Architect Jean Nouvel Wins Pritzker Prize

Chicago–French architect Jean Nouvel is the 2008 laureate of the Pritzker Architecture Prize, the architectural industry’s highest honor, which is awarded by the Hyatt Foundation in Chicago, according to BusinessWeek. Many of the 62-year-old’s works are in France, but he has also designed buildings in other countries. Novel recently designed a branch of the Louvre Museum at the Saadiyat Cultural District, in Abu Dhabi, slated for a 2012 opening. The building will be topped with a dome-shaped, latticework roof whose pattern incorporates Islamic influences. In the U.S., Nouvel has designed mostly residential projects. He is creating a sustainable Modernist condo tower in Los Angeles that will offer full daylighting in all residences and a 75-story, glass and steel condo tower in midtown Manhattan that, at more than 1,000 feet, could become the tallest residential building in New York. Nouvel also premiered the acclaimed Guthrie Theater–located along the Mississippi riverfront in Minneapolis–in 2006. The theater’s design incorporates geometric forms and striking colors. Nouvel’s first widely acclaimed building was the Institut du Monde Arabe, which debuted in 1987 in Paris. He is the second Frenchman to receive the Pritzker.