‘I am not very good at design’: architecture’s top honour goes to Riken Yamamoto

The Pritzker prize has been won by the 78-year-old Japaneses master whose whose work ranges from an open-access Hiroshima fire station to a building seemingly made of books

From rows of public housing connected by elevated walkways and shared terraces, to sleek glass university buildings designed for maximum transparency between departments, the architecture of Riken Yamamoto has always been about seeing and being seen. Now it’s his turn to be put in the spotlight, as the 78-year-old Japanese architect has been named the 2024 recipient of the Pritzker prize, architecture’s highest honour.

It’s a surprising choice. Yamamoto has never been part of the fashionable avant garde, of the “starchitect” kind that the Pritzker has often honoured in the past. Nor is he from an overlooked or undervalued region, as the prize has looked to highlight in some recent years. Instead, during a career spanning the last five decades, he has produced a consistent body of work in a neutral, modernist style, creating cubic, gridded forms in steel, concrete and glass, which might be hard to get excited about at first glance.