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Chile's Smiljan Radić wins the 2026 Pritzker Prize for fragile, experimental buildings

Chilean architect Smiljan Radić Clarke, 60, has won the 2026 Pritzker Architecture Prize, announced on Thursday, March 12, NPR reports. The award, often called the “Nobel of architecture”, was announced by jury chair Alejandro Aravena, who in 2016 became the first Chilean winner; Radić is the second. He grew up in an immigrant family in Santiago and works closely with his wife, the sculptor Marcela Correa.

CNN pointed to two images of his often experimental work: a doughnut-shaped pavilion in London, the 2014 Serpentine Pavilion, and a restaurant held up by boulders in Santiago. NPR listed others, including the House for the Poem of the Right Angle (2013), a concrete retreat in Vilches inspired by a Le Corbusier painting, the NAVE performing arts centre in Santiago and the Teatro Regional del Bío Bío (2018) in Concepción.

His buildings “invite interpretation, rather than consumption.” — the Pritzker jury, via NPR

Radić called the win “a huge honor” and said it came at “a sad moment in history”, with buildings destroyed in conflicts, while arguing that architecture remains “a positive act”. NPR noted that the prize faced scrutiny in February over links between its sponsor and Jeffrey Epstein, and that the Hyatt Foundation said the prize's independence was protected; Catalonia's Ara said the announcement was delayed by a week as a result. Ara quoted the jury's view that Radić “prefers fragility to any unjustified claim to certainty” and gave a local angle: he is working on a multifunctional palace for the Montjuïc fair in Barcelona and a hotel in Matarraña.

How each outlet framed it

• NPR — his life story and his own reaction.
• CNN — two striking buildings for a general audience.
• Ara — the jury's view and his projects in Catalonia and Spain.

Where the numbers differ: NPR gives the prize as $100,000 and a bronze medallion; Ara says 100,000 euros.