Smiljan Radić Clarke announced as 2026 Pritzker Prize winner

Chilean architect Smiljan Radić Clarke has been named as the winner of the 2026 Pritzker Architecture Prize. Radić's approach is defined by unique, singular approaches to each project rather than adopting a repeatable architectural language. For many, he is best known as the designer of the 2014 Serpentine Pavilion in London, one of the architecture world's most high-profile commissions.

According to the jury, Radić's work is driven by context, use, and anthropological awareness, where the site is understood not only in physical terms but as a convergence of history, social practice, and political circumstance. Site-specific strategies drive his work, with each building emerging from particular conditions rather than from a signature formula. 

“Through a body of work positioned at the crossroads of uncertainty, material experimentation, and cultural memory, Smiljan Radić favours fragility over any unwarranted claim to certainty,” the jury noted. “His buildings appear temporary, unstable, or deliberately unfinished—almost on the point of disappearance—yet they provide a structured, optimistic and quietly joyful shelter, embracing vulnerability as an intrinsic condition of lived experience.”

Beyond the Serpentine Pavilion, among Radić's most celebrated works are the Teatro Regional del Biobío (Concepción, Chile, 2018), where a semi-translucent envelope modulates light and supports acoustic performance through restraint. Meanwhile, at the House for the Poem of the Right Angle (Vilches, Chile, 2013), Radić designed a contemplative retreat, with thoughtfully placed openings, oriented upward to capture light and time, encouraging stillness and introspection.

Radić’s wider portfolio has amassed over three decades, spanning cultural institutions, civic spaces, commercial buildings, private residences, and installations. Among his celebrated works are Guatero, for the XXII Chilean Architecture Biennial (Santiago, Chile, 2023); London Sky Bubble (London, United Kingdom, 2021); Chanchera House (Puerto Octay, Chile, 2022); Prism House (Conguillío, Chile, 2020); Vik Millahue Winery (Millahue, Chile, 2013); The Boy Hidden in a Fish, with Marcela Correa, for the 12th International Architecture Biennale of Venice (Venice, Italy, 2010); and CR House (Santiago, Chile, 2003).

"Architecture exists between large, massive, and enduring forms—structures that stand under the sun for centuries, waiting for our visit—and smaller, fragile constructions—fleeting as the life of a fly, often without a clear destiny under conventional light," Radić said upon the announcement that he would receive the prize. "Within this tension of disparate times, we strive to create experiences that carry emotional presence, encouraging people to pause and reconsider a world that so often passes them by with indifference."

As the 55th laureate, Radić will join the Pritzker's list of winners, which in recent years has included Liu Jiakun (2025), Riken Yamamoto (2024), David Chipperfield (2023), Francis Kéré (2022), and Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal of Lacaton and Vassal who collectively won the 2021 prize. 

Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara of Grafton Architects won the prize collectively in 2020, following Arata Isozaki (2019), Balkrishna Doshi (2018), and RCR Arquitectes co-founders Rafael Aranda, Carme Pigem, and Ramon Vilalta (2017).

Last month, the Pritzker Prize said that the announcement of the winner for the 2026 edition would be delayed. The move came after Tom Pritzker, son of award creators Jay and Cindy Pritzker, resigned as executive chairman of the Hyatt Hotels Corporation over maintaining links with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.