Lina Ghotmeh

Every two years the Schelling Architecture Foundation, based in Karlsruhe (Germany), grants the Schelling Award for Architecture and Architectural Theory, which comes with a 30,000-euro prize, to recognize “future-oriented developments in architecture as well as incisive accomplishments in architectural theory.” In 2021, a prestigious jury of seven selected Lina Ghotmeh, a French architect who runs a practice in Paris and has also been feted by France’s Fine Arts Academy. She is the author of buildings which are highly personal and strong in typological innovation, not to mention a powerful material stamp, as is evident in the Estonian National Museum in Tartu, the Stone Garden apartment tower in Beirut, or the Réalimenter Masséna project for a timber-structured high-rise, which the Paris City Hall honored. Lina Ghotmeh’s predecessors among Schelling laureates are leading figures of the contemporary scene, from Zaha Hadid in 1994 to Rotor Architects in 2018, by way of Francis Kéré in 2014, Lacaton & Vassal in 2006, or Kazuyo Sejima in 2000.