmentally friendly, and can create impactful designs that demonstrate new abilities of creativity. For 2020 Pritzker Prize winners Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara of Grafton Architects, these ideas are at the forefront of every project they design, but became especially meaningful when they visited their completed “carved mountain” project, University Campus UTEC, in Lima, Peru for the first time.
Pritzker Prize 2020 Laureates, Irish architects Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara are known for their powerful yet delicate approaches. In this exclusive video for ArchDaily, Martha Thorne, executive director of the Pritzker Architecture Prize and Dean of IE School of Architecture and Design, shares some of the reasons why Grafton Architects has won the Pritzker Prize 2020.
“When you read Love in the Time of Cholera you come to realize the magic realism of South America.” Yvonne Farrell, Shelley McNamara and I were in a corner of the Barbican Centre’s sprawling, shallow atrium talking about the subject of their most recent accolade, the Royal Institute of British Architects inaugural International Prize, awarded that previous evening. That same night the two Irish architects, who founded their practice in Dublin in the 1970s, also delivered a lecture on the Universidad de Ingeniería and Tecnologia (UTEC)—their “modern-day Machu Picchu” in Lima—to a packed audience in London’s Portland Place.
This year, architecture’s highest honor, the Pritzker Prize, has been granted to Grafton Architects' Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara of Dublin, Ireland. The 2020 Laureates, who are both educators and architects, are known for their powerful yet delicate approaches. Their contextual and modern interventions are very attentive to history, demonstrating high levels of sensitivity and craftsmanship.
With more than 40 years of professional experience, Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara, partners and co-founders of Dublin-based Grafton Architects, are the first women to be jointly awarded the architecture’s highest honor, the Pritzker Prize. In addition to a very welcoming breath of hope towards greater female representation in the field, the selection also cast light over an equally urgent theme in the profession: recognizing architecture practice as a collective effort.
Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara founded Grafton Architects in 1978, after they met each other at the School of Architecture at University College Dublin. The practice, named after the street where the duo's first office was located, has been awarded this year’s prestigious 2020 Pritzker Award. Grafton's built work reflects the continued search of architectural excellence, in buildings ranging from small scale housing to large public volumes.
https://www.archdaily.com/934727/grafton-architects-get-to-know-2020-pritzker-winners-built-workAD Editorial Team