Pritzker: the Inside Story

The Pritzker Architecture Prize is often called an analogue of the Nobel Prize in architecture. And it is quite justified, given its importance for the architectural community. This year the Award marks the 40th anniversary of its foundation. Our correspondent managed to meet with the Executive Director of the Award Martha Thorne, who took the time in her busy schedule to talk about the great preliminary work that precedes the Award ceremony.

How did the Pritzker family come to an idea of establishing architecture prize and to honour greatest architects worldwide with it?

The origin of the Prize, it was back I believe in 1979. The Pritzkers were approached by a man Robert Carleton Smith, the director of the National Arts Foundation, and John Carter Brown, the director of the National Gallery in Washington DC. These two are the people who had an idea of international independent award in the field of architecture. And frankly they proposed first to another person with the idea and he didn’t want to do it. 

So, than they thought «well, who might be sensitive with the idea to architecture and a great talent of this»? So they went to Cindy and Jay Pritzker (Jay Pritzker was a very successful businessman in Chicago). They are known mostly for Hyatt hotels but they had many businesses and they thought this was an idea that had a great potential. 

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Interviewed by Elizaveta Klepanova