Jean Nouvel

The Hyatt Foundation presents yearly, since 1979, the Pritkzer Prize, one of the most important international architectural awards. After the British Richard Rogers, 2007 laureate, the French Jean Nouvel has been the new recipient. A jury formed, among others, by Shigeru Ban, Carlos Jiménez and Renzo Piano, commended Nouvel for his “persistence, imagination, exuberance, and, above all, an insatiable urge for creative experimentation”. Over more than thirty years of practice, Nouvel has defied the established rules and extended the vocabulary of forms and textures of contemporary architecture by breaking up of scale and through light control. The tireless search for new ideas has moulded a prolific career during which he has completed significant works, some by the Seine in Paris, like the Arab World Institute (1987) or the Quai Branly Museum (2006), and others outside his country, like the Conference Center in Lucerne or the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis (2005). The Agbar Tower in Barcelona and the Reina Sofía Museum extension in Madrid (both of 2005) are two good examples of his heterogeneous architecture in Spain.