Rafael Aranda, Carme Pigem, and Ramon Vilalta founded the firm in their native Spain in 1988 Spanish studio RCR Arquitectes was announced today as the winner of this year?s Pritzker Prize, which is considered the profession?s highest honor. This is the first time the award is going to a trio of architects: Rafael Aranda, Carme Pigem, and Ramon Vilalta, who founded the firm in 1988 in their native Olot, a city of 34,000 in Spain?s Catalonian region.
The win was a surprise for many. For one, many of the firm?s major works?such as the Bell?Lloc Winery and El Petit Comte Kindergarten?are found in Spain. But that?s also part of the appeal.
The Pritzker jury writes:
We live in a globalized world where we must rely on international influences, trade, discussion, transactions, etc. But more and more people fear that because of this international influence?we will lose our local values, our local art, and our local customs...Rafael Aranda, Carme Pigem and Ramon Vilalta tell us that it may be possible to have both. They help us to see, in a most beautiful and poetic way, that the answer to the question is not ?either/or? and that we can, at least in architecture, aspire to have both; our roots firmly in place and our arms outstretched to the rest of the world.? Curbed architecture critic, Alexandra Lange, had this to say about the win:

To say I was surprised by the 2017 Pritzker being awarded to RCR Arquitectes wouldn?t be quite right, because I had never heard of them. Th...