Tiantian Xu wins the 2025 Wolf Prize, Yasmeen Lari declines citing Gaza’s destruction

The annual announcement of the prestigious Wolf Prize from the Israeli Wolf Foundation has been marred by controversy after one of the two selected 2025 Architecture laureates — Pakistani architect and 2023 RIBA Royal Gold Medal winner Yasmeen Lari — turned down the honor in protest. 

Lari would have joined Tiantian Xu, the award-winning Chinese architect who currently co-teaches the Marcus Prize Studio at the School of Architecture & Urban Planning at UW-Milwaukee, as the only other Architecture laureate this year. The decision to decline was confirmed Wednesday as her name did not appear on the foundation’s official online announcement.  

Citing concerns over human rights violations in the prosecution of the Gaza War, Lari has apparently decided to turn down the $100,000 prize. In a statement posted to Instagram, Lari said the following: 

"While I am immensely grateful for this honour, alas, in view of the unfortunate continuing genocide in Gaza, I am not able to accept the award and the prize money even from an organization that is private from the government. All violence is unacceptable to me on any side of a conflict and I’ve spent much of my life helping refugees, albeit climate migrants, and Gaza in unfortunately now one of the worst situations in terms of displacement."

For her work surrounding rural development, construction techniques, and the circular economy, Xu was cited by the foundation for a growing body of internationally recognized work that "prioritizes collectivity and communal space, fostering a rural transformation rooted in sensitivity and sustainability."

"Xu’s architecture is remarkably consistent: she favors natural materials such as wood, brick, stone, used sparingly but to great effect. Simple detailing foregrounds the materials themselves, rendering these projects — many of which are quite large in scale — surprisingly serene. Her architecture has transformed local village economies, making production more efficient, but also more elevated, more elegant," the citation reads.

Xu is now the first Chinese woman to win the Wolf Prize. She follows 2022 laureates Elizabeth Diller, Momoyo Kaijima, and Yoshiharu Tsukamoto and the 2019 winner, Moshe Safdie.