[Photo: Cristobal Palma]

Chilean architect Alejandro Aravena has been named the 41st recipient ? and fourth from Latin America ? of the Pritzker Architecture Prize. Here is the announcement video from the Hyatt Foundation:

In addition to the prestigious prize, Aravena is directing this year's Venice Architecture Biennale, which goes under the theme, "Reporting from the Front." Needless to say, he's having a good year.

First things first, though: Aravena was far from the top choice in the poll that was on this blog for the last three weeks. The results of the poll (which, as a test, allowed voters to choose more than one architect) are as follows:
1: Steven Holl, with 819 votes
2: David Chipperfield, with 781 votes
3: Bjarke Ingels, with 744 votes T4: Kengo Kuma, with 736 votes
T4: Tod Williams Billie Tsien, with 736 votes
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T13: "Other," with 718 votes
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T19 (with Bijoy Jain): Alejandro Aravena, with 711 votesWith the ability to choose multiple architects, the difference between places was small, but the top five were pretty much the same as in 2014, the last time I held a poll on this blog (last year, remember, Frei Otto's announcement came early due to his death, so there was no time for a poll). So will Holl, Chipperfield and the rest of these perennial favorites ever receive recognition with a Pritzker" That remains to be seen, of course, but the prestige of the prize will fall a bit in my mind if Tod and Billie do not garner it. N...