"Challenges Ahead for the Built Environment" was the name of a conversation that took place at the United Nations on Tuesday evening, one day after Chilean architect Alejandro Aravena received the 2016 Pritzker Architecture Prize, also at the UN. The superstar panel consisted of Aravena, Christian de Portzamparc (1994 laureate), Renzo Piano (1998), Glenn Murcutt (2002), Richard Rogers (2007), Jean Nouvel (2008), and Wang Shu (2012).

[Montage of photos as each laureate gave their comments | Photos: John Hill]

Zaha Hadid (2004) was slated to attend, but outside of moderator Cathleen McGuigan's brief comment at the outset of the event, nothing was said about the Pritzker Prize winner less than one week after her death. Beforehand I thought her absence would color the proceedings greatly, but in retrospect I'm not surprised it didn't; this was Aravena's event, and his brand of socially conscious architecture is at odds with Hadid's and fellow partner Patrik Schumacher's fluid formalism.
The evening unfolded in a fairly straightforward manner, with each Pritzker laureate given three minutes to respond to the question: What is the main challenge ahead for the built environment. These are their responses in a nutshell, moving from left to right in the above photo montage, the way the evening unfolded:
Richard Rogers called for architects to be seen as more than "decorators selecting the lipstick for the pig," a comment that stuck with the panel through...