Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara receive 2020 Pritzker Prize
by Stu Robarts | 03 Mar 2020
What we try to do in our work is to be aware of the various levels of citizenship and try to find an architecture that deals with overlap, that heightens your relationship to one another.
– Yvonne Farrell
– Yvonne Farrell
Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara have been named the 47th and 48th laureates of the Pritzker Prize – the first female pair to be so and the first two recipients from Ireland.
Farrell and McNamara set up their Dublin-based practice Grafton Architects in 1978 and are described as creating "modern and impactful works that never repeat or imitate, but are decidedly of their own architectural voice."
"What we try to do in our work is to be aware of the various levels of citizenship and try to find an architecture that deals with overlap, that heightens your relationship to one another," said Farrell.
Their work has included worked academic, civic and cultural institutions, as well as housing developments.
They have created spaces for the Venice Biennale, Navan's Solstice Arts Centre, the Parnell Square Cultural Quarter in Dublin and the city's famous Temple Bar Square. Close to forty projects in forty years have also included works in France, Italy and Peru.
Explaining its decision, the jury stated: "For their integrity in their approach to both their buildings, as well as the way they conduct their practice, their belief in collaboration, their generosity towards their colleagues, especially as evidenced in such events as the 2018 Venice Biennale, their unceasing commitment to excellence in architecture, their responsible attitude toward the environment, their ability to be cosmopolitan while embracing the uniqueness of each place in which they work, for all these reasons and more, Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara are awarded the 2020 Pritzker Architecture Prize."
Yvonne Farrell Shelley McNamara Grafton Architects Pritzker Prize
Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara have been named the 47th and 48th laureates of the Pritzker Prize – the first female pair to be so and the first two recipients from Ireland. Farrell and McNamara set up their Dublin-based practice Grafton Architects in 1978 and are described as creating "modern and impactful works that never repeat or imitate, but are decidedly of their own architectural voice." "What we try to
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