Alejandro Gastón Aravena Mori (born 22 June 1967) is a

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in western South America. It is the southernmost country in the world and the closest to Antarctica, stretching along a narrow strip of land between the Andes, Andes Mountains and the Paci ...

an architect and executive director of the firm Elemental S.A. He won the

Pritzker Architecture Prize The Pritzker Architecture Prize is an international award presented annually "to honor a living architect or architects whose built work demonstrates a combination of those qualities of talent, vision and commitment which has produced consisten ...

in 2016, and was the director and curator of the 2016 Venice Biennale of Architecture.

Education and career

Aravena graduated from the

Pontifical Catholic University of Chile The Pontifical Catholic University of Chile (UC Chile; ) is a traditional private university based in Santiago, Chile. It is one of the thirteen Catholic universities existing in Chilean university system and one of the two pontifical univ ...

in 1992, He continued his studies of Theory and Art History in

Università Iuav di Venezia Iuav University of Venice () is a university in Venice, Italy. It was founded in 1926 as the Istituto Universitario di Architettura di Venezia as one of the first architecture schools in Italy. The university offers several undergraduate, graduat ...

in Venice, Italy (1992–1993) and established Alejandro Aravena Architects in 1994.http://www.abitare.it/festarch-2012-en/2012/05/03/alejandro-aravena/ FestArch May 3, 2012 Aravena was a visiting professor at

Harvard Graduate School of Design The Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) is the graduate school of design at Harvard University, a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It offers master's and doctoral programs in architecture, landscape architecture, urba ...

from 2000 to 2005, and is the Elemental-Copec Professor at Universidad Católica de Chile. Aravena co-authored ''Los Hechos de la Arquitectura'' (ARQ, 1999), ''El Lugar de la Arquitectura'' (ARQ, 2002) and the monograph ''Elemental: Incremental Housing and Participatory Design Manual'' (Hatje-Cantz, 2012). He was a member of the Pritzker Prize Jury from 2009 to 2015, and is an International Fellow of the

Royal Institute of British Architects The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) is a professional body for architects primarily in the United Kingdom, but also internationally, founded for the advancement of architecture under its royal charter granted in 1837, three suppl ...

. In 2006, he became the executive director of ELEMENTAL, a for profit company with social interest. In July 2015, Aravena was named Director of the Architecture Section of the

Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale ( ; ) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy. There are two main components of the festival, known as the Art Biennale () and the Venice Biennale of Architecture, Architecture Biennale (), ...

, with the responsibility for curating the 15th International Architecture Exhibition held in Venice in 2016, with the theme "REPORTING FROM THE FRONT." In his curation of the 15th Venice Biennale of Architecture, Aravena foregrounded

social housing Public housing, also known as social housing, refers to Subsidized housing, subsidized or affordable housing provided in buildings that are usually owned and managed by local government, central government, nonprofit organizations or a ...

, incremental housing, rural-urban relationships, the balance between technology and natural materials, and an attentiveness to manual labor and handicraft. Aravena invited Raphael Zuber, Herzog & de Meuron, Tadao Ando,

Peter Zumthor Peter Zumthor (; born 26 April 1943) is a Swiss architect whose work is frequently described as uncompromising and minimalist. Though managing a relatively small firm and not being a prolific architect, he is the winner of the 2009 Pritzker Pri ...

David Chipperfield Sir David Alan Chipperfield, , (born 18 December 1953) is a British architect. He established David Chipperfield Architects in 1985, which grew into a global architectural practice with offices in London, Berlin, Milan, Shanghai, and Santiago d ...

SANAA Sanaa, officially the Sanaa Municipality, is the ''de jure'' capital and largest city of Yemen. The city is the capital of the Sanaa Governorate, but is not part of the governorate, as it forms a separate administrative unit. At an elevation ...

and Francis Kéré, among others. In 2025, Aravena was a member of the advisory panel that chose Lina Ghotmeh as architect of the Qatari Pavilion at the Venice Biennale.

Works

Aravena designed the inclined building "Siamese Towers," a workshop building at the school of architecture and faculty buildings at the

. He designed the ''Colegio Huelquén Montessori''; the ''Casa para una Escultora'' (House for a Sculptor); the ''Casa en el lago Pirehueico'' (House on Pirihueico Lake); Hunt, Le Mans and Johnson residential halls of St. Edward’s University in

Austin, Texas Austin ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of Texas. It is the county seat and most populous city of Travis County, Texas, Travis County, with portions extending into Hays County, Texas, Hays and W ...

; art workshops on the Vitra campus at

Weil am Rhein Weil am Rhein (, ; High Alemannic German, High Alemannic: ''Wiil am Rhii'') is a German town and commune. It is on the east bank of the River Rhine, and extends to the tripoint of Switzerland, France, and Germany. It is the most southwesterly tow ...

; Villa in Ordos (

Inner Mongolia Inner Mongolia, officially the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, is an Autonomous regions of China, autonomous region of China. Its border includes two-thirds of the length of China's China–Mongolia border, border with the country of Mongolia. ...

) and projects for the Elemental initiative. He also designed a children's playground at the Metropolitan Park of Santiago.

Awards

Aravena won the Silver Lion prize at the XI Biennale in Venice, the Erich Schelling Architecture Medal in 2006, and was a finalist for the Mies van der Rohe Award (2000) and the Iakhov Chernikhov Prize (2008). He received a

Global Award for Sustainable Architecture The Global Award for Sustainable Architecture is an international architecture founded in 2006 by architect and scholar Jana Revedin. Description Each year, the award honors five architects who "contribute to a more equitable and sustainable d ...

in 2008. He was a 2011 Index award winner and won a Holcim Awards Silver for Sustainable Construction (region Latin America). Exhibitions of his work have included a showing at Harvard Graduate School of Design in 2004, the São Paulo Biennale in 2007, the

Triennale di Milano The Triennale di Milano is a museum of art and design in the Parco Sempione in Milan, in Lombardy in northern Italy. It is housed in the , built between 1931 and 1933 to designs by Giovanni Muzio and financed by Antonio Bernocchi and his ...

in 2008, and the Venice Biennale of Architecture in 2008 and

MoMA The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...

, New York in 2010. In 2016, he was awarded the

— the most prestigious recognition to architects. From 2009 to 2015, he was a member of the Pritzker Architecture Prize jury.
Jury Members - Pritzker Prize
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References

External links

ELEMENTAL website

Alejandro Aravena website
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Alejandro Aravena - Board member of the LafargeHolcim FoundationAlejandro Aravena - ArchDaily SpotlightSolving the Housing Crisis Half-a-House at a Time: Incremental Housing as a Means to Fulfilling the Human Right to Housing (U. Miami Inter-Am. L. Rev. 2021) - Law Review article reviewing legal implementation of incremental housing in Chile and the United States
{{DEFAULTSORT:Aravena, Alejandro Chilean architects People from Santiago, Chile 1967 births Living people Pontifical Catholic University of Chile alumni Pritzker Architecture Prize winners