Denys Lasdun

Sir Denys Lasdun

Award citation:

“With architecture as a social art, he enhances the relations between people through primary architectural means that far transcend style”.

Prize share:

Denys Lasdun

Frank O. Gehry 

Jorn Utzon

Although each deserves the prize alone, it was felt that their creative stature would be identified best through comparison; even through the actual contrast of diverse and opposite qualities. Three men, three leaders, three permanent references in the wavering research of modern architecture. Humanly, psychologically and in their forms, they are very different. But they have one thing in common: the consistency of looking for ever extended fields of freedom.

Sir Denys Lasdun has produced an architecture of extraordinary consistency, in which each building is thought of as a piece of a larger urban landscape. This is an oeuvre which demonstrates how it is possible to achieve individuality while also extending lessons from nature and tradition. With works such as the Royal College of Physicians, the University of East Anglia or the project for the Hurva Synagogue, Lasdun has been able to enhance and ennoble the relations between people through primary architectural means that far transcend style.

Three architects, three architectural languages, three different positions in space, time and architectural tradition – but three reminders as well in a period which suffers from the facile reuse of images, that the art of architecture can aspire to qualities existing well beyond the range of passing fashion – qualities that enhance use, transform construction, intensify meaning and liberate the mind.