The Nobel in Architecture Goes to the Designers of the Bocconi Building at Via Roentgen
THE 2020 PRITZKER PRIZE WAS AWARDED TO YVONNE FARRELL AND SHELLEY MCNAMARA FROM GRAFTON ARCHITECTS, WHO DESIGNED THE CAMPUS BUILDING INAUGURATED IN 2008Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara, the architects behind the Bocconi Via Roentgen building, are the 2020 Pritzker Architecture Prize Laureates. The award, considered the Nobel Prize for architecture, went to the two co-founders of the Grafton Architects firm in Dublin for their "substantial contribution of quality architecture that equally takes into account the needs of people and places."
The design for the Bocconi building, inaugurated in October 2008, was created with this mindset: "We wanted to mark a continuity between the city landscape and that of the University," say Farrell and McNamara. "We created the exterior in Gré ceppo, a typical local stone found in many buildings in Milan," while the 90-meter sidewalk that runs alongside the complex recreates "a public space that continues into the building, bringing the city paving with it."
The Pritzker Prize has been awarded by the Chicago Pritzker Foundation since 1979. Before Farrell and McNamara, only three other women had received recognition: they included Kazuyo Sejima, 2010 Pritzker Laureate, along with her colleague Ryue Nishizawa. The two Japanese archistars from the SANAA firm are also linked to Bocconi: in fact, they are the designers behind the new urban campus development at Via Bocconi 10, which was inaugurated last 25 November in the presence of the President of the Italian Republic, Sergio Mattarella.
by Andrea Celauro
Translated by Jenna Walker
