Smiljan Radic Clarke: Get to Know the 2026 Pritzker Winner's Work

"His work privileges the intensity of the moment through a fragile architecture. Within it, the building operates as a temporary and tactile refuge that places the spectator in a state of aesthetic uncertainty, oscillating between ancestral ruin and avant-garde artefact."

"This raw material identity is consolidated through his ongoing collaboration with sculptor Marcela Correa, whose craft anchors Smiljan Radić's architecture to a visceral, tactile reality. They transform massive elements—such as multi-ton granite rocks selected from local quarries—into structural pieces that support concrete slabs or define spaces."

"His spaces, often characterized by an introverted and cavernous quality, function as shelters that appeal to a primitive memory through phenomenological scaling, the ability to observe the morphology of an everyday object—such as a deformed plastic container or a papier-mâché model—and project a habitable dimension onto it."

Smiljan Radić Clarke, a Chilean architect of Croatian descent born in 1965, has been awarded the 2026 Pritzker Prize for his singular architectural vision. His practice emerges from Chile's extreme geography, shaped by the Andes' weight and seismic instability. Working from Santiago, Radić develops architecture that privileges aesthetic uncertainty and fragility, creating temporary tactile refuges oscillating between ancestral ruin and avant-garde artifact. Collaborating with sculptor Marcela Correa, he transforms massive geological elements like granite rocks into structural components, revealing a methodology centered on analog thought and material testing. His introverted, cavernous spaces function as primitive shelters, employing phenomenological scaling to transform everyday objects into habitable dimensions. Embracing material imperfection in cedar, copper, and resin, his practice prioritizes questioning over dogma.

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