Anne Lacaton

Member of the Master Jury 2022


Anne Lacaton founded the office of Lacaton & Vassal in Bordeaux in 1989 with Jean Philippe Vassal. Their work focuses on generosity of space and economy of means and uses carefully the values of the already there to do more with less. Many projects are hybrids between contemporary building concepts and more diverse techniques. The practice is committed to overturning standard building practices.


Amongst their most famous works are the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, the École Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture in Nantes and the

art collection project FRAC Nord-Pas-de-Calais in Dunkerque. They received the 2019 EU Mies Award for the best contemporary architecture in Europe for Grand Parc Bordeaux. They have also undertaken significant housing projects, including “House Latapie”, in Bordeaux, “Cité Manifeste” social housing in Mulhouse and Paris; the transformation of modernist social housing blocks in Paris and Bordeaux; and a housing tower block in Geneva.


Anne Lacaton and Jean Philippe Vassal have received a number of awards, including the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 2021; the BDA Grand Prize 2020 (Bund Deutscher Architekten); the European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture – Mies van der Rohe Award; the Grand Prix National d’Architecture; and the Global Award for Sustainable Architecture.

 

Lacaton has taught at the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) between 2004 and 2018, at the University of Florida, the State University of New York at Buffalo and at Harvard University. Lacaton was appointed as Associate Professor of Architecture & Design at the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule (ETH Zürich) in 2017. Her academic teaching focuses on an ideological and socio-political approach to architecture and her designs and constructions support human use rather than iconic display. Anne Lacaton graduated in architecture from

the École d’architecture in Bordeaux, followed by a degree in town planning at Bordeaux University.

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