2023 Praemium Imperiale Awards Architecture Laureate, Architect, Japan Art Association Award winners news

2023 Praemium Imperiale Awards News

Tuesday 12 September 2023

Lord Patten Of Barnes Announces

Francis Kéré, Olafur Eliasson, Wynton Marsalis, Robert Wilson, & Vija CelminS

Recipients Of Praemium Imperiale 2023

Francis Kéré, architect, Berlin:

photograph © Urban Zintel

£500,000 award given by the Japan Art Association under the honorary patronage of His Imperial Highness Prince Hitachi, younger brother of the Emperor Emeritus of Japan

Rural Studios, led by British architect Andrew Freear, receives Grant for Young Artists

The Japan Art Association and Lord Patten of Barnes, Praemium Imperiale’s International Advisor in the UK, have today announced the recipients of the 2023 Praemium Imperiale Awards:

Architecture: Francis KÉRÉ (Burkina Faso/Germany)

Sculpture: Olafur ELIASSON (Iceland/Denmark)

Painting: Vija CELMINS (Latvia/USA)

Music: Wynton MARSALIS (USA)

Theatre/Film: Robert WILSON (USA)

Rendering façade of Benin National Assembly building design by Kéré Architecture:

image © Kéré Architecture

Each Laureate receives an honorarium of 15 million Yen (c. £90,000). The awards are given by the Japan Art Association under the honorary patronage of HIH Prince Hitachi, younger brother of the Emperor Emeritus of Japan.

Lord Patten remarked, ‘This year the Japan Art Association have selected 5 outstanding artists with huge global reach for the Praemium Imperiale awards. I’m particularly delighted with the selection of Rural Studio for the Grant for Young artists. Led by British architect, Andrew Freear, it is a powerful demonstration of the transformational power of the arts, especially when integrated into the community.’

Winner of nine Grammy Awards and the Pulitzer Prize for Music, the New Orleans-born Wynton Marsalis is celebrated as a trumpeter, bandleader, composer and advocate of American culture. As the only musician to have won a Grammy in both jazz and classical categories in the same year, Marsalis and his compositions are familiar presence on UK concert platforms. On 9th November at the Royal Festival Hall, Marsalis’ Violin Concerto will be performed by the violinist Nicola Benedetti with the Philharmonia Orchestra and the conductor Santtu-Matias Rouvali.

Marsalis said, ‘This piece was written for Nicola Benedetti. It takes inspiration from her life as a traveling performer and educator who enlightens and delights communities all over the world with the magic of virtuosity. Scored for symphony orchestra, with tremendous respect for the demands of that instrument, it is nonetheless written from the perspective of a jazz musician and New Orleans bluesman. We believe that all human beings are connected in the essential fundamentals of life: birth, death, love, and laughter, that our most profound individual experiences are also universal (especially pain); and acknowledging the depth of that pain in the context of a groove is a powerful first step towards healing.’

Subject of a major Tate Modern retrospective in 2019/20, Olafur Eliasson is in the process of developing his first permanent outdoor artwork in the UK. Provisionally named ‘Your daylight destination,’ the new landmark artwork for the Cumbrian coastline in Northwest England is developed by Studio Olafur Eliasson in close collaboration with British writer Robert Macfarlane after a series of exploratory visits in 2021/2022. The design, proposed for a site near Silecroft, uses the beach as a stage for an expansive artwork utilising the daily tides, sea water and light. The proposal was commissioned by the Copeland Borough Council as part of a new area wide art programme for Copeland entitled ‘Deep Time: Commissions for the Lake District Coast.’

In addition to the Praemium Imperiale Awards, the 5 million Yen (c. £30,000) Grants for Young Artists, selected this year by International Advisor Hillary Rodham Clinton, have been awarded to Harlem School of the Arts in New York and Rural Studios in Newbern, Alabama. Led by the British architect Andrew Freear, Rural Studio was founded 30 years ago and is regarded as one of the oldest, most influential, and well-respected design-build programmes in the world. Rooted in Hale County and part of Auburn University’s School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture, more than 1,200 students have been educated through Rural Studio’s context-based service-learning curriculum, where students live and work alongside neighbours. Freear and his students have together designed and built more than 220 community buildings, homes, and parks in their under-resourced community.

At Kéré Architecture, Berlin, May 2023:

photograph ©️ The Japan Art Association / The Sankei Shimbun

Since 1989, the Praemium Imperiale Awards have been given annually in the categories of Painting, Sculpture, Architecture, Music and Theatre/Film; covering fields of achievement not represented by the Nobel Prizes. The Laureates are selected from a list submitted by six International Advisors to the Japan Art Association. In order to maintain the Awards’ mandate to select candidates who have made a major international impact in their particular field, the International Advisors for the Awards and their committees are committed to looking beyond their own national boundaries for ground-breaking artists to recommend to the Japan Art Association.

Previous British winners include David Hockney, Mona Hatoum, Anish Kapoor, Antony Gormley, Norman Foster, Richard Rogers, David Chipperfield, Judi Dench, Anthony Caro and Tony Cragg.

Francis Kéré architect in Germany:

photograph © Urban Zintel

Architecture Awards

Profile films available to view:

www.jaa-pipress.org/english2023

Architecture – Diébédo Francis Kéré

Diébédo Francis Kéré

Born April 10, 1965 / Gando, Burkina Faso (Nationality: Burkinabe / German)

At Kéré Architecture, Berlin, May 2023:

photo ©️ The Japan Art Association / The Sankei Shimbun

By combining local materials and skills with innovative design and smart engineering solutions, while maintaining a focus on working with local communities, Diébédo Francis Kéré has transformed architecture not only in Burkina Faso, but also across Africa and beyond. Kéré had to leave home when he was only 7 in order to be able to attend school.

Gando Primary School, 2001, Burkina Faso:

photograph : Siméon Duchoud, Courtesy of Kéré Architecture

Lycée Shorge Secondary School, 2016, Burkina Faso:

photo : Andrea Maretto

Studying in dark, hot, unventilated classrooms instilled in him the desire to make better buildings and his career as architect. He studied in Germany and established the Kéré Foundation to raise money for his ambition to design and build a school for his birthplace.

Burkina Institute of Technology (BIT), 2020:

photo : Jaime Herraiz, Courtesy of Kéré Architecture

In all his projects in Africa, Kéré has focused on providing simple, achievable plans for buildings that utilise the skills and energies of the local community – employing traditional building materials and marrying them with modern design. Kéré’s designs weave together elements of traditional African design, with modern architecture, as revealed in the colours of Coachella’s Sarbalé Ke (2019), the wooden patterns of Xylem (2019) at Tippet’s Rise, USA, and his constant referencing of trees – of their central role in providing shade and a social centre (Serpentine Pavilion 2017).

Gando Primary School, 2001, Burkina Faso:

photo : Erik-Jan Ouwerkerk, Courtesy of Kéré Architecture

Francis Kéré at Aedes Architecture Forum

Sculpture – Olafur Eliasson

Olafur Eliasson

Born 1967 / Copenhagen, Denmark (Nationality: Icelandic / Danish)

Color, light, water, ice; these are just some of the natural elements that Olafur Eliasson skilfully employs for his thoughtful, wide-ranging artworks; works designed to alter perception, raise awareness while creating a sense of wonder. The range of his work is extensive and diverse, including sculpture, installations, paintings, photography and video.

Early masterpieces, such as Beauty, have an ephemeral, poetical existence that relies on the viewer for life. Much of his inspiration has come from experiencing nature as a boy in Denmark and more especially, in Iceland, and are at the heart of his motivation for challenging global environmental issues though his art.

The Weather Project (2003) in London’s Tate Modern and Ice Watch (Copenhagen, Paris, London) are just two illustrations of Eliasson’s inventive, considered and beautiful works. In 2019 he was appointed UNDP’s Ambassador for climate action and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Olafur Eliasson

Previous British architectural winners include Norman Foster, Richard Rogers, and David Chipperfield.

Francis Kéré at Aedes Architecture Forum, Berlin

2023 Praemium Imperiale Awards images/information received 120923

Previously on e-architect:

14 Sep 2021

The Japan Art Association and Lord Patten of Barnes, Praemium Imperiale’s International Advisor in the UK, make an announcement – the recipients of the 2021 Praemium Imperiale Awards:

2021 Praemium Imperiale Awards Winners

Painting: Sebastião Salgado (France/Brazil)

photo © The Japan Art Association / Shun Kambe

Sculpture: James Turrell (USA)

photo © The Japan Art Association / Yutaka Sato

Praemium Imperiale 2021

Architecture: Glen Murcutt (Australia)

photo © Anthony Browell

Music: Yo-Yo Ma (USA)

Yo-Yo Ma performing in Mumbai, India, as part of the Bach Project (2019) © Austin Mann

Each Laureate receives an honorarium of 15 million Yen (c. £100,000). The awards are given by the Japan Art Association under the honorary patronage of His Imperial Highness Prince Hitachi, younger brother of the Emperor Emeritus of Japan.

Arthur and Yvonne Boyd Education Centre, 1996 – 99, NSW, Australia © Anthony Browell, Courtesy of TOTO Publishing

Walsh House, 2001 – 05 NSW, Australia © Anthony Browell, Courtesy of TOTO Publishing

Previously on e-architect:

Praemium Imperiale Architecture Laureate Past Winners

Paulo Mendes da Rocha wins Praemium Imperiale 2016 for Architecture

The Japan Art Association has today announced the recipients of the 2016 Praemium Imperiale Awards:

Praemium Imperiale 2016 for Architecture

Architect Dominique Perrault wins Praemium Imperiale 2015 for Architecture

Praemium Imperiale 2015 for Architecture

David Chipperfield wins Praemium Imperiale 2015 for Architecture

Architectural Laureate of the Praemium Imperiale 2013

David Chipperfield is announced as the Architectural Laureate for the 2013 edition of the Japan Art Association’s Praemium Imperiale. The award will be presented by HIH Prince Hitachi, brother of Emperor Akihito, at a ceremony in Tokyo on 16 October 2013.

David Chipperfield Architect