2023 Pritzker Prize: David Alan Chipperfield awarded ‘Nobel Prize of architecture’

David Alan Chipperfield was born in London in 1953 and grew up on a farm in South West England. He attended Kingston School of Art and received a diploma in architecture from the Architectural Association in London in 1980. Four years later, he went into business for himself and founded David Chipperfield Architects, an architectural practice that now operates internationally with offices in Berlin, Shanghai and Milan, among other locations. His design of a shop for Japanese fashion designer Issey Miyake marked Chipperfield’s breakthrough – first in Japan, then later in other Asian countries, Europe and North America. With the completion of the River and Rowing Museum in Henley-on-Thames in 1997, he celebrated his first major success in his home country.  

As the order books filled up, Chipperfield’s awareness of the social role of architecture grew, with social and environmental responsibility increasingly incorporated into his designs. “Architects can’t operate outside of society. We need a planning framework, we need ambitions, we need priorities”, he explains in the context of his Pritzker Prize award, adding that, in view of the climate and environmental crisis, it is important to reconsider society’s priorities and to prevent profit from being the only factor motivating our decisions. 

In keeping with this belief, his minimalist designs are free of ostentation and designed to last, using materials such as concrete, steel and glass. “Sustainability eliminates the superfluous,” states the jury of the 2023 Pritzker Prize in its citation, elaborating: “In an era of excessive commercialisation, over-designing, and over-exaggeration, he can always achieve balance: between a modern minimalistic architectural language and freedom of expression, between abstract statements and rigorous elegance.” This is also demonstrated by the following three works by the architect. 

Besides residential buildings, educational institutions and office buildings, the UK architect’s portfolio includes a particularly large number of cultural buildings, such as the Museo Jumex (2013) in a new district of Mexico City and the new Kunsthaus Zürich extension (2020).  

In Germany, Chipperfield has primarily made a name for himself with his redesign of Berlin’s Museum Island. Most recently, Chipperfield refurbished the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin (2021), using modern methods to bring Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s iconic building up to date without impacting its original appearance. 

The 69-year-old continues to work on projects around the world. These currently include an extension to the National Archaeological Museum in Athens and the new stadium for the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan.  

After a career spanning 40 years, Chipperfield has joined the ranks of international architects who have been awarded the ‘Nobel Prize of architecture’. The 2023 Pritzker Prize is the latest addition to a long list of awards and honours for his work, including the Riba Royal Gold Medal and the Heinrich Tessenow Medal. In 2010, he was elevated to the peerage of the United Kingdom.  

The Pritzker Prize is regarded as the highest accolade in the architectural world and has honoured architects who have made “significant contributions to humanity and the built environment through the art of architecture” since 1979. Previous winners include Norman Foster (1999), Zaha Hadid (2004) and, most recently, Francis Kéré (2022).