Profile·Global
$100,000 and a year's mentorship: Junya Ishigami named first laureate of the new Barragan Prize
Japanese architect Junya Ishigami has been named the inaugural winner of the Barragan Prize, a new annual international architecture award launched by La Cuadra San Cristobal with Bottega Veneta, honoring work that rethinks the bond between architecture, nature, and human experience.
Japanese architect Junya Ishigami has been named the first laureate of the Barragan Prize, a new annual international award honoring architects who challenge convention and rethink the relationship between architecture, nature, and human experience. The prize was launched by La Cuadra San Cristobal in collaboration with the fashion house Bottega Veneta, and the inaugural ceremony took place on October 9.
The venue carried its own weight. The ceremony was held at La Cuadra, the house and stables outside Mexico City designed by Luis Barragan in the late 1960s — a work of monumental geometry, intense color, and controlled light that is regarded as one of the defining buildings of twentieth-century Mexican architecture. Architect Fernando Romero bought the estate in 2017 and has since transformed it into a public cultural venue, which now lends the new prize its stage.
Each laureate receives a $100,000 commitment, split between a $50,000 award and a year-long mentorship program, along with a medal and a seat on future prize juries. Bottega Veneta co-hosted a celebratory lunch in Mexico City on October 9 to honor Ishigami, bringing together figures from architecture and art — including Marina Abramovic and Pedro Reyes — under creative director Louise Trotter and Fernando Romero.
Ishigami was recognized for his experimental exploration of structure, scale, and landscape. After studying at the Tokyo University of the Arts and working with Kazuyo Sejima, he founded his own Tokyo practice, junya.ishigami+associates, in 2004. His projects include the Kanagawa Institute of Technology KAIT Workshop, the Park Groot Vijversburg visitor center, MIZUNIWA, the Zaishui Art Museum, and the 2019 Serpentine Pavilion in London.
The award takes its name from Luis Barragan, the influential Mexican architect and his country's only recipient of the Pritzker Architecture Prize. Its organizers describe it as forward-looking rather than nostalgic: a platform for contemporary figures who are expanding what architecture can do and how people inhabit the world.
