Chinese architect Liu Jiakun honoured with 2025 Pritzker Prize for human-centered design

The prestigious Pritzker Architecture Prize has been awarded to Liu Jiakun, a visionary architect from Chengdu, China, whose work redefines how architecture serves everyday people.

The 69-year-old architect and founder of Jiakun Architects “upholds the transcendent power of the built environment through the harmonising of cultural, historical, emotional and social dimensions, using architecture to forge community, inspire compassion and elevate the human spirit,” Pritzker organisers said in a statement.

He is only the second Chinese citizen to receive the prize, following Wang Shu in 2012, a remarkable achievement considering private architectural practice was banned in China until the 1990s.

Liu, based in China's southwestern Sichuan region, has said that the purpose of his architecture “is to create a beautiful, just and dignified living environment,” and that he tries to balance commercial needs with the human needs of the public.

Organisers cited his West Village in Chengdu, a 2015 five-story project that spans a block. It includes a perimetre of pathways for cyclists and pedestrians around “its own vibrant city of cultural, athletic, recreational, office and business activities within, while allowing the public to view through to the surrounding natural and built environments.”

They also noted the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute Department of Sculpture in Chongqing, which they said displays an alternate solution to maximising space, “with upper levels protruding outward to extend the square footage of a narrow footprint.”

In a recent interview in his office in Chengdu, Liu said he was not one of those architects who likes to have a strongly recognisable visual style. Rather, he said, he pays more attention to method and