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For decades, the Pritzker Prize has been a stage for architectural legends—the visionaries who stamp their unmistakable style onto skylines and cityscapes. But 2025's laureate, Liu Jiakun, is a different kind of master. Unlike the starchitects who have long dominated the field, Liu has built a career on not having a signature look. Instead, he lets his projects take shape from their surroundings, whispering their own stories through materials, history, and local culture.
The 68-year-old Chengdu-based architect, who has been quietly crafting museums, public spaces, and academic buildings in southwestern China for nearly four decades, admits he was "a little surprised" to win the most prestigious award in architecture. But the Pritzker jury saw in Liu a quality increasingly rare in a world obsessed with spectacle: the ability to put substance over style. They praised him for having "a strategy instead of a style," a mantra that has guided his career.
Liu describes his approach as being "like water," adapting to each project's unique environment. He refuses to impose a singular aesthetic, opting instead to allow history, nature, and even disasters—such as repurposed earthquake debris—to shape his designs. His Museum of Imperial Kiln Brick in Suzhou draws from traditional Chinese pavilions, while the Novartis campus in Shanghai echoes the tiered grace of ancient pagodas. Yet, Liu insists he's not merely paying homage to the past; he's reshaping it.
"Traditional forms are the result of the culture, technology, and survival philosophy of their time," Liu explains. "If we focus only on those forms, we remain stuck in the past. But if we adopt their themes with modern methods, tradition continues." This philosophy sets him apart from China's rampant architectural mimicry, where faux-historical facades mask uninspired designs.
Born in 1956, Liu's formative years were marked by hardship. He grew up near the Chengdu hospital where his mother worked and was later sent to the countryside during Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution. But his career flourished in the reform era that followed, as China's architecture scene broke free from socialist uniformity. Graduating from the Chongqing Institute of Architecture and Engineering in 1982, Liu entered the field just as foreign architectural influences began seeping into China. Yet, while many architects embraced extravagant Western aesthetics, Liu looked inward, finding beauty in restraint.
His practice, Jiakun Architects, has completed over 30 projects—none outside China—a fact that makes his Pritzker win even more remarkable. While the world has come to expect grandeur and self-promotion from its architectural elites, Liu has instead built his legacy on quiet adaptability. In an era of flashy, Instagram-ready designs, his work serves as a reminder that great architecture doesn't need to shout. Sometimes, it just needs to listen.
