Thom Mayne 

 The eighth American to win the Pritzker was born in Connecticut in 1944, but is Californian by choice. His career began in 1972 with Michael Rotondi. Together they set up Morphosis, an interdisciplinary studio with designers, graphic artists, and urban planners. The group started to make a name for itself with the project for the Sequoyah Educational Research Center, but it was in the 1980s that Morphosis really gelled, thanks to the motley formal language of industrial flavors, that the Lawrence House, the Kate Mantilini restaurant, or the facade of Hennessy & Ingalls Bookstore in Los Angeles. These were followed by works like the Cedars Sinai Cancer Center and the Diamond Ranch school. After dissociating himself from Morphosis, Mayne continued on his own, and his architecture, once considered provocative, is now giving shape to major institutional projects. Among his recently completed buildings are Caltrans 7, and in Madrid he is carrying out a social housing project. A founder of the avant-garde architecture school SCI-Arc, Mayne has always combined professional practice and teaching.