The 2021 Pritzker Prize Winners Prove That Good Design Is Good for Everyone

Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal—the 49th and 50th Pritzker Prize laureates—have contributed decades of sustainable and inclusive design.

Mar 16, 2021 - 22:51

The 2021 Pritzker Prize Winners Prove That Good Design Is Good for Everyone

Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal—the 49th and 50th Pritzker Prize laureates—have contributed decades of sustainable and inclusive design.

Since establishing their firm, Lacaton & Vassal, in Paris in 1987, Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal have completed more than 30 projects throughout Europe and West Africa. Their body of work includes private and social housing, cultural and academic institutions, public spaces, and urban developments—all of which are designed to benefit individuals and society as a whole.

Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal of France’s Lacaton & Vassal are the 2021 Pritzker Architecture Prize laureates. Their works, which spans more than three decades, focuses on environmentally and socially conscious design. — Anne Lacaton and Jean-Philippe Vassal of France’s Lacaton & Vassal are the 2021 Pritzker Architecture Prize laureates. Their work, which spans more than three decades, focuses on environmentally and socially conscious design.
Photo by Laurent Chalet

"Good architecture is open—open to life, open to enhance the freedom of anyone, where anyone can do what they need to do," says Lacaton. "It should not be demonstrative or imposing, but it must be something familiar, useful, and beautiful, with the ability to quietly support the life that will take place within it."

The duo worked alongside architect Frédéric Druot to sensitively transform an outdated 1960s city housing project in France called La Tour Bois le Prêtre. Instead of razing the structure to begin anew—Lacaton and Vassal have a "never demolish" policy—they stripped the original concrete facade and set about increasing the interior square footage of each unit. Living rooms now extend out to flexible terraces, and large windows provide residents with unrestricted views over the city.