The Prize Committee for Architecture has unanimously decided that the 2001 Wolf Prize in Arts will be awarded to
Alvaro Siza
Porto
Portugal
for the critical relevance of his typically responsive architecture to the continual transformation of both landscape and urban fabric.
Starting with extremely modest interventions in the relatively underdeveloped country Portugal was, Architect Alvaro Siza consistently demonstrated the catalytic power of architectonic creation to transform and re-energize the context in which it is situated. He has done this by enriching and revitalizing the syntactical, spatial and programmatic legacy of the Modern Movement without indulging in the formalism to which contemporary architectural practice is so evidently prone, be this of a superficially spectacular or technological nature.
During four decades of prolific practice, Siza has been able to maintain the consistency of his ethical position without inhibiting his prodigious capacity for poetic intervention.