Chinese architect Liu Jiakun has been awarded the 2025 Pritzker Prize – considered to be the ‘Nobel of Architecture’. And his work is a far cry from the anonymous skyscrapers and ultra-high-tech gloss that has come to typify many Chinese megacities.
Liu was the first architect to design the inaugural Serpentine Pavilion Beijing in 2018, but he’s not a household name in Europe and North America. The prolific architect has worked chiefly in his native southwest China, where he has spent the last four decades eschewing a distinctive aesthetic style in favour of an ‘architectural strategy’ grounded in context.
Says the Pritzker committee: ‘Through an outstanding body of work of deep coherence and constant quality, Liu Jiakun imagines and constructs new worlds, free from any aesthetic or stylistic constraint. Instead of a style, he has developed a strategy that never relies on a recurring method but rather on evaluating the specific characteristics and requirements of each project differently.’
As such, Liu’s site-specific designs – among them museums, academic buildings, culture centres and public spaces, mostly in his home city of Chengdu – do not have a recognisable aesthetic. Instead, each project incorporates traditional and vernacular elements filtered through purpose and context, with Liu relying on ‘low-tech’ craftsmanship and simplicity to achieve efficiency and elegance. His firm, Jiakun Architects, has completed over 30 projects — all of them in China.
One of his most celebrated initiatives is his sustainable ‘rebirth bricks’ made from debris from the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake. These repurposed materials were used in several of his projects, including the Novartis Building in Shanghai and the Shuijingfang Museum and West Village in Chengdu.
Adds the committee: ‘His honest architecture presents the sincerity of textural materials and processes, displaying imperfections that endure, rather than degrade, through time. He disfavors manufactured product, preferring traditional craft and often using raw local materials that sustain the economy and environment, built for and by the community.’
Reflecting on his win and the transformative power of architecture, Liu says, “Architecture should reveal something—it should abstract, distil and make visible the inherent qualities of local people. It has the power to shape human behaviour and create atmospheres, offering a sense of serenity and poetry, evoking compassion and mercy, and cultivating a sense of shared community.’
Get to know Liu Jiakun’s notable projects.
Novartis Block – C6, Shanghai
The Novartis Shanghai Campus Block C6 was completed in 2014 and features open and flexible office spaces interspersed with private meeting areas. Block C6 was built using Liu’s ‘rebirth bricks’, crafted from the debris of the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake, with elements of laminated bamboo, reflecting Liu’s commitment to sustainability.
Photography: Arch-Exist
The Clock Museum of the Cultural Revolution, Chengdu
Completed in 2008 in Chengdu, China, the Clock Museum of the Cultural Revolution revives an abandoned site within the city’s commercial heart. Liu’s design is inspired by the relationship between economy and culture, such as temples and markets rubbing shoulders in ancient China. This consideration of tradition and modernity is reflected in the building’s materiality, namely its red brick and concrete skin, embodying old and new.
Entering the great building is akin to entering a temple, with the buzz of the street replaced by vast, peaceful exhibition spaces as the visitor is guided through the museum along a central hallway artery.
Photography: Arch-Exist
The Department of Sculpture at the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute, Chongqing
Completed in 2004, the Department of Sculpture at the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute is an example of Liu’s strategic architectural solutions, commissioned to fit an irregular site. The building’s staggered design maximises functional space (namely, the need for large, well-lit studios) by extending beyond its ground-level footprint, creating larger upper floors with carved volumes, and introducing additional light into the interior.
Double-layered perforated walls provide natural ventilation and natural climate control, while the exterior – rust red brick grey cement plaster – beds the building into its urban environment.
Photography: Arch-Exist
The Tianbao Cave District, Erlang Town, Luzhou
The Tianbao Cave District was completed in 2021 and, reflects Liu’s interest in blending architecture and nature. The complex builds apartments into the rugged cavescape of Sichuan, with residences and communal spaces integrated into the cave’s topography.
Liu employed local materials and traditional construction techniques for the project, which riffs on the region’s cultural heritage while promoting sustainable design.
Photography: Arch-Exist
The Suzhou Museum of Imperial Kiln Brick, Suzhou City
Spanning 38,875 sq m, the Suzhou Museum of Imperial Kiln Brick was completed in 2016 and is dedicated to preserving the culture of ‘imperial kiln brick’ making used traditionally in imperial constructions.
Lui’s design takes inspiration from the museum’s namesake material and is made using traditional brick kiln elements and contemporary architecture techniques, blending old and new. In addition to its role as a museum for relics and objects, it also functions as a cultural hub and gallery.
Photography: Arch-Exist
West Village in Chengdu
Like Liu’s earlier Clock Museum of the Cultural Revolution, this five-story urban hub draws inspiration from the interchange of culture and commerce. Completed in 2015, the mixed-use development features a centrifugal layout with sports facilities and public green spaces at the centre. Bamboo courtyards and elevated runways offer vantage points and connection points.
Photography: Arch-Exist
Shuijingfang Museum, Chengdu
Opened to the public in 2017, Chengdu’s Shuijingfang Museum celebrates the history and culture of the traditional Chinese liquors shuijingfang and baijiu.
Liu’s design for the museum layers modern and traditional Chinese elements and makes heavy use of natural materials. Exhibition halls showcase the brewing process as well as artifacts and objects from the history of distilling and interactive exhibits. As with Liu’s other projects, there’s a strong synergy between the building and its natural setting.
Photography: Jiakun Architects
Luyeyuan Stone Sculpture Art Museum, Chengdu
With its layout resembling a traditional Chinese garden and its design embracing Buddhist principles, the Luyeyuan Museum houses a private collection of Buddhist stone sculptures close to the Fu River in Chengdu.
Liu designed the complex in concrete, with the main volume occupying a clearing in the woods (a ‘luye’) and bamboo trees and vegetation cocooning each of the museum’s three halls, which are varying shapes and sizes. Deep vertical cracks allow light to flow into the interior spaces while framing views of the river and woodlands beyond.
Photography: Bi Kejian
Novartis Block – C6, Shanghai
The Novartis Shanghai Campus Block C6 was completed in 2014 and features open and flexible office spaces interspersed with private meeting areas. Block C6 was built using Liu’s ‘rebirth bricks’, crafted from the debris of the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake, with elements of laminated bamboo, reflecting Liu’s commitment to sustainability.
Photography: Arch-Exist
