In 2020, for the first time in the history of the award, the Hyatt Foundation gave the Pritzker Prize to a tandem of women: the Irish firm Grafton Architects. The work of Yvonne Farrell (1951) and Shelley McNamara (1952) – in joint practice since 1978 and based in Dublin – has from the beginning been marked by its civic commitment and a professionalism strong on details. All this is channeled through a language which for inspiration looks to the megastructures of Alison and Peter Smithson and the distilled poetic of reinforced concrete developed by Paulo Mendes da Rocha; a language one might describe as ‘friendly brutalism.’ Radical yet friendly, indeed, are their buildings, many of them commissioned to serve institutions in culture and education, from Bocconi University in Milan to the London School of Economics and the Dublin City Library, not to mention the UTEC in Lima and the University of Limerick. Farrell and McNamara have combined professional practice with critical and theoretical activity: in 2018 they curated the Venice Architecture Biennale.
School of Economics, Universita Luigi Bocconi in Milan © Brunetti
School of Economics, Universita Luigi Bocconi in Milan © Brunetti
niversity Campus UTEC Lima © Iwan Baan
niversity Campus UTEC Lima © Iwan Baan
Building for Kingston University in London © Dennis Gilbert
Building for Kingston University in London © Ed Reeve
