Ricardo Legorreta

Endowed with 15 million Yen (over 150,000 euros), the Praemium Imperiale of the Japan Art Association is given yearly, since 1989,  o five artists in the categories of painting, sculpture, architecture, music, and cinemaor theater. The 2011 awardees have been, in the aforementioned order: Bill Viola, Anish Kapoor, Ricardo Legorreta, Seiji Ozawa and Judi Dench. The prize, presented a few months before the architect’s death, rounds off a career with noteworthy works like the Montalbán House in Los Angeles (1985); the Monterrey Museum of Contemporary Art (1991); the Metropolitan Cathedral of Managua (1993); Pershing Square in Los Angeles (1993); Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar (2009); or the Georgetown School of Foreign Services in Qatar (2011). In Spain, Legorreta has works like the Sheraton Abandoibarra Hotel in Bilbao, the Parque Europa housing in Madrid, and the house in Sotogrande, all of the them completed in 2004. Legorreta worked in collaboration with his son Víctor since 1991, and is the first Mexican to receive the Praemium Imperiale.