Sawt Falasteen - Chile's Smiljan Radic Clarke wins Pritzker architecture prize

The 60-year-old Radic, a native of Santiago, creates "optimistic and quietly joyful" structures, the jury said in its citation.

Radic is best known for his Serpentine Gallery Pavilion in London -- a translucent donut-shaped fiberglass shell resting on locally sourced rocks -- and the Vik Millahue Winery in his home country, set among the Andes mountains and the vineyards.

The Teatro Regional del Biobio in Concepcion, Chile resembles a paper lantern.

"If architecture gives shape to the ways in which people live, Radic's work produces spatial experiences that feel at once surprising and entirely natural," the Pritzker jury said.

"His buildings may 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."

The panel hailed Radic -- who has created buildings and installations across Europe and at home in Chile -- for "reminding us that architecture is an art."

First awarded in 1979 to modernist Philip Johnson, the Pritzker Prize has honored many of the profession's most influential figures including IM Pei, Oscar Niemeyer, Frank Gehry, Rem Koolhaas and Zaha Hadid.

It honors a living architect for "significant achievement" in the field.

Last year's award went to China's Liu Jiakun, who lives and works in his birth city of Chengdu. His projects -- known for their minimalism and use of designs that fit local context -- include the Museum of Clocks in that city.

J.AbuHassan--SF-PST