Lacaton & Vassal: Free Space, Transformation, Habiter

The winners of the 2021 Pritzker Prize present their architectural ethos through nine examples

The French firm Lacaton & Vassal, established in Paris in 1987 by Anne Lacaton (born 1955) and Jean-Philippe Vassal (born 1954), has designed private and social housing, cultural and academic institutions and public spaces that reflects its advocacy of social justice and sustainability. Here, the winners of the 2021 Pritzker Prize present their oeuvre of four decades through three guiding concepts. “Free Space” signifies their concern to achieve a generosity of scale; “Transformation” expresses their adage “never demolish, always add, transform, extend”; and “Habiter” describes their insistence on making space one’s own. Accordingly, this volume presents nine built works by the architects, showing the life and inhabitants of each building so as to convey its animation and adaptation as a tenanted structure.