Smiljan Radić Clarke wins 2026 Pritzker Architecture Prize

a low, horizontal building designed by Smiljan Radic, lit by orange sunlight sits among mountains, with a long path leading up to it, surrounded by rocks - Radic won the 2026 Pritzker Architecture Prize — Winery designed by Smiljan Radic for VK retreats in Millahue, Chile, image from Wallpaper* July 2014

(Image credit: Cristobal Palma)

Smiljan Radić Clarke has won the 2026 Pritzker Architecture Prize. The prestigious accolade, widely considered one of the highest honours in the global architecture community, marks the celebrated Chilean architect as the 55th Pritzker laureate – following architects such as Liu Jiakun (Pritzker Prize 2025), Riken Yamamoto (2024), and David Chipperfield (2023).

portrait of Smiljan Radic with his head resting on his hand — Smiljan Radic

Smiljan Radić Clarke: 2026 Pritzker Architecture Prize laureate

When we profiled the architect in 2014, on the occasion of his Serpentine Pavilion reveal, he told us he sees his work as fluid and mindful – 'I am not a creator of new shapes,' he said. It is a quality the 2026 Pritzker Prize also highlights, underlining the architect's flair for flexibility and experimentation. Tapping into the power of the human experience and his own ability for empathy and a 'quiet emotional intelligence,' as the Pritzker team aptly puts it, his designs are responsive to site, environment and need.

Smiljan Radic has designed a semi-translucent — Visualisation of Smiljan Radic's semi-translucent pavilion for the Serpentine Gallery 2014

His work is, unsurprisingly, equally varied, spanning the Restaurant Mestizo (Santiago, Chile 2006), Pite House (Papudo, Chile, 2005), and Chile Antes de Chile, the extension of the Chilean Museum of Pre-Columbian Art (Santiago, Chile, 2013). He has also created the winery for VK retreats in Millahue, Chile (2014) and his own home studio, Pequeño Edificio Burgués (Santiago, Chile, 2023).

work by Smiljan Radic — Chile Antes de Chile

'Architecture exists between large, massive, and enduring forms – structures that stand under the sun for centuries, waiting for our visit – and smaller, fragile constructions – fleeting as the life of a fly, often without a clear destiny under conventional light. Within this tension of disparate times, we strive to create experiences that carry emotional presence, encouraging people to pause and reconsider a world that so often passes them by with indifference,' Radić said at the Pritzker news release.

work by Smiljan Radic, House_for_the_Poem_of_the_Right_Angle_1 — House for the Poem of the Right Angle

The 2026 Pritzker Prize jury said in its citation: 'Through a body of work positioned at the crossroads of uncertainty, material experimentation, and cultural memory, Smiljan Radić favours fragility over any unwarranted claim to certainty. His buildings appear temporary, unstable, or deliberately unfinished – almost on the point of disappearance – yet they provide a structured, optimistic and quietly joyful shelter, embracing vulnerability as an intrinsic condition of lived experience.'

pritzkerprize.com

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Ellie Stathaki is the Architecture & Environment Director at Wallpaper*. She trained as an architect at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece and studied architectural history at the Bartlett in London. Now an established journalist, she has been a member of the Wallpaper* team since 2006, visiting buildings across the globe and interviewing leading architects such as Tadao Ando and Rem Koolhaas. Ellie has also taken part in judging panels, moderated events, curated shows and contributed in books, such as The Contemporary House (Thames & Hudson, 2018), Glenn Sestig Architecture Diary (2020) and House London (2022).