Award winning contemporary architecture - a case study: the Pritzker Prize

• Grant number: 13/25530-2
• Support type: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Effective date (Start): April 01, 2014
• Effective date (End): December 31, 2014
• Field of knowledge: Applied Social Sciences - Architecture and Town Planning - Fundamentals of Architecture and Urbanism
• Principal researcher: Ruy Sardinha Lopes
• Grantee: Jessica Seabra
• Home Institution: Instituto de Arquitetura e Urbanismo de São Carlos (IAU). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Carlos , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This research aims to analyze the Pritzker Prize, architectural award created in 1979 by the Hyatt Foundation, managed by the Pritzker family. From the analysis of the constitution of this award, of its discourse and the work of seventeen of the architects awarded by the prize, it intends to recognize and associate this award and this production to the contemporary debates and conditionings in architecture. The work involves the following activities: survey and reading of the major international architectural awards relating them to their historical contexts and socio-cultural and economic implications; research and analysis of the "Pritzker model"; survey and selection of primary and secondary sources on the work of seventeen architects awarded by the Pritzker Prize from 1998 to 2014 to create graphs about the work of award-winning architects, analyzing the internationalization of their work and production over the years, and investigating whether it is influenced by the awards; iconographic survey and selection of works of some architects awarded by the Pritzker Prize; brief analysis of the collected material, as discourse and as architectural result; identification of constants, variables, discourses and their insertion in the debates of the period; quantitative survey about the presence of the architects awarded with the Pritzker Prize between 1998 to 2014 in some of the major international architecture magazines in the studied period; research and evaluation of the award as a legitimizing agent of architectural culture.