Do you know what’s Pritzker Award is?

The Pritzker price is also known as the “Nobel Prize for Architecture”.

The Pritzker Prize was established in 1979 by Jay A. and Cindy Pritzker, funded by the Pritzker family and sponsored by the Hyatt Foundation.

The prize is awarded to living architects whose work demonstrates a combination of qualities such as talent, vision and commitment to humanity and the environment.

Since the first winner, the North American Philip Johnson, architects such as the Brazilian Óscar Niemeyer, the North Americans Frank Gehry and Thom Mayne, the Dutchman Rem Koolhaas (author of the Casa da Música project in Porto), Álvaro Siza Vieira and Eduardo Souto de Moura have won the prize.

Only one architect is awarded each year. The exceptions were in 1988, to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the prize (Oscar Niemeyer and the North American Gordon Bunshaft were awarded), and in 2001, when the Swiss duo of Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron won.

The award model is based on that of the Swedish Academy’s Nobel Prizes. The selection is made by an international jury of experts who vote in secret.

The winner receives 100,000 dollars and a bronze medallion. The medallion bears the name of the prize on one side and the words “firmness, comfort and delight” on the other, recalling the basic principles of the architecture of the Roman Vitruvius.