Claude Parent Prize for Transgressive Architecture 2026

The Claude Parent Archives association announces that applications for the Claude Parent Prize 2026 will open on December 5, 2025. An international prize celebrating architects who push boundaries and reimagine the future of architecture and urban design. 

The second edition is held under the honorary presidency of Jean Nouvel, with the winner’s trophy specially designed by artist Loris Gréaud. 

Success in 2024 and a new ambition 

Following the 2024 edition — with 139 entries from 39 countries, 9 finalists, and the prize going to Atelier JankoviĊ de Thy — the Claude Parent Prize reaffirms its international scope and continues to pursue its mission: celebrating architecture that is bold, visionary, and free. 

Thinking differently about architecture 

Today, architecture is going through a new period of retreat, a return to dogma and the norm. Few still dare to cross the boundaries. Research too often settles for superficial solutions, without challenging the very foundations of architectural language or urban space. Yet some people, in the spirit of Claude Parent, continue to imagine other possibilities. 

Claude Parent shattered conventions, tilting walls, breaking reference points, and expanding the limits of our imagination. Through his vision, he invited us to experience architecture and the city differently. The profound path he carved has been followed by generations. Many architects, inspired by his freedom, his architecture, his exploration of the oblique, and his writings, have carried on or reinvented his spirit of transgression in their own way. 

The Claude Parent Prize aims to reward bold architects who are aware of the current impasse and determined to break new ground. Their transgressive, pioneering or visionary approach is helping to reinvent the discipline and rethink the way we inhabit the world. This prize does not seek to find clones or imitators, something Claude Parent himself never wanted, but to champion the freedom to experiment, to break boundaries, and to reinvent architecture.

More details at prixclaudeparent.org.