<p>Praemium Imperiale 2014 was awarded to Steven Holl</p>

On Wednesday, July 16, 2014, the chairman of the Japan Art Association, Hisashi Hieda, announced at a press conference in Paris the five laureates of the 26th edition of the highest Japanese art award Praemium Imperiale. In the field of architecture, the honor was awarded to Steven Holl, who established his studio in New York nearly forty years ago with a distinctive style complemented by watercolor sketches and intellectual explorations beyond architecture, ranging from music to mathematics, physics, and astronomy. His projects, however, are always deeply rooted in the cultural environment. For Steven Holl, Japan holds additional significance as it was here that he successfully published a book from abroad for the first time and, at the invitation of Arata Isozaki, realized his first building outside the American continent. The Japan Art Association classifies Holl's style as “postmodernism and deconstructivism, whose projects and designs are a combination of light, color, and space as well as a central artistic motif.” In addition to Holl, this year’s awards were also received by Italian sculptor Giuseppe Penone, French painter Martial Raysse, Estonian composer Arvo Pärt, and South African playwright Athol Fugard. The award, subsidized by a prize of 15 million yen (3 million crowns), will be presented to the individual artists in Tokyo on October 15, 2014.

More information >